Hello kokwai4869,
Mayhap I can answer your query.
I applied to
Kyoto U for the scholarship and am awaiting for the results.
I am a Master Student (Computer Engineering) at IIT Bombay, India. My field is NLP (Language, Linguistics and Translation).
This all started 1 year ago when my current guide allowed me to go to Kyoto U for an internship.
My guide in Kyoto U gave me some work on a related topic and he seemed to like the amount of effort I put in. (Although the results were nothing flashy.... IMO they were rather average). He offered to take me up as a PhD student.
6 months ago, this guide and I met in a conference and asked me if I was still interested in pursuing a PHD and told me to apply for university recommendation through Kyoto U.
I had to first send all relevant documents. 4 main points I will clarify.
1. A strong recommendation letter from your current guide to the president of Kyoto University is needed. So impress your current guide. I had 4 international publications already so that part was quite easy for me.
2. Your grades (GPA/CPI) should be good. In Japan then have a GPA out of 3.0. Anything above 2.5 is ok. In my current university we have a CPI system out of 10.0 and I have a 9.3 so that converts to 2.79 approx. There again I was safe.
3. An expected graduation certificate. This one is tricky. If you have not graduated from your current college but will be soon (in 4 months or so) you need to get a certificate which clearly mentions that you are expected to graduate by a certain date (1-2 months before you start at the Japan University). This will be a certificate (provisional) in the form of a letter from the head of the department certifying that you will indeed graduate by a specified date. If you have already graduated then you need your graduation certificate.
4. A good research plan. You will be given a page in which you are to give your research plan. Write in as much detail as possible. I initially wrote only 5-6 points but my prof told me to expand this and I made this till 20 points.
Once the documents were received they go through an initial screening at the department level. After that come email based (or skype might also be possible) interviews. In mu case the panel consisted of my Kyoto U guide, 1 other Prof from the same lab and 1 Prof from another department. These go on till they are satisfied and then they recommend you to the university via a recommendation letter from the main Prof. Note that this means that there are 2 recommendation letters you need before you are recommended to MEXT.
The university has to now screen you and in my case there were 30 applications and 8 were to be selected. I made that cut. The research plan, grades and the recommendation letters really matter here.
My Prof then said that I had to wait upto april end to get the final notification from MEXT. In case of Kyoto U, all students recommended by university get the MEXT scholarship. This I am guessing is due to the the ranking of Kyoto U.
And now, here I am.... waiting for the final result.
I hope some doubts are clear.