Questions on MEXT Scholarship Application

[youkatei]

Hi, since I am planning to apply for 2016 round(Graduated School one), I have been digging tho internet and doing researches on the application of MEXT Scholarship. However I ran into some problems, mainly on recommendation letter

1. Which things should appear on a recommendation letter for MEXT Scholarship? Or a normal academic recommendation letter would be just fine?

I have a professor whom is happy to help me with the recommendation letter, however she asked me "what kind of things do you recommend that screening staff would like to see on the letter?". It made me wondering about it, but I came to no conclusion. Any ideas or suggestions from experience would be greatly appreciated.

2. Does the letter have to be come from a higher rank school staff like adviser of the course and Dean, or normal full time professor would fulfilled the requirement?

On Australia version of the application guideline ,it stated that
"Recommendation from the president/dean or the adviser of the last university attended"
However I read many posts and article on application process, but no one seems to mention this. Help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[madphysicist]

I assume you are talking about embassy recommendation?

1. There is sometimes a recommendation letter template provided, but your referee doesn't have to use it if they don't want to (check this with your embassy if unsure)
Example from US embassy page:
http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/mext/2016-mext-recommendation.pdf

This may give you an idea of the things they are looking for. To be honest I was a bit surprised by the kind of questions on there - is leadership really that important? Anyway, I would say the most important things are they want to make sure that you will not drop out of the scholarship (turn up in Japan and decide you hate it), that you will use your time usefully once you are there, and that you will somehow improve relations between your country and Japan.

But I have not found any "official" selection criteria that would help you through trawling the internet.

2. For embassy recommendation, guidelines say "最終出身大学の長又は担任教員の推薦状" which implies you can ask any professor who has supervised you.

But the best thing to do if you are unsure is normally to ask your embassy directly. When I asked my embassy some questions they responded very quickly.

 

[madphysicist]

Sorry for the double post. I have recently been collating all the information I've found about the research scholarship on my new blog. I haven't finished it yet, but I hope some people will find the information helpful:

ジョジーナ: MEXT research scholarship information and advice

It might also help to answer your "what are they looking for?" question.

 

[youkatei]

I assume you.......

Woah, Thanks mate!

I never knew there is a template, might be Australia embassy is not providing it. I will check with them on "can I use this template" and second question. Never thought about contact them directly until you mentioned it. I will check your blog too, any information is important for me right now.

Thank you very much!

 

[madphysicist]

@youkatei
You're welcome. The template might just be designed by the US embassy for their use (I'm guessing, since it's only in English not Japanese) and not an official MEXT document, I'm not 100% sure.

 

[TranSenz]

@youkatei - @madphysicist has nailed it for the Embassy-recommended scholarship (that letter format comes from MEXT and should be valid for embassies in all countries), but if you're applying for the University-recommended MEXT scholarship, then there is no template and the Letter has to be from a Dean or higher (using the Embassy template probably won't be accepted either).
I've written an article about the requirements for that letter and the other application documents at:
MEXT Scholarship Documents | TranSenz: Expat Living in Japan

 

[youkatei]

@TranSenz Although I am applying for the Embassy recommendation, Thanks for the reply. I figured out that the template should be valid for all embassies so I already sent it to my Prof. However I still sent a email to my embassy on Friday just to be safe. Unfortunately the person in charged for MEXT is out of office right now, so no reply yet. I kept you guys updated(@madphysicist )