FAQ#3: "How did you get the scholarship?"

I promised that I would share in a later post what I had to do in order to get the Monbukagakusho scholarship (文部科学省奨学金). A lot of people have already expressed interest in learning more about what's involved, so I decided to lay out the application process for anyone who might be applying for it in future.

Disclaimer: I have merely documented my procedure of acceptance, along with helpful advice to the best of my knowledge. I don't guarantee that following this procedure will ensure your acceptance into the scholarship. That will come down to whether what you're offering the Japanese government is what they are looking for. The category I chose was undergraduate entry, so this process may not necessarily reflect graduate entry, or the research category.

Base camp: Do your homework. Find out not only what this scholarship is about, but also what other scholarships are available. Maybe there's a better option for you. For someone looking for scholarship entry into Japan, the Japaneseembassy and the JASSO(Japan Student Services Organisation) are two must-go websites. What I like to do is to read through all the information available to me concerning the scholarship, even if it might not be relevant to me until a later stage, so that I have a general idea of the bigger picture. One of the most important things to check, is to make sure you qualify. It would suck if you completed the entire application form only to find out you don't fulfil the age criteria, for example. Also note that the Monbukagakusho undergraduate scholarship is offered for a minimum five year period. Be sure you've thought through whether you're willing to commit to five years of study in Japan.

Something else that might be good to do if you're looking to go to a coutnry you have little personal experience with, is to look into what living there will be like. JASSO has set up a nice little information website for you to see what student life inJapan will be like.

Checkpoint 1: Show them that you know what you're signing up for. The Japanese government is spending a considerable sum of money on every student they accept, and they want to make sure you have direction in life, and a purpose in studying your chosen subjects. The documentation found on the Japan embassy website has detailed instructions, so I won't repeat it. I will highlight, however, that you are required to state whether you wish to undertake studies in the natural sciences or social sciences, not both. Within it, you're allowed to propose virtually any degree you'd like to study in Japan. That means you could potentially request to study anything from botany to economics to medicine to law (to Japanese). You get to propose three preferences as to the degree you'd like to study in Japan, and you are required to give brief reasons as to what motivates you to study it. Note that you are not required to, nor do you have a say in, which university you will ultimately be doing your degree at. This could be viewed as good or bad news

- the good news is that it saves you a whole lot of effort and stress figuring out university application procedures; the bad news is that you might get posted to a place you might not like. Having said that, the Japanese government is paying top dollar to keep you in Japan, so it's in their best interest to offer you the chance to study in the best tertiary institution that offers your chosen degree. That all depends upon whether you do well enough academically while you're there, of course.

My top three preferences were education (教育学), sociology (社会学), and Japanese language studies (日本語学). Education was a clear first for me, because I want to learn skills to improve the way I teach and interact with people. I've been tutoring both privately and classes in tutoring colleges for the past 8 years, and over that time I've gained not just insight and interest in teaching, but a desire to to instil in the next generation a passion for learning as a means to personal development. Sociology has become my second preference after completing an arts subject in univeristy looking at the concept of "Asia". The prospect of studying sociology in a Japanese institution as a foreigner to Japan's culture and traditions fascinates me. And if that didn't work out, I'd be open to settle for studying the Japanese language. How many written languages do you know that can be interchangeably expressed in four different character scripts like Japanese does? (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, and finally the character set used by me here to name the four sets, Romaji.) Not only that, but the Japanese spoken language has more politeness levels than an onion has layers. Speak too casually to a given audience, and you run the risk of sounding rude. Speak too politely to a given audience, and you come off as patronising. There is a wealth of information to be uncovered in the rich history of the development of the Japanese language as we know it today.

Checkpoint 2: Collect 'em all. That is, all the necessary paperwork. Here's a checklist of all the documents I had to bring together for my application process. Make sure you arrange it quickly, because the window of opportunity between application open and close is around four weeks. Japanese people do things very efficiently, which is something I've always admired.

1. Completed application form.
2. Two recent passport-sized photos.
3. Academic transcript for the past three years.
4. Reference. They say "recommendation from the principal or the adviser of last school attended" so you have the choice of any teacher from high school or your Japanese lecturer in university (if applicable). I also don't know if they were looking for a character reference or an academic reference, so common sense told me to submit both.
5. Graduation certificate, or certificate of expected graduation if not yet graduated.
6. Certificate of enrolment into university (since I was already in uni - this may not apply to you).
7. Medical certificate (print off the website and ask the doctor to complete).

Just a note that if you make any photocopies of the original documents, you must either send the original copy with the photocopies, or get a JP (Justice of the Peace) to certify each photocopy as being authentic, or do both.

Checkpoint 3: Tell us in one page or less why you want to study what you want to study. This was something we were asked to do approximately one week before the date of the barrier exam, when we were required to submit it. It was a challenging task to write such a concise, compelling piece, but on hindsight it was a worthwhile task that helped me colect my abstract motivations floating around my head, and present it as a coherent concrete reason. After all, if you can't give a clear motivation, how can they be sure whether you can commit to your chosen degree?

Checkpoint 4: Ace the barrier examination. For those applying for a degree in the social sciences, you will need to take an English, a (relatively easier compared to the Natural Sciences people) Maths, and a Japanese test. If you wish to do a degree in the natural sciences, you will be required to take the same English and Japanese tests, but a slightly harder Maths test and an additional two tests out of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. They have never revealed, nor impy there even is, a cutoff mark in each section. So a good rule of thumb is to get as close to 100% as possible. The website provides past exam papers for practice, but you have to individually click on each paper to download them all.
Alternatively, click here to download the complete set of undergraduate past papers for 2007-2010 together.

Here, I'll outline the level of knowledge required to be able to answer all questions in each respective test.

Firstly, English. If you can read this blog post without any problems, you can complete the English test with no problems. For a native speaker, it is VERY easy as it is designed to merely ensure all applicants have a basic proficiency of grammar and vocabulary. The test structure is based on content required for the IELTS and TOEFL language tests, if you know what they are (if you're not an international student, don't worry).

The maths test assumes knowledge of roughly the complete two unit mathematics course. Theoretically, you are able to complete the entire paper without needing to know any formulae. But really, formulae are there to make your life easier - for example, would you rather work out how to measure the distance of a line on a number plane manually, or apply the distance formula? What I recommend is three things you can do to prepare. Firstly, make a list of all topics and formulae covered in the two unit HSC mathematics course and learn them. Secondly, download and complete as many two uni HSC mathematics past papers as you can to get better at thinking mathematically. Thirdly, complete the Monbukagakusho mathematics past papers to get a feel of the difficulty of the actual test you'll be taking. My experience was that knowledge of the two unit course was more than sufficient to do every question, but the questions were of a higher order of thinking, often requiring unconventional ways of applying the formulae which required high flexibility and familiarity with basic mathematical concepts. Realistically, that depends on a mix of time invested and natural talent.

The Japanese test is divided into three sections, roughly corresponding to the different JLPT levels. Based on the current five-tier JLPT grading system, I would place my Japanese level at the time of taking the test to be just below the standard required to pass level 2 of JLPT (i.e. I wouldn't have got 60% at level 2). For me, section A of the Japanese barrier test was really easy, and I think I got close to 100%, while I got about half of section B correct, and I could barely understand a single question in section C. If you want to improve in your Japanese proficiency, there are numerous ways you can go about it. I have some resources that have personally helped me revise JLPT related content. Anki is a freeware software compatible with most computer and smartphone platforms, with a sync functionality that means you can revise your list on any device and after syncing over the net, your progress is updated on all your other devices with Anki installed. It can be used to revise almost any subject. Just locate the JLPT vocab decks you want (they're all free) via the in-built search engine. For Windows Phone users, I can recommend the Tango Master app which does a lot of things, amongst which is enabling you to revise the pre-loaded JLPT vocab lists for all levels and tracks your progress. Best of all, it's free!

At the Sydney consulate where the exam that I sat was held, I counted about fifteen applicants in total for the undergraduate entry program. That would mean there would have been not more than 100 applicants Australiawide. I was slightly surprised; for a scholarship offering five years all expenses paid tertiary tuition in the degree of your choice, I expected a lot more competition! A possible explanation could be that this was only the social sciences cohort; since we don't have to sit the science barrier tests, the natural sciences applicants may have sat the test at a different time.

Checkpoint 5: Be interviewed. If there was ever a more sought after topic to learn about, it would be interview secrets. Everyone knows that if you make it to the interview stage, the selectors are serious about considering you. With the Monbukagakusho scholarship, you have greater affirmation than that - if you make it on their interview shortlist, it means they are prepared to fully fund you for five years of tuition. I know people say it all the time, but I mean it when I say it. They already know what they are paying for from your school marks, external references, barrier exam mark, and your one page submission. The interview is an opportunity for them to get to know you as a person, so show them the real you, just in a professional way.

I was interviewed by a Caucasian lady and a Japanese man, who seemed to have commuted from the Japanese Embassy in Canberra. The interview was conducted mostly in English, and I was asked some questions which I hadn't written about in my application paperwork, and some which I had. One particular question that stood out to me, was why I think I should be awarded this scholarship when there are others who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who need the scholarship more than I do. It is a good question, something to think about.

I would like to point out that the Japanese embassy is under no compulsion to fill a quota of students each year; they're not even required to send any students at all, if they don't think any of the applicants are worth funding for a five year scholarship. In the test facility where I sat the barrier exam (the Sydney cohort), I think I was the only one who was asked back for an interview. As for who was actually awarded the scholarship, they awarded only one scholarship this year, only one scholarship last year, and no scholarships were awarded to Australian applicants the previous year. They are serious about making sure that the students they take in are capable and willing to complete an entire degree overseas before paying for them. The declining state of the Japanese economy as a whole would no doubt play a contributing factor to the benchmark set in more recent years in the calibre of students.

And that's it! All the best for those trying out in future years.