MEXT Scholarship (Graduate Students) 2017

[indojindesu]

So only ONE set of documents was sent to you by the Embassy? because in previous years, 3 sets were sent by the Embassy. Even we were told that if you get selected only one copy of documents will be sent to you, I was confused about.

confused about that* (sorry posting from my mobile, cant edit posts from my browser)

 

[madphysicist]

I did the interview and tests today in London.

English test: I thought this was optional for native speakers but it wasn't for us. I have to say there were quite a few dodgy questions and one where I absolutely couldn't figure out what answer they wanted - one of the ones where you had to choose the sentence with a grammatical error, try as I might I couldn't find anything that could possibly be seen as incorrect. And I have done a LOT of proof-reading in my life.

Japanese test: Not too awful given I have hardly been studying the past 6 months. The advanced reading passage seemed easier than the intermediate one? But maybe that's just because it had a well-known joke about scientists and sheep in it.

Interview: Two Japanese guys, very nice and didn't seem critical of anything in my application. Here are the main questions they asked, not in order.

-Introduce yourself
-Please explain the main aim of your research, we're not physicists…
-Why do you need to use this specific detector in Japan to achieve this?

[A few more small questions about the research, they really weren't experts so couldn't pick holes in it]

-What do you know about living in Japan?
-There are very few women in this field, why do you think that is? How will you deal with that? [I'm not really sure what they were trying to get at here… the situation is the same in Europe]
-The experiment is in the middle of nowhere, if you have to go there for a longer time would you cope?
[They didn't press me much on living in Japan but I have already lived in 5 different countries...]

-I see you said your speaking is "good", can you do your self-intro again in Japanese please?
-You said your reading is "excellent", can you read information about physics in Japanese?
[Questions about how I've been studying Japanese]

-What do you intend to do after you finish studying in Japan, will you return to the UK?

...And then a couple of random questions about my hobbies and educational background that were vague and more them remarking on things I'd written on the application than actual questions.

The only problem I had was that the interviewers had quite strong Japanese accents and I missed a couple of things they said e.g. near the beginning when they were introducing themselves : / I will do a more detailed write-up on my blog later when I have more time.

 

[madphysicist]

I forgot to note, I had submitted my N2 scores (which were quite high) with my application, so I was not that concerned about the Japanese test. They also stressed that your level of Japanese knowledge shouldn't affect your chances of success, but I do believe it is still an advantage because it reassures them that you will be able to survive living in Japan.

And also I think that the number of people being interviewed is approx. 24, simply extrapolating from 6 of us doing the tests this afternoon, since I believe there are more interviews tomorrow. This is just based on crude assumptions though. Places given out last year: 9.

 

[indojindesu]

I did the interview and tests today in London.

English test: I thought this was optional for native speakers but it wasn't for us. I have to say there were quite a few dodgy questions and one where I absolutely couldn't figure out what answer they wanted - one of the ones where you had to choose the sentence with a grammatical error, try as I might I couldn't find anything that could possibly be seen as incorrect. And I have done a LOT of proof-reading in my life.

Japanese test: Not too awful given I have hardly been studying the past 6 months. The advanced reading passage seemed easier than the intermediate one? But maybe that's just because it had a well-known joke about scientists and sheep in it.

Interview: Two Japanese guys, very nice and didn't seem critical of anything in my application. Here are the main questions they asked, not in order.

-Introduce yourself
-Please explain the main aim of your research, we're not physicists…
-Why do you need to use this specific detector in Japan to achieve this?

[A few more small questions about the research, they really weren't experts so couldn't pick holes in it]

-What do you know about living in Japan?
-There are very few women in this field, why do you think that is? How will you deal with that? [I'm not really sure what they were trying to get at here… the situation is the same in Europe]
-The experiment is in the middle of nowhere, if you have to go there for a longer time would you cope?
[They didn't press me much on living in Japan but I have already lived in 5 different countries...]

-I see you said your speaking is "good", can you do your self-intro again in Japanese please?
-You said your reading is "excellent", can you read information about physics in Japanese?
[Questions about how I've been studying Japanese]

-What do you intend to do after you finish studying in Japan, will you return to the UK?

...And then a couple of random questions about my hobbies and educational background that were vague and more them remarking on things I'd written on the application than actual questions.

The only problem I had was that the interviewers had quite strong Japanese accents and I missed a couple of things they said e.g. near the beginning when they were introducing themselves : / I will do a more detailed write-up on my blog later when I have more time.

Haha yes that scientist joke! That was fun to read!

I guess this confirms that the question papers are the same worldwide, there was a debate going on the the facebook group of this scholarship on whether we should be discussing the questions here on the Internet , many people insisted that the papers are same worldwide so we shouldn't (Cant see how discussing will help, unless you are actually listing the kanji's which were asked and all)

Your post kinda made me feel I have been vague about my Experience xD So Even I made a list of all the questions I was asked.

And I had submitted ny N2 scores as well! They asked me only 2 questions in Japanese. ( I was expecting the entire interview to be in Japanese because last year 50% of it was in Japanese and I just had N3 at the time ) The questions were :
- Since when are you learning Japanese ?
-why did you learn Japanese ?

There were two people who interviewed me, One Indian and one Japanese.

They gave us a printed sheet listing the procedure of the scholarship . I read there that the people who passed the application/documents stage had their academic background and research proposal marked out of 50 each. This is why (I guess) I wasn't asked much about my research proposal.

the questions they asked were :

- You had applied last year as well, how and what dis you change/do in the past year?
-Why do you choose Japan?
-have you been to Japan?
-why did you choose these two universities?
- why did you choose this Professor?
- are you in contact with him/her? If yes, since when? Has he/she agreed to supervise your research?
- How did you list the universities? did your Professor advice you about this? ( because I had listed Utokyo as my second choice )
- have you shown your research proposal to your Professors? what were their comments? did they help you in writing this?
-what do you think is the biggest problem/barrier the Indian students face when they move/stay in Japan?
-Do you know people who have been to Japan? where did you get all this information from?

Thats about everything I remember.

 

[indojindesu]

Just checked, There were 124 candidates shortlisted for 17 subjects. The interviews were conducted on 4 seperate days, so I dont know how many showed up for the exams and the interview. Around 28 candidates will be chosen from the interviewed candidates.

( The exams take place first and they evaluate your English scores first and candidates with bad scores in English test are not interviewed. The tests AND the interview take place on the same day, provided you pass the English test )

 

[Kamiyan]

hello everyone, reading this thread is really exciting, congrats to everyone that got selected and to the ones who didn't, let's try again (this will be my second try, we must no lose hope), I have the exams on friday, I hope everything goes okay

 

[hxcpanda]

@indojindesu
Yes, the embassy only sent me one set of documents. One of my schools wanted originals so I made copies for the other two and then sent in the one set to the picky one.

 

[indojindesu]

@indojindesu
Yes, the embassy only sent me one set of documents. One of my schools wanted originals so I made copies for the other two and then sent in the one set to the picky one.

I see! Thats exactly what I was worried about, what if all the universities demand originals! Thanks for the info

 

[bigT]

Hi Everyone!
I just wanted to let you know that I got notice from the consulate general here in Montreal on July 15th that I passed the interview stage! Woohoo!
Now I am looking at Fine Art Universities in the Kansai region.
I havent said much on the forum but I have been reading closely and wanted to think everyone for all the helpful knowledge that they've shared. So thank you and good luck!!

 

[indojindesu]

Hi Everyone!
I just wanted to let you know that I got notice from the consulate general here in Montreal on July 15th that I passed the interview stage! Woohoo!
Now I am looking at Fine Art Universities in the Kansai region.
I havent said much on the forum but I have been reading closely and wanted to think everyone for all the helpful knowledge that they've shared. So thank you and good luck!!

Congratulations! When was your interview conducted? I am trying to figure out how long the embassy takes to announce the results!

 

[nthuq]

Hey guys, my interview was today. Thanks to my preparing for them, I think I was able to answer the most important questions well enough. I had my interview at the Sydney consulate and was interviewed by a Japanese man and a woman from the University of Wollongong. I was thrown off by a couple of odd questions like: "How do you deal with stress" and "Can you think of any particularly stressful situations you've been in", but I think I did alright overall.

Now the wait begins!

 

[rss]

Hello everyone on this thread, wish you all good luck with passing interviews and receiveing LoA's. My embassy told me that I passed first round aka interview&exams but now I have to wait for another selection to cut off more participants before we will actually start bothering professors and unis with LoA's. The waiting is killing me. I wish that they didn't contact me just to say that everything is still uncertain :c

 

[indojindesu]

Just received a mail from the embassy saying I have cleared the interview!! My hands wont stop shaking I'm so happy!! This was my third attempt so I wasn't sure i'l get it this time as well. Have to send Documents to the embassy (medical certificate and all) now!

 

[yeryoma]

Congratulations to everyone who passed. Embassy called me today. I passed!!! I took the interview on july 15, It took around 10 minutes. they told me that they are impressed with my Exam score and that they like my research proposal. Still I was a bit nervous up to now. What a relief!!! Hope to see you guys in Japan.

 

[lamka]

congratulations to those of you who passed!!!:woot: and goodluck in the obtaining university LOA's.. it seems that lots of country has released their result already...but I wonder when Malaysian embassy will release the result...Is there any malaysian participant who has been contacted? the waiting game is nerve wracking and only 10days left until july's over...:arghh::arghh:

 

[kobayakawa]

Omedetou to all those who made it passed the embassy screening!

It's still waiting game here in the Philippines. Last year, the results came out on the 5th of August (first week of the month).

Any Filipino research scholarship applicants who made it to the interview? How are you guys dealing with the waiting game? @_@

 

[zobel]

Wohaa.. so many people passed! Congrats to all of you! Those who are still waiting, I think we will get results by end of this month.

 

[J.K.]

congratulations to those of you who passed!!!:woot: and goodluck in the obtaining university LOA's.. it seems that lots of country has released their result already...but I wonder when Malaysian embassy will release the result...Is there any malaysian participant who has been contacted? the waiting game is nerve wracking and only 10days left until july's over...:arghh::arghh:

I think the result haven't come out yet, it released at 31th last year, it should be out by next fr

 

[glamette]

Glad to see more people getting through the embassy selection phase. It's comforting to have more company in the obtaining LoAs phase. Congrats to everyone!

 

[hsark]

hi every just passed my exams/interviews my embassy actually had 2 interviews one last week and one this week(numbers cut down)......the one this week was hectic just the head embassy official...didn`t ask any questions about our research plans that was the first interview..... it was tough he asked for the percentage of Japanese people who speak fluent English, few things about Edo era Japan and South Asia regardless of your major and he wanted exact answers but you were allowed to speak as long as you wanted.....the later told us it was about judging your character pretty clever as they was no way to prepare for it.....everyone was caught off guard

 

[hsark]

I did the interview and tests today in London.
The only problem I had was that the interviewers had quite strong Japanese accents and I missed a couple of things they said e.g. near the beginning when they were introducing themselves : / I will do a more detailed write-up on my blog later when I have more time.

one of the people being interviewed mentioned the same thing though I was fine with it as I'm quite used to the Japanese English accent having many Japanese friends trying to learn English helps

 

[madphysicist]

one of the people being interviewed mentioned the same thing though I was fine with it as I'm quite used to the Japanese English accent having many Japanese friends trying to learn English helps

I also have Japanese friends, however one of the interviewers really had a very thick accent and pronounced some words very strangely. Fortunately I didn't actually miss the questions they were asking me. I think if someone does have this problem you should just ask them to repeat themselves, I'm sure they won't mind.

 

[Lawrence1]

I also have Japanese friends, however one of the interviewers really had a very thick accent and pronounced some words very strangely. Fortunately I didn't actually miss the questions they were asking me. I think if someone does have this problem you should just ask them to repeat themselves, I'm sure they won't mind.

hey madphysicist

I have seen you on this forum for a long time. Are you already in Japan or are you coming with us to Japan in October? Either is fine, it is just you seem to know a lot so I was curious

 

[madphysicist]

hey madphysicist

I have seen you on this forum for a long time. Are you already in Japan or are you coming with us to Japan in October? Either is fine, it is just you seem to know a lot so I was curious

I'm in Germany finishing my master's thesis. If I start on MEXT it will be in April, but I plan to go to Japan before then because I have a lot of friends there. I was going to apply for university recommendation earlier this year but couldn't get all the paperwork sorted on time.

I guess because the official MEXT guidelines are so vague and the whole process is so mysterious and confusing, I became a bit obsessed trying to find out how it works and I have read pretty much every account of applying for MEXT I could find. I think this is so much more difficult to "get right" than any other application I've submitted... So most of what I say is just passing on information from other sources to try to help others, it's not my direct experience.

 

[Lawrence1]

I'm in Germany finishing my master's thesis. If I start on MEXT it will be in April, but I plan to go to Japan before then because I have a lot of friends there. I was going to apply for university recommendation earlier this year but couldn't get all the paperwork sorted on time.

I guess because the official MEXT guidelines are so vague and the whole process is so mysterious and confusing, I became a bit obsessed trying to find out how it works and I have read pretty much every account of applying for MEXT I could find. I think this is so much more difficult to "get right" than any other application I've submitted... So most of what I say is just passing on information from other sources to try to help others, it's not my direct experience.

I completely understand! I spent one year gathering information about applying to my university before actually applying for it. Honestly, the more tiny subtle aspects asked for in your application that is taken into account, the better from my experience. At least now you know which mext route is better for you and have a better idea how to apply. Do your best!