The Jardine Foundation Scholarship

For future Oxbridge applicants, I would like to draw your attention to the Jardine Foundation Scholarship (Follow link for Scholarship Prospectus), a bond-free scholarship sponsored by the Jardine Matheson Group for lucky individuals to pursue an undergraduate degree at these specific Oxbridge Colleges:

Cambridge: Trinity, Magdalene (Pronounced Maudlyn), Peterhouse, Downing
Oxford: Exeter, Oriel, Queen's, Trinity

Firstly, Deadlines and Applications

According to the Jardine Foundation website, applications for the Jardine Scholarship Award 2012 (It's 2011, now!) open in mid-August 2011. Last year, the deadlines for applications to be received was in late-October, so please manage your deadlines well. I cannot stress this enough - deadlines will hunt you down and overwhelm you, so track them properly. According to the website, the application requires the submission of:

• A personal statement describing the applicant’s objectives, aspirations, plans after graduation and particulars of their extra-curricular activities, including sports, and level of community involvement
• A copy of the completed UCAS application form
• Two recent passport-size photographs; and 
• Certified copies of ‘O’ and ‘A’ level, or equivalent qualifications subject to the examination system of the relevant country or territory. These include but not limited to, SPM or STPM certificates, SMP & SMU, STTB and STK certificates.
• For applicants attending secondary school or the equivalent, applications must be submitted through the school principal and be supported by a testimonial signed by the school principal setting out: 
• The applicant’s academic record of examination results
• Remarks which will assist the Scholarship Committee in this assessment (Your Teacher Referee writes this letter. Give your teacher enough time to write this letter!) and
• Any other relevant information for the application.

You do not require your A Level/IB/NUS High School Diploma results to be out in order to apply - in fact, given the deadline of the application it is very likely that you will not have your results when sending in your application, unless you are a Singaporean male applying after NS.

An unfortunate fact - Singaporean males must have completed or be exempted from National Service before applying for the Jardine Scholarship. Therefore, all Singaporean male applicants for the scholarship have already ORD-ed. However, if you couple this fact with another clause, which is that applicants who have already been awarded other fully-covered scholarships to study overseas at the time of application will not be considered - Guys, you have been warned.

You will need to mail your application in, so budget enough time to complete everything. After submitting your application, shortlisted applicants will be called down for interviews. It differs for different countries, but in Singapore we had to go through 2 rounds of interviews - the 1st round was in Late November and the 2nd round in Early December. The final interview is in Early January, and applicants have to fly down to Hong Kong for the interview.

For very obvious reasons, avoid traveling overseas for long extended periods at the end of the year. This is something which I learned the hard way - I worked on my CommonApp through a family holiday in Australia and submitted it in Melbourne. I nearly missed the Jardine final interview because I was using a local SIM card to save on calling costs and could not be contacted. Returning to Singapore on 31st December and flying off on 2nd January is not an experience I would like to repeat. All in all, try to be around in Singapore during December. 

More about the Scholarship,

I wish I could tell you more about the criteria used to select Jardine Scholars, but I can't - I wish I knew too. All in all, a good place to start would be as indicated on the prospectus - leadership, extra-curricular activities including (and in my opinion especially) sports, community involvement - in essence, some indication that you are a worthy individual for the company to 'invest' in. To repeat, your choice of degree does not have to be influenced by the Jardine Group and the industries they are involved in (and they do A Lot of things) so long as you can show that you can be, I quote, "an outstanding citizen".

Since the scholarship is College-specific, not just School-Specific, if you do plan on applying for this scholarship it would not make sense to make an Open Application as not getting into any of the above Colleges would make you ineligible for the scholarship.

It is something to take into account when choosing your Colleges. However, some college advice sites advise Oxbridge applicants not to choose colleges simply based on the scholarship. It is extremely competitive, after all, and I hear that less than 10 scholarships are awarded each year. In my opinion, all 4 of these Colleges are very competitive and attractive, but if you prefer another College, then do consider alternative sources of funding.

To end, 

I know this post will soon disappear beneath the new posts coming in, but I just want to alert everyone to this scholarship - especially when most of us, myself included, probably need to struggle to fund an undergraduate education.

This post has mostly been just about highlighting the important points in the prospectus. However, if you would like a more detailed discussion, feel free to drop a message on the tag board and we can talk more about it over email.

To end, for Oxbridge applicants applying this year, please do consider this scholarship. If applying, take note of deadlines and stay contactable. 

Kylie.