How to maintain your international scholarship in college

The joy that the email scholarship confirmation brings cannot be fully explained, because I am still unable to explain exactly how I felt when I got a mail that I have been awarded a full scholarship to study at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Many international students on scholarship have had to drop out of school midway through their course because of lack of funding, while others have being in situations where their living costs were slashed by scholarship provider for being unable to meet up with terms of the scholarship, I saw many many international students fall into this category when I was in college. No doubt, there are many challenges facing international students studying abroad already and having to loose your scholarship is even worse, that is why I made this post to show you how to keep your scholarship.

Studying in a foreign university on scholarship or grant is a rare privilege that come to only a handful of people including myself, and if you are one of such fortunate individuals, wouldn’t it be great to guard that privilege for its entire duration? It would!

Having to loose your scholarship for any reason is an unfortunate experience, you don’t want to be there. If you have secured a scholarship already or looking to get one, let me show you how to maintain your scholarship.

How to keep your international scholarship

Here are things you should never do as a scholarship holder or beneficiary.

1. Take your studies very seriously

As an international student studying on scholarship, I don’t think there should be anything like taking your studies too seriously, not after you have traveled many miles to be there. Let me tell you, going about your studies lackadaisically is one of the most detrimental things you can do as a sponsored student. Being average in your studies is not welcomed, it may not drop out from school, it will certainly reduce your chances finishing you with honors and stripping you off a hard-fought scholarship.

maintain your scholarship
Photo by Jorick Jing on Unsplash

Being serious with your studies will help you preserve your scholarship, even if you have no aspiration of finishing as one of the very best in your course, for the sake of maintaining your scholarship put in the hours maximally. There is no excuse for not doing that. It may interest you to know that some scholarships have specific GPA requirement a recipient must have at the end of each semester to continue receiving funding, others don’t specify but all scholarships require you to do acceptably well to maintain scholarship.

Time and again have seen international students being cut off from funding midway through their course for failing to maintain a required GPA as a condition for maintaining the grant. Others have been reminded through mails of the need to up their grades to continue receiving funding, some of whom have contacted me for advice. My advice had been simple; give some good time to your books or risk being abandoned by sponsors. There is no other way because nobody, no organization, company, agency, or government want to sponsor and continue sponsoring a low academic achiever on a course abroad with their resources.

Scholarships are meant for high achievers which is why all merit scholarship announcement come with the specification that applicants must have distinguished themselves academically to be considered eligible and must continue to distinguish themselves to retain funding.

Scholarships are for high-flying international students who have strong financial need and as a result are unable to finance higher education, and being a beneficiary of one is enough reason to keep the good grades, if not the best grades coming. This way you put a smile on the face of your sponsors, whether the government, company or other organization and you get to retain your scholarship.

Getting a chance to study on scholarship abroad is a revered opportunity and a bit hard to come by, maintain it by letting nothing deter from your studies. If you need funding to study abroad, I highly advise you check out how to get a full scholarship to study abroad.

2. Don’t allow your visa to expire

One major thing that can cause you devastating consequence as an international student is to allow your visa expire. The visas of most international students expire due to their inability to complete their course within stipulated time. Many students in this situation go on without renewing their visas hoping to evade authorities, this could prove a major problem if not handled appropriately and can make you loose your scholarship.

Am sure you know you can’t continue to enjoy scholarship if you don’t have an official permit to keep studying in a foreign country. The most common reason why many international students don’t renew their visas is not finance, it is negative peer influence, having friends who tell you that you don’t need to and that there is another way around it. As an international student, taking this path will ultimately make you loose funding from your sponsors since your scholarship providers take care to follow your visa status. Bear in mind that failure to renew or extend your visa, when it becomes necessary, may result in you having trouble with the authorities which could lead to your eviction from that country, and at the worse, it could lead to being denied entry into that country, say Australia, at anytime in future.

Finish your course within stipulated period of time, abide by the terms of maintaining your visa status by renewing or extending your visa when necessary to avoid loosing your scholarship.

These two factors, if checked, will help you maintain your scholarship as an international student and keep funding coming. Neglect them and you may have to seek alternative source of funding your studies abroad.

I hope you like this post, you can leave a comment below this post to enable me have your queries and thoughts.

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