Step-by-Step Guide on How to Apply for Sweden Masters Scholarship
I got a lot of requests after posting my scholarship journey. Many applicants want me to mentor/guide them through the application process. Time is really a constraint, and after much consideration, I decided to create this free guide for easy access to everyone.
Before we dive in, let me whet your appetite about this scholarship offer.
Why Study in Sweden?
In terms of popularity among Nigerians, Sweden is one of the least countries considered for studies. Maybe due to the language barrier or the freezing weather, I can’t really say.
However, in case you don’t know, Sweden is one of the leading European countries when it comes to acquiring standard education. I am not interested in boring you with stats. You can always check that out on your own. Let me just give you an instance with my school, the Swedish University of Agriculture (SLU).
Currently, SLU ranks as the 3rd best university of Agriculture in the world, only behind Wageningen University and Research WUR), Netherlands, and the University of California (UCLA)Davis in the US. Also, SLU the best 36th University in the world for schools under 50 years old. That speaks a lot of volumes. And from my personal experience, despite the pandemic, I can see the quality of research here and how accessible the instructors are.
Moreover, you can go for exchange studies during your learning here. Most universities in Sweden make provision for students to gain experience outside Sweden by studying abroad for up to a year. That means that as a student in Sweden, you can go to affiliated schools in countries like the United States, Austalia, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, just to mention a few. If you want to learn more about why study in Sweden, you will find additional information here.
Who can apply for a Master's in Sweden?
While this application is open to both bachelor's and Master’s students, my focus will be on the latter. This is because Sweden doesn’t offer scholarships to students at the bachelor level. These are some of the criteria to qualify for both admission and the Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professional (SI) that will be opened for application by 8th February 2021.
University Bachelor Holder
That means you hold a bachelor's degree in relevant fields. Note that not all courses qualify for SI scholarship. It’s imperative that you select courses that are eligible for SI funding. How do you know if your course is eligible? Good question. You only need to ask yourself, does my course align with any of the 17 UN’s SDGs? If it does, then you are good to go! Alternatively, you can check here for the list of previous eligible courses. SI will publish the eligible courses for this application very soon. There will likely be a change in the programme due to the COVDI-19 pandemic. Do well to check in at their website often to get the information.
3,000 Hours Work Experience
SI scholarship is one of the few that prioritizes work experience over grades. Regardless of your CGPA, with good work experience in the RELEVANT field, you stand a chance of winning a scholarship. However, note that your CV, references, and leadership experience must be top-notch. SI is looking for people with the capacity to effect changes in their country, not for people only looking for a greener pasture. If you can’t provide verifiable proof of 3,000 working hours, you should probably STOP reading right now!
How can I calculate my working hours?
Assuming you are a civil servant or you do 9–5, you work 8 hours per day, 5 days in a week will give you 40 hours. From there, you can remove the weekends and holidays. Get to work, do your calculations!
However, the good news is that the 3,000 hours doesn’t have to be in a single job. You can combine different relevant work experiences. For instance, you can combine your undergraduate internship, NYSC, and post-degree work experience. From my experience, it’s best if you can have the entire 3,000 hours after NYSC, though. Note that forms will be made available later to send to your employer to append their signatures with an official stamp. Check here for how to apply.
Leadership Experience
Are you a born leader? Do you have what it takes to cause disruption and challenge the status quo? If yes, SI is looking for you! You must have been in at least a leadership position with around 600 working hours. The leadership experience could be acquired at your workplace or as a volunteer to a relevant cause. Note that you must also provide proof of your leadership experience as well. Also, your leadership experience can equally be from your 3,000 hours of work experience. That is, you can have 2,400 hours for work and 600 for leadership. Please, note that there might be changes in the requirements for this year.
Before you get started
Many students are always nervous about kickstarting their application process. This application opens from 16th October — January 15th every year. Within this time, you have a lot to learn especially if you are not familiar with sustainability.
Sweden is at the forefront of sustainability, and its universities always on the lookout to be an ambassador of this vision in their respective HOME COUNTRIES. That means you need to put your sentiment apart and channel all your effort into making your own country better through your acquired knowledge. Thus, all your brilliant ideas, beautiful applications, and future aspirations are irrelevant if the focus is NOT on achieving sustainability in YOUR country. Two keywords, SUSTAINABILITY, and YOUR COUNTRY.
Prepare your documents
You can find the list of admission requirements here.
Academic Transcript
For your transcript, you need to contact the school you had your bachelor's degree ahead to send the document to your school. Each school has a specific location where courier services can deliver the document. However, you can send it directly through the school exams and record the server, and it must have the registrar’s stamp. What I am trying to say is that you cannot send your transcript yourself. Also, you cannot use any lecturer email address to send it. It has to be officially sent from your senate or whoever is in charge of your certificate server. To prevent unnecessary frustration and delay, contact your school right now! Without the official transcript, you cannot proceed with your application.
Proof of English
Did you have a credit in the English language from WASSCE? Can your school or workplace issue you the medium of instruction? If you said yes to any of these, then you are good to go! Sweden is one of the few countries in Europe where you don’t need proof of English tests such as IELST or TOEFL. Just upload either of these documents, and you are set.
Curriculum Vitae
Sweden has a specific format for CV writing. You will see this during your application. Do well to write a CV that succinctly showcases both your academic excellence and professional achievements. It would help if you positioned yourself as a worthy recipient of a scholarship with your CV. If you know that writing a CV is not your turf, you can seek the expertise of a professional CV writer.
Work and Leadership Experience
You must have 3,000 hours of verifiable work and leadership experience to stand any chance of winning a scholarship offer. More on these later.
Reference Letter
Some programmes require that you provide reference letters that can either be academic or professional. In case you need one, contact your supervisor, your superior at work, or anybody that can refer you for a place. Avoid submitting generic reference letters. “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN” references might not help you in your scholarship quest. Be specific!
Motivation Letter
This document answers a simple question, “why should we offer you this scholarship opportunity?” Some schools will give you guidelines on addressing the question, while some leave you to handle it as you want. For mine, there was no guideline. If you are not familiar with academic writing, you will find this free course handy. Also, these tips will be useful as well.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, the United Nations reached an agreement with its member state to spearhead a planet with peace and prosperity for everyone. All the EU countries have the blueprint for this 17-point agenda. As a student, your purpose is to be an ambassador in establishing these goals in your country before or by 2030.
The first thing to do before you even create an account is to head on to the UN’s website. Next, review all these 17 points and identify 2–5 that perfectly align with your work experience, educational background, and your passion. For instance, as a graduate of Animal Science, my three selected goals are the top three; no poverty, zero hunger, good health, and well-being.
Sweden Universities Step-by-step Admission Procedure
After you have identified your SDGs backed with your work and leadership experience, the next thing is to select the right school for yourself.
- Research your school choice
Here is the list of universities in Sweden. However, to save your time, you can just Google your course + Sweden. For example, if you have a degree in Animal Science, and you are interested in progressing with M.Sc Animal Science, just search for “ where to study Animal Science in Sweden.”
This is a sample of a typical result:
From there, you can check the school website and look at the courses they have. You will see the requirements per course. For example, if you want to study Agriculture at SLU, go to the school website at www.slu.se. It’s best to use chrome browser as most school websites in Sweden as Swedish as their default language. You only need to enable chrome’s automatic language translation. Next is to choose and apply for whatever courses that you want and meet with its requirements.
Alternatively, you can go to www.universityadmissions.se
Ensure to select Autumn 2021. This is the application period opened to master's programmes for SI scholarship.
2. Set up your University Admission Account
Create a user account with your email and other details. You will be asked if you have a Swedish personal number or not. Your selection should be “NO” unless you are already in Sweden with a personal number.
I don’t know if there is a need to say this, but your first name is your own name, while your last name is your surname. For instance, my first name is Dolapo, while my surname is Adepoju.
3. Pay the Application Fee
Sweden charges non-refundable SEK 900 (almost #40,000) for application. It’s a one-time application for the four courses. That’s why I suggested that you shouldn’t bother to apply if you don’t meet up with the 3000 hours of work and leadership experience. Gaining admission is quite easy. You will most likely be awarded into at least one of the programmes as long as you meet the undergraduate degree requirement. However, the scholarship is highly competitive. Last year, only about 3% of applicants got a place for the SI scholarship, and just 6 of us were selected for the SLU scholarship out of over 100 applicants.
4. Select your schools
After you have successfully logged in, the next thing is to choose the courses and schools you have already researched. Sweden uses a centralized application system. That means you only need a single account to apply to up to four schools/courses. This is similar to how UTME works for Nigeria secondary school students. You don’t have to apply to each of the schools of your choice. Sounds cool, right?
For your selection, you have the liberty to combine up to 4 related courses in the same or different schools. For instance, assuming you are interested in agricultural science, you can select courses like Animal Science, Plant Breeding, Agric. Economics and Food and Sustainability all from SLU. You can also choose each course from four different schools or choose two schools or more from a single school. For instance, Two from school A, one from school B, and one from school C. Whatever your combination is, just ensure they are all closely related to your work experience, the field of study, and sustainable development goals.
5. Rank your choices
Selecting your choices require some level of smartness. It’s recommended to get admitted to your first choice. This is because most schools offer between 50–100% tuition-only scholarships to their applicants. In my case, I had Animal Science at SLU as my first choice. That’s what gave me the opportunity to apply for the school scholarship. Rank your courses and schools based on your highest chances of getting admitted. During my application, I chose SLU as #1 and #4 respectively, and got admitted for both. Uppsala University was my second choice, with Lund being number three on the list. However, both Lund and Uppsala denied me admission initially. I was able to contest Lund’s decision as I met the requirement. They eventually offered me admission, but Uppsala denied me totally. That’s why you must take course research and ranking seriously. Get your priority right. Right now, your goal is to choose a school where you stand the highest chance of gaining admission as your first choice!
6. Check the previous admission rate
One resource tool you can leverage to make the right choice is the university statistik website.
Select MasterH2020 to see how many students were picked for each course per school. The whole essence of using this tool is to eliminate competition as much as possible.
In the image above, I checked the number of applicants at SLU. You can see the total number of applicants per course. Animal Science alone had 356 total applicants, with 258 students preferring it as their first course. Surprisingly, we are just 19 in the class for now. You can see how competitive the admission can be!
7. Complete your application and wait for SI
As mentioned earlier, the SI scholarship opens on 8th February 2020. Until then, keep positioning yourself as a worthy scholarship recipient. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile or it’s dormant, go and resuscitate it right away. Your LinkedIn profile is what many professional bodies will check the moment they receive your application. Also, does your social media accounts showcases you as a responsible citizen and worthy scholar? If no, it’s time to put things right.
Conclusion
Studying abroad is not an easy task. You must be willing to invest the hard work to reap the dividends later. Prayer is good, but it’s best when it is backed up with work.
For further inquiries or to ask questions NOT covered here, feel free to comment below or connect with me on LinkedIn.
P.S: To avoid wasting our time, please ensure that you have read and followed every information here before reaching out to me; otherwise, I might not respond.
Thanks for reading. I wish you the best in your application. Feel free to share with anyone that might need it.
