MEXT Scholarship 2012

[Joujou85]

@kouun9, BAHOT SHUKRIYA DOST!!!
Really u r so hopeful. THANK U.
The woman of the Embassy told me that I can contact other universities. But, i am shy. I thought it is rude to send them my application when I have already chosen 3 universities. I will do my best BUT i am still shameful.
I hope we all get the LOA as soooooooooooon as possible. Hope we meet in japan.
Thank U once again.
Take care. Bye.

 

[mitch2526]

Hello Guys,

How are you all doing?

My approach to the professors is, I email them very briefly, telling them that I am a MEXT applicant and the proof is in the attachment. I tell them that I wish to be part of their lab and write WHY.

Prior to this I spent weeks looking up professor profiles the moment I took the exam at the embassy.

The average response time for those lovely people who responded was 3 days, ranging from a professor who replied within hours (shocking) to another who replied after 7-8 days.

Has anyone already MAILED their application? It's August already. I plan to mail it the moment a professor says yes. The thing is, the unis I am applying to have forms wherein I write a name of a desired supervisor. Just one name!!! So I won't waste my chance. Another one has space for 3 so I am waiting for at least 2 to reply before I email it.

Good luck to everyone!!!

 

[Joujou85]

Hi again guys,
Keio University is one of my universities choices. I have recently read that applicants to this university should only mention Keio University on the application form so it must be number one choice. WHAT SHOULD I DO? thanks in advance.

 

[shenoo]

Hi again guys,
Keio University is one of my universities choices. I have recently read that applicants to this university should only mention Keio University on the application form so it must be number one choice. WHAT SHOULD I DO? thanks in advance.

Hello Joijou,
I did it already last year and they informed me they must be number one of your selection without that they will never give you the acceptance.. I really do not know but please try to discuss that with the embassy.. but i need to clarify something after getting the required number of acceptance the MEXT begin to negotiate with the universities and they put your choice in order and they may probably choose the university number one in your choice list and that what keio try to do that.. I need to clarify another point Keio is high rank university and it is private one in the same time so the admission fees is higher that any governmental one.. may be the MEXT try to choose another one if you put in number one.. I do not But in any case I met such problem in the last year.. I wish could add more that I did.. with my best wishes

 

[sam1983]

hi everyone,
i agreed with what mitch2526 said. Some professors will reply your email within hours! in my case, everytime i emailed this one professor he WILL reply within hours. and he is the only one who is willing to accept me.

he works so fast that i already received the LoA yesterday. (this is making me nervous a bit. what if i work with him and he expects me to be as fast as him? hihihi.. )
so i guess now i can do the medical checkup, submit these documents to the embassy and just wait for the result!

but i am a bit worried, will one LoA be enough? i just don't have the courage to contact any more professors. i keep getting rejected and to receive those rejection email just brings you down..
i pray to god that everything will go smoothly.
hope you guys get your LoAs soon!

 

[kouun9]

hi everyone,
i agreed with what mitch2526 said. Some professors will reply your email within hours! in my case, everytime i emailed this one professor he WILL reply within hours. and he is the only one who is willing to accept me.

he works so fast that i already received the LoA yesterday. (this is making me nervous a bit. what if i work with him and he expects me to be as fast as him? hihihi.. )
so i guess now i can do the medical checkup, submit these documents to the embassy and just wait for the result!

but i am a bit worried, will one LoA be enough? i just don't have the courage to contact any more professors. i keep getting rejected and to receive those rejection email just brings you down..
i pray to god that everything will go smoothly.
hope you guys get your LoAs soon!

Yes the working style of Professors is sooo different. As you have mentioned some will reply within few hours and some take days. And getting LOA's is giving me the worst of headaches and sleepless nights. its so difficult. they should not carry out this process during summer vacation (in Japan). half of the staff is on leave, Professors not checking their mails or going on vacation, how can we stop them to not enjoy their vacations. and yes getting rejection mails brings the whole mood down, I have got almost 12 by now. Please wish me luck that I get LOA's by the deadline set by embassy.

 

[kouun9]

hi everyone,
he works so fast that i already received the LoA yesterday. (this is making me nervous a bit. what if i work with him and he expects me to be as fast as him? hihihi.. )

@sam1983, do we have to get the LOA thorough post/airmail or through email. your reply will be appreciated. How did the Professor send the LOA to you?

 

[mitch2526]

wow sam congratulations on your LOA! hope everyone of us will be as lucky as you. which university gave u? 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice?

 

[sam1983]

hi mitch2526,
it is my first choice. he is the only professor that i contacted before the interview.
somehow all the universities that i contacted after the primary screening do not want to accept me. maybe they are sensing that they are not my first choice. what to do.. these universities stated in their website that i should only contact them after i have passed the primary screening. i dont want to go to the interview without anything concrete. thats y i contacted this professor (he is from tokyo institute of technology btw.) luckily he sounds eager to accept foreign students. up to date he already had 30 foreign students from 20 countries. so he is used to working with different nationalities. this is an important factor too.
as a rule of thumb, when you want to choose a professor, maybe you guys should look at their lab members list. if there are no foreigners in the lab, fat chance they are going to accept u. like one of you mentioned here, some of the professors do not accept foreign students due to private reasons. theres nothing we can do about it, even if the lab is the most relevant to our research topic. <-- this is what i experienced too. i put the most relevant lab/professor to my research as my second choice because the university will only accept my enquiry after i passed the first screening. now that i passed the screening, i sent an email to the professor, he replied with a lot of questions. (some of them quite erm... condescending to be honest.. he even stated that he does not promise any financial support for me. i was like, huh? i already have the scholarship. why the need to even say that?) i was speechless.. yet i still replied his email, with some concrete answers (imho), then he never replied until today. i guess thats it then. i looked at his lab members. all nihonjin. maybe he does not want to say it out loud that he does not want foreigners in his lab. so that's that.

this is quite long.
hope it helps, anyway it can..

 

[ffxyunajo]

congrats sam1983! at least you got your LOA, u can rest your mind somehow. i'm still fretting over getting at least one LOA. sent all my documents over to Japan and have yet to receive even one this is sooo frustrating

 

[sam1983]

@sam1983, do we have to get the LOA thorough post/airmail or through email. your reply will be appreciated. How did the Professor send the LOA to you?

@kouun9, in our country the embassy stated that the original must be mailed back to us, with the university official seal and the professor's signature/seal.
but since my professor does not require anything to be sent to him by mail, i just sent everything through email. he viewed the passing certificate of the first screening(i scanned it), typed on the LoA (the loa is in Word format), printed it out, get the university seal and sent it to me by airmail.
it took almost 10 days to arrive from japan to malaysia. if im not mistaken it was sent on the 21/07/2011. i received it yesterday (01/08/2011). 8 working days + 2 weekends.
first i tried asking him to send it through dhl etc bcoz im afraid the loa will be lost along the way (this sometimes happens through airmail/ems), but i didnt have a dhl account. and i need to pay for it myself. so after some consideration, the most convenient way for him to send it to me is through airmail. he already typed the loa, get the university seal (ok we all know this requires a lot of effort) so i dont want to burden him to specifically request for DHL etc. Tokyo Tech only provide ems/airmail.
so it was quite unnerving waiting for the Loa to arrive. but it did. all praises to god.
i believe that despite all the trouble i went through to get it scholarship, it has been quite easy for me.
Don't stop trying guys. still have 24 days to go before the deadline.
i wish you all the best.

 

[sam1983]

congrats sam1983! at least you got your LOA, u can rest your mind somehow. i'm still fretting over getting at least one LOA. sent all my documents over to Japan and have yet to receive even one this is sooo frustrating

@ffxyunajo, if the professor has confirmed that he/she is willing to accept you, i believe that you are already one step closer. keep communicating with your professor until he/she has sent out the LoA. thats all we can do from here.

 

[mitch2526]

@ffxyunajo, if the professor has confirmed that he/she is willing to accept you, i believe that you are already one step closer. keep communicating with your professor until he/she has sent out the LoA. thats all we can do from here.

I was planning that if a professor said yes, I would not bother the professor much anymore and just patiently wait for the LoA. LOL would I be naive and stupid if I did that?

 

[sam1983]

we have to be very clear about the procedures, as not all professors are familiar with MEXT scholarship application procedures.
in my email to the professor after i have passed the first screening, first i informed him that i have passed, followed by the list of documents attached for his perusal, and if he is still interested in having me as his student, the next steps to be done (filling out the loa, getting the seals, postage method, due date etc.).

this is how the japanese work. we can see from their instructions on the scholarship forms. everything is listed out to be as clear as possible. so we have to behave that way too with them.

just my two cents. hehe.

 

[kouun9]

congrats sam1983! at least you got your LOA, u can rest your mind somehow. i'm still fretting over getting at least one LOA. sent all my documents over to Japan and have yet to receive even one this is sooo frustrating

@ffxyunajo- have you sent the Original Pass Certificate from embassy and other Documents (such as Original application form and medical certificate etc) to Japan or was it there photo copies. Can we send photo copies??

 

[mitch2526]

@ffxyunajo- have you sent the Original Pass Certificate from embassy and other Documents (such as Original application form and medical certificate etc) to Japan or was it there photo copies. Can we send photo copies??

I don't know how it is in your country but in mine the embassy lady actually told me that we're only supposed to keep photocopies, and then send either the photocopy or original to the uni wherever.

I think it depends on the uni if they want original or photocopies. One uni just asked me to email it. o.o

Havent done it since I dont know how to change JPEG to pdf for free online! lol if anyone knows please tell me

 

[kouun9]

Havent done it since I dont know how to change JPEG to pdf for free online! lol if anyone knows please tell me

You can use PDFill a Free software to convert JPEG to pdf or Vice versa. It has many other options also. I used that.

 

[mitch2526]

You can use PDFill a Free software to convert JPEG to pdf or Vice versa. It has many other options also. I used that.

kouun9, you just saved me! thanks so much!

I will be sending an email to one university in a while.....
:mail:

Hope we all get nice results! btw there were a lot of people on this forum before, how come it's just us talking now? everyone busy with contacting profs, huh? good luck to us all!

 

[ffxyunajo]

@ffxyunajo- have you sent the Original Pass Certificate from embassy and other Documents (such as Original application form and medical certificate etc) to Japan or was it there photo copies. Can we send photo copies??

kouun9, it varies from university to university. it's best if you check clearly with the university on the documents required. most universities require original Certificate, but application form can be photocopied. don't worry too much about it

kouun9, you just saved me! thanks so much!
I will be sending an email to one university in a while.....
:mail:
Hope we all get nice results! btw there were a lot of people on this forum before, how come it's just us talking now? everyone busy with contacting profs, huh? good luck to us all!

mitch2526, good luck to you too! i'm anxiously waiting for universities to reply too! i guess everyone is stressing out over obtaining the LoAs. which universities are you applying for?

 

[Charchoal]

Hi everyone, I'm just wondering how and what to attach in your emails. So far I have contacted many professors but no reply from them so far, so I am wondering if i am doing anything wrong??

 

[neuro11]

Hi everyone, I'm just wondering how and what to attach in your emails. So far I have contacted many professors but no reply from them so far, so I am wondering if i am doing anything wrong??

As kanun and others adviced before, you can attach the following but not limited to passing certificate,research proposal and application form. In addition you can attach a CV of your own if you like....


i just started sending only from 2 days ago due to late receiving of embassy papers. Since then i just Keep on sending and sending letters......hSo far received one reply only and thats negative. The guy from titech said he can not accpet me because he will retire soon!!!!!!My pity...i hope not everyone i am applying to has retirement coming soon forcing me also retired from Mext scholarship.

btw i think titech guys are really great in terms of manner and prompt reply.

 

[ffxyunajo]

Hi everyone, I'm just wondering how and what to attach in your emails. So far I have contacted many professors but no reply from them so far, so I am wondering if i am doing anything wrong??

hi Charchoal, most important thing to do is to talk to your desired supervisor about your research plan. if he/she is interested, they will agree to take you in. i can understand your dilemma of them not replying as i'm currently facing the same problem as well. it's quite frustrating, isn't it? my biggest fear is that i won't be able to submit the LoA to embassy by 26th

 

[Charchoal]

Hi, actually when I saw that most of you are getting replies, i thought i was doing something wrong because nobody was replying me. I have attached all the above mentioned items, so i am very worried because deadline is getting near. Do you think we will be disqualified if we cannot get the acceptance letter in time? I have tried emailing the professor and the departments but since no one has replied, I am not sure whether I should call them directly or not? (And I cant speak Japanese...T.T )

 

[kouun9]

The guy from titech said he can not accpet me because he will retire soon!!!!!!My pity...i hope not everyone i am applying to has retirement coming soon forcing me also retired from Mext scholarship.

Yah I also got similar replies, mostly negative replies and that too because they are retiring very soon. why is everybody retiring when we have to go. :?

Though now my effort has started bearing fruit, have got a couple of positive replies too, hope the Profs. send me my LOA soon.

 

[waitingiskillingme]

Hi guys,
let me say a couple of words cause I have already gone through this procedure...
first of all, by my humble opinion, you all should NOT worry about the deadline. It is true that the deadline appeared this year but they will understand that it is a summer time and that everyone in Japan is now using their vacations.
that's the next thing: don't lose your hope if it takes a long time to get the acceptance. It is really hard to match yours and professors and university's interests at the same time. so be active and patient. Ask professor to send him scanned documents through e-mail, because most likely it depends on their will. If they want you/like your research proposal, the rest of the procedure will go easy and fast. keep your embassy informed about your progress and I am sure they will understand if you go over deadline.
last year I started looking for mentor about Aug 1st, got my approval on Aug 18th but the Letter itself came on Aug 31st, so it does take time but do not worry.
I contacted about 10 Universities and got only one positive response, couple of negative ones and couple of no-response-at-all.
check universities websites and professors lists. If professor is to old (60 and over) there are big chances to refuse you because they are retiring. if they are to young they would not be allowed by their unis to teach you through doctors course. and most important thing see their field of interests. If it doesn't match with your research proposal there is no use for you getting their acception. And also you should visit their Laboratory site to see is there any foreign students or is there even an English page. If not he is probably not interested in taking foreign students because he doesn't speak English.
you will all get mentors don't worry