Hi guys, so, in principle, I got (maybe) a master's scholarship by JICA for the fall semester. The thing is, this selection process has been going on since August 2024 and I'm worried about the lack of definition. For this scholarship, there are basically 4 stages: 1. passing the JICA selection in your country, 2. passing JICA HQ selection in Japan, 3. passing pre-approval by the universities and 4. finally being approved by the universities through general application. I'm at the last stage but I'm very worried that I might still be rejected.
In this selection, you can apply to more than one university, but I really only wanted to go to one, my first choice, which I put a lot of effort into. I ended up neglecting my second choice of university, which I think it was a pretty bad idea, and focusing only on my first choice, and consequently ended up failing the selection of my 2nd choice due to research incompatibility. Now I'm afraid that this failure will affect Jica's final decision.
Also I'm applying directly as a regular student rather than a researcher, so I think it's more complicated. Has anyone experienced a similar situation?
JICA scholarships are less popular here, but have you heard of people being rejected at the last stage of the process? I'm also interested to hear about your application process. I think the lack of information about the application is making me anxious…
by SuperAkemi