While there seems to be tons of resources on the net, or at least you would think there would be. There are still a large number of posts on the forum about how to go about attending school in Japan. Many of these questions are repeats of former questions. So I'm offering this up as a sticky.

Is this you?
"I'm 16/17/X years old and I've been studying Japanese for awhile and I want to attend Undergraduate school in Japan."
"I'm graduating high school soon and want to study in Japan!"
"My goals in life would be best served with study in Japan."

***Undergraduate School***

*Know your Why
I have to put this here because 4 years of your life is a big decision and you should be able to answer the resounding question of:

Why Japan?

A reoccurring issue that is seen in many posts on this forum when it comes to attending Undergrad in Japan is a lack of direction.

It's great that you've been studying Japanese and you have a strong interest in Japan. It's also great that you feel you want to take that interest to a completely new level and put yourself in Japan for 3-4 years of your life, but you need to know why.

What are your goals in life?
Does what you want to do after undergraduate school make sense to go to school in Japan? Have you considered some of the unintended effects (See next section, Consider the fallout)?
Why doesn't studying abroad for 1-year in Japan work for you? Are you sure you can handle the huge change?

You should be able to answer all those questions to yourself and feel comfortable with the answer. If you are wishy-washy on any answer but simply override it with "But I want to live and study in Japan!!!" I encourage you to consider that question more deeply.

*Consider the Fallout
So lets assume for a second that you do go to Japan and you do study there for 4 years. What could happen?
Scenario 1: [Try to] Work in Japan!!!
For many, this is probably their crowning hope by attending school in Japan. You've done your 4 years, you got your degree, now you can work right? Well, that depends...
1) You could try finding a job the way that many foreigners do that didn't do school in Japan, by putting in resumes for job offers. But this leads to a potential problem, which is that many Japanese employers know that colleges in Japan do not create well educated students that can easily hit the ground running. In other words, they'll believe they'll probably have to train you extensively, where as most of these advertised positions are looking for experience. If you've done internships while being a student, then maybe this will work for you.

2) Try to do what the Japanese do. Having spent your 4 years pretty much like a Japanese student then why not do this? The hiring process for graduates in Japan differs from the rest of the world. Where as in the US you might go to job fairs and interview with companies in the months leading up to your graduation, in Japan [recently], students often start job hunting 2(TWO!) years in advance. The process is different too. Most Japanese students do not aim for job-quality. They do not hunt for that special company or three, they've wanted to work at since they were 15. They usually aim for quantity. I've heard numbers as high as 100 interviews, being common for many. Mind you that's 100 of the first stage interviews, which usually involves taking a test with 100's of other prospective graduates and maybe participating in a short group interview session. Afterwards, you'd schedule for a 2nd and 3rd interview.
In these situations the employer pretty much expects you to know next to nothing about what you are about to do and is expecting to train you. I have friends at other companies that talk about the company training a new graduate for say something like a programming job, where the graduate has never typed out a line of code in their life, hell some have trouble just using the computer.

What I'm trying to say in this second one is that if you do 4 years in school in Japan, then the assumption I'm making is that you are probably expecting to do what Japanese students do, and that means you need to understand that the process will requires tons of repetitive work and may even be slightly more uphill for you since you are a foreigner.

The other thing I want to point out in the "work in Japan" case is that in Japan, most employers are more interested in the name of the school you went to than how well you did in school. I've heard many employers never care to even see transcripts or even your GPA in school; they only care about how hard you worked to get to the college you did.

Scenario 2: I'm tired of f***ing Japan, I'm going home!
This is probably about as likely as any outcome. You've been in Japan for 4 years, and while the first 1 or 2 years were great; you've grown tired of the way Japanese people are and have decided to make Japan a vacation country.
The problem then becomes that you have a degree from a part of the world that many people may not be familiar with. Assuming you weren't lazy like many of the college students in Japan, you might even have a nice GPA. But if you didn't attend a big name uni like University of Tokyo, you might be left in a tight spot. In this situation, the best you can hope for is that you have been developing a set of skills that will make potential employers ignore the fact that you have a degree from somewhere they don't know.
Also, while most employers in Japan are aware that college students in Japan tend to slack off, have fun, and cruise by with a GPA of 2.5 or something. I don't believe employers overseas will be aware of this.

Scenario 3: I think school back home was better...
You go home after 2-3 years at school in Japan. Your courses may not transfer completely and you may end up stuck doing an extra year or two to make up for courses you already have done.

*Money Money Money
Before I go into how-to part of it all. Let's talk about the other big problem you'll need to solve: Money.
If you have access to 20,000USD cash, every year, then you can probably skip this part, but I'd read the part near the end about scholarships.

If you are coming from the US, school in Japan is cheap compared to school in the US.
Lets look at the University of Tokyo (National Uni).

Quote:Tuition at Uni of Tokyo
Enrollment fee: ¥282,000
Annual Tuition: ¥535,800

Now lets look at a prestigious private university. Keio University's Faculty of Letters

Quote:Tuition for Keio Undergrad
Admission fee: 200,000
Registration Fee: 20,000
Tuition Fee: 810,000
Facilities Fee: 190,000
Total Tuition 1st year: 1,263,350
Total Tuition (Other years): 1,063,350

National university schools are popular and competitive to get into because they are cheaper as you can see, but even one of Japan's most prestigious private university is more affordable than most schools in the US.

If you are coming from the EU or Australia, this may be more expensive than what you are use to.

Regardless, you have to consider the big question of where are you going to get the money to do this?
Remember, the above fees only cover SCHOOL expenses. Those numbers do not include room and board in a dorm.

A guest house in Tokyo for 1 month might run you 30,000yen and cover water/gas/electricity.
Food would depend on how you eat and run anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000yen a month.
A cheap phone will cost you lets say 5,000yen a month.
Transportation would depend on how much you go around but 10,000yen a month isn't a bad estimate.
Total living expenses for a year: 660,000yen - 850,000yen ($6600-8500)

I'll let you do the math, to figure it out. Enrollment fee/Admission fees are paid only once when you enter so don't add them more than that.

Most scholarships from your home country will not transfer to Japan. The other problem is that Japan has little in the way of financial assistance for international students. I will post the two major sources of assistance available to international students in Japan:
MEXT Government Scholarship
The MEXT scholarship is a government based scholarship which will provide you with a monthly stipend, place you in a school, and cover all school-related expenses. The undergraduate process for receiving it is a bit of a pain but its pretty equivalent to a student taking the exams in Japan. To get it you will need to take exams, write an essay, and interview. But its one of the best scholarships for funding your time in Japan which is also why its one of the most competitive.

JASSO Scholarship for Privately Funded students
JASSO is only available to students that are 1) Privately funded, meaning they do not receive the MEXT and 2) Have already been admitted to a school.
The school will have to recommend you for the scholarship. But the scholarship will get you a MAX of 48,000 yen a month. It does nothing to waive school expenses. Its a traditional style scholarship which you will have to apply for every year.

There may exist scholarships within each university that are available to international students, but that will be left up to you to investigate.

"What about student loans?" I hear some ask. If you are in the US, then you are probably well aware of this system. Unfortunately, there are no schools in Japan save for Temple University, that are set up to take FAFSA based school loans.
Private Loans from your HOME country are also doable but that is left up to you to figure out.

"But what about loans in JAPAN?!" Sorry, unless you are married to a Japanese person or have a very good Japanese friend/family member, no bank is going to advance you a loan. To banks, as a foreigner, you are a flight risk.

If you think you can cover the money part of this problem in your study, then lets move on to the process.

*Understand the Process
Well, you have your reasons and they are firm. You've considered the issues that may occur going this way, and you have the money to back it up. So how do I get in? If you are going the MEXT route, then most of this won't apply to you, but it wouldn't hurt to do the first step.

1) Take the Examination for Japanese University Admission or JLPT
Every university in Japan will require that you have a sufficient level of Japanese to attend school. Usually this cut off is N2. (I'm not sure on the EJU)
If you are applying through an international admission route where you will be taking classes in English, then this step may not be required, but if you want to take Japanese classes in the future while attending the school, then you will need it at some point.

2) Take the School Exam
Even though the EJU is suppose to serve as an entrance exam in itself, its pretty common for universities to still require that all entering students take some form of an entrance exam. If you are entering through international/English based program routes then this test will probably be in English. These entrance exams are renowned for being fairly difficult so I hope you were a very good student in high school.

3) Interviews
If you beat the first two steps then there may be an interview process in this. Interviewing is a pretty common stage in school entry in most of the Japanese education system and many Japanese students will probably do it. Its possible that if there is no entrance exam step on a English-Program entry, then the biggest deciding factor for your entry to the school will probably be your written essays and an interview.

4) Wait and Pay
There may be some other small steps in between such as sending paper, but this sums up most of the big steps to getting in. You'll have eventually wait at some point, possibly for months, but eventually they'll accept you and then the only thing left to do will be to pay the tuition and entry fees.

*Where to go?
You've considered everything before this and are okay with it. So now the big question is where should you apply?
Japan has a lot of universities, some which everyone has heard about if they know Japan a little, but there are also many you haven't heard of. But not only is it a question of the prestige of the school, but you also need to consider whether you will take a complete Japanese route to applying to the school or if you will take an English course route. The former will allow you to basically attend any university in Japan, though I would strongly advise against just picking anything, more on that in a minute. The later though will limit your choices because there are not a lot of schools with complete programs/degrees in all English.

There has been a movement in Japan though to increase the number of schools that offer international courses (ie: in English). This is known as the Global 30 and all the schools participating tend to have classes and/or programs completely in English. Whether these are available at the Undergraduate level is a different matter and you will need to research that.
Global 30 Link

If you go the Japanese route then really your main question is how high to do you aim? But even that question should concern you if you are doing the international entrance route. Google "Japanese university ranking" or "Japanese college rank" or "大学　ランキング"

Remember everything stated in "Considering the fallout." The name of a school in Japan tends to carry a lot of weight, but it also means entrance will be more difficult.

Asking questions on the forum about "Is X school good?" probably won't be met with the kind of answers you want. Because not many people have gone to undergraduate schools in Japan.

*Gather your will
The one resource you will need the most of to complete all of this probably isn't money, though it will be important, its will. I personally have only heard of 1-2 people ever actually going through the undergraduate courses at a university. Thats not to say there aren't many, but they are not very common. People going to school here for Graduate school are far more common and I know there are probably at least 3-4 people here that have done it.

So if this is something you want to do, gather your will, and prepare for a rough climb.

(Note to others: If you have any other [constructive] things to add, just post them, I'll quote them and add them to this.)

Is this you?
"I just finished a degree in [SOMETHING] and have been considering a Masters/Ph.D in Japan."
"I've been working in Japan for a few years and want to get my Masters."

***Graduate School***

Honestly, graduate school isn't all the much different of a process from Undergraduate school.
If you went into the entrance process as a Japanese student, you'd still be taking exams and writing essays and interviewing.

The big difference is that there are way more universities looking for international researchers/graduate students in Japan so there tend to be international admission routes open to looking to enter into a Masters or Ph.D route.

Also for graduate school there exists the [url=]MEXT Research Scholarship[/url] which has the ability of being used to fund a Masters and/or a Ph.D. There are two ways to this, one being through Embassy recommendation (HIGHLY recommended route) or through Domestic/University Recommendation. Embassy recommendation will also take care of getting you into a school most of the time.

Be sure to check Global 30 Link for ideas on what schools to look at for programs that might have English.

*Financial Aid
MEXT and JASSO
Plus any private scholarships/fellowships at the school
Fullbright Scholarship (US students) - Limited area of study and extremely time consuming application process

*Work after Grad School
I've asked people before about this and the thing I've heard is that Grad students aren't granted the same ease-of-employment luxury that many new grads out of undergrad are.

As it has been told to me, some employers tend to see Grad students as people that didn't commit to the job hunting process when they graduated as a 4 year and therefore decided to become Graduate students. This means that you can't really get a job through normal routes. You'll either have to do the resume application process or rely on your professors' connections in the industry to help you find a job.

More input from the people that have actually done Grad school in Japan and the work situation. Let their responses carry more weight than mine:

kitakitsune Wrote:Just want to throw in my two cents here about grad school. Depending on how old you are (under 26 or so), you can apply for entry level new graduate jobs without any negative stigma and slightly higher pay than everyone else with a BA. At least that is the case in my company.

dizmox Wrote:As someone who's been to grad school and gone through the native job hunting process here, I can resolutely say that there is absolutely no problem with doing a 2 year masters here (in which case you're likely to get a small starting pay boost like kitakitsune mentioned). However, what you said certainly holds true often for people who go onto PhDs, just like in the west (perhaps maybe more severe).

Basically:

Masters = further education
PhD = training for academia

*Grad School Culture in Japan
I feel I need put this here because its probably something important to consider. Graduate institutes in various parts of the world tend to take very different approaches to training a future researcher.

In the US, they (Professors/Your Adviser) tend to take a hands-off approach and would rather let you do what you want. They'll assist you as you need it but there is a lot that is left up to you to do on your own. Plus its very research based.

I've heard the EU tends to be more class based and with teaching. But I won't comment much on this as I simply don't know that much. Someone else may add on.

Japan though is a mixed bag, and sometimes not for the better. In Japan, the research tends to be more important than the classroom time. The problem I have heard is that often times the advisor is very controlling of your direction. Its not uncommon for an advisor to take you on and like your research plan, only to then turn around and tell you what you will research and pretty much write your dissertation for you. In other words, where as the US tends to be hands-off, Japan can be very hands-on. The part that makes this more difficult is that not every professor in Japan is like this. The rule of thumb I've heard is that if the professor in question spent his entire academic career in Japan, then there is a good chance he'll be overbearing and very hands-on in the way he works. If he has been more well traveled and even gotten his masters or Ph.D outside Japan, then he's likely to be more open to the idea of letting the student do their own research.

I would highly recommend you read around and see if you can't find other people's blogs on the issue. There are many foreigners studying in Japan and some have found the grad school culture in Japan excessively rough (ie: more so than grad school should usually be).

Reserved for Another Topic should it arrise.

Wow, this is an amazing write-up with a ton of info. Definitely worth a sticky.

What about if I just want to experience uni life in Japan, I'm not planning to work here. And especially if you live in an Asian country, wouldn't that be better than most of the degree you would get in your country even if it is not a degree from Tokyo uni because you would at least learn sufficient Japanese enough for work.

Just want to throw in my two cents here about grad school. Depending on how old you are (under 26 or so), you can apply for entry level new graduate jobs without any negative stigma and slightly higher pay than everyone else with a BA. At least that is the case in my company.

chelseaz17 Wrote:What about if I just want to experience uni life in Japan, I'm not planning to work here. And especially if you live in an Asian country, wouldn't that be a better than the degree you would get in your country even if it not a degree from Tokyo uni because you would at least learn sufficient Japanese enough for work.

Which Asian country are you referring to?

For me it Thailand. I'm actually Taiwanese but I was born and raised here and my parent work here.
But even if it is for country like Hong Kong and Korea (excluding the top and best uni, I'm referring to those above average uni like Meiji ) wouldn't it be the same? Or at least equal

Sry for my bad English

@kitakitsune: I added your own side to the story to the Grad post.

chelseaz17 Wrote:What about if I just want to experience uni life in Japan, I'm not planning to work here. And especially if you live in an Asian country, wouldn't that be better than most of the degree you would get in your country even if it is not a degree from Tokyo uni because you would at least learn sufficient Japanese enough for work.

I wouldn't say there is any certainty on this. There are many small universities in Japan that may be no better than the universities in Thailand. I should note that Japanese universities are focusing heavily on people like you though. The international programs they are creating are a little more aimed at pulling in more students from the surrounding regions than say students from the UK or the US.

Still, determining whether its better or not though, is a hard call for anyone to make here. What are you going to do with your degree? Do companies in your country feel that universities in your country are poor and turn out bad students? Do they hire and pay students that attended schools in China or Japan more? If you are moving to another country and potentially paying a lot more out of your savings to do it, then you need to make sure the cost-benefit is at least even.

chelseaz17 Wrote:For me it Thailand. I'm actually Taiwanese but I was born and raised here and my parent work here.
But even if it is for country like Hong Kong and Korea (excluding the top and best uni, I'm referring to those above average uni like Meiji ) wouldn't it be the same? Or at least equal

Sry for my bad English

I knew someone in Japan who was Thai and doing PhD at a Japanese university. She seemed to think that if she wanted to teach Japanese in Thailand they would be fine with a Japanese degree.

Just wanted to say this is a really great write-up. Grad school in Japan is a path I'd be considering in the next year, possibly pursuing the year after so it's great to have some good down-to-earth information earlier.

Quote:As it has been told to me, some employers tend to see Grad students as people that didn't commit to the job hunting process when they graduated as a 4 year and therefore decided to become Graduate students. This means that you can't really get a job through normal routes.

As someone who's been to grad school and gone through the native job hunting process here, I can resolutely say that there is absolutely no problem with doing a 2 year masters here (in which case you're likely to get a small starting pay boost like kitakitsune mentioned). However, what you said certainly holds true often for people who go onto PhDs, just like in the west (perhaps maybe more severe).

Basically:

Masters = further education
PhD = training for academia

vix86 Wrote:@kitakitsune: I added your own side to the story to the Grad post.

chelseaz17 Wrote:What about if I just want to experience uni life in Japan, I'm not planning to work here. And especially if you live in an Asian country, wouldn't that be better than most of the degree you would get in your country even if it is not a degree from Tokyo uni because you would at least learn sufficient Japanese enough for work.

I wouldn't say there is any certainty on this. There are many small universities in Japan that may be no better than the universities in Thailand. I should note that Japanese universities are focusing heavily on people like you though. The international programs they are creating are a little more aimed at pulling in more students from the surrounding regions than say students from the UK or the US.

Still, determining whether its better or not though, is a hard call for anyone to make here. What are you going to do with your degree? Do companies in your country feel that universities in your country are poor and turn out bad students? Do they hire and pay students that attended schools in China or Japan more? If you are moving to another country and potentially paying a lot more out of your savings to do it, then you need to make sure the cost-benefit is at least even.

Well I'm pretty sure you would get a better pay if you have a degree from another country and Japanese company does pay a lot more than the Thai. Of course you would earn more if you have a degree from USA or England, but I believe the reason for most people to choose Japan is their desires and that can't be interchange. Plus the difference wouldn't even be that much, I guess.

dizmox Wrote:As someone who's been to grad school and gone through the native job hunting process here, I can resolutely say that there is absolutely no problem with doing a 2 year masters here (in which case you're likely to get a small starting pay boost like kitakitsune mentioned). However, what you said certainly holds true often for people who go onto PhDs, just like in the west (perhaps maybe more severe).

Basically:

Masters = further education
PhD = training for academia

Added to Grad Post. Thanks.

I guess it's better to post here than to post new topic.
Does anyone know anything about 2-year MSc in Management at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (NUCB)? They got some information about MBA program on their site, but almost nothing about pre-experience Masters.
Supposedly, it is possible to land an entry-level job after that considering fluent Japanese.

OP makes very important points. Especially the "know your why".

If you are fortunate enough to have grown up in an English speaking country, I would strongly recommend you do not go to Japan as an undergraduate, unless there is a very compelling reason to do so (family background, etc.). Universities in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. are the best in the world. In many respects, you are better off attending a not-famous, "third rate" university in the English speaking world than attending one of the best in Japan. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.

If you are majoring in something related to Japan and want to attend a university there, I suggest you try...

1. A year long exchange as an undergraduate.
2. Get a scholarship and go for a year as a research student while actually officially a graduate student somewhere else.
3. Get a scholarship and do masters before leaving to do a PhD back home or elsewhere (OK if the masters will be a plus for the next step, i.e. you are doing something Japan related, and also if you don't mind being poor for a very long time).

Something else regarding PhD's I don't think the OP mentioned (pardon if I missed it), but it is also not unusual for people to quit after three or four years of PhD research and then get a job (中退). This is not necessarily seen as a sign of failure in Japan, especially if you were studying at a prestigious university. After working as an assistant professor or something for few years and getting more experience, they may submit their thesis for examination then. It is a bit of an extreme example maybe, but in the case of the research dept. I was attending, only one person had successfully taken a PhD in the fifteen years it had been up and running. This is another example of how the Japanese system is very domestically oriented. If you don't intend to live and work in Japan for a substantial amount of time after graduating, shooting for a PhD in Japan may leave you without even a completed, submitted thesis to your name at the end of it, and in the rest of the world that is a sign of failure.

I'd like to bump this underrated thread because I really like it, and because I want to explain my situation, too.

I'm studying at the third year of Electronic Engineering in one of the best universities of my country (Italy).
I really, really want to go to Japan and study there, I'm ready to commit myself and work hard all day (which I'm already doing).
Yes, my dream is to study in Japan. Absolutely.


Now, I've thought a lot about it, and in the end I've got 2 choices:

1) ask my university (in January) for an exchange program of maximum one year, probably without any scolarship.
This option is a sure hit, because apparently nobody from my course would like to go there.

2) apply (in March) for the MEXT scolarship, the 2-year/Graduate version, probably the embassy way as my marks are not outstanding.
This option is risky, I don't really know what the chances are, neither how many scolarships are given every year in my field.


There's a problem: being accepted to the former may prevent me to apply for the latter, so I really don't know what to do. I'm gathering all the informations I can before I have to choose, in the meantime I'm trying JLPT N1 in December, which I hope will give me a little boost for the application.

I wrote all this stuff for you guys of koohii.com because I really like you, and your advice has always been a huge help for my japanese studies and my life in general, so any answer will be highly considered and appreciated.

Something you could do is email the Japanese embassy in Italy and ask them how many MEXT Research slots they had last year and how many people applied. There's no guarantee they'll tell you (in fact I kind of doubt it), but they might, especially if they've been having trouble filling them.

Something to keep in mind is that going to Japan on exchange won't disqualify you in anyway for the research scholarship. The most it will do is make it difficult to apply for 2016's round. I don't know when Italy's application cycle opens up (EDIT: Looks like March-April?), but you could easily check on the website or email the embassy asking what last year's was.

Assuming the deadline is in the Summer, you might be able to return to Italy if you are accepted for the second round in the application cycle. That will be exams and interviews. Here in the US, the exams and interviews were done the same day at the nearby consulate. Again, this is something you'll want to inquire at the embassy about. Explain your situation and ask about what it was like last year because the embassy probably won't have any idea how it will be this year (it will probably be the same as last year). Doing it this way will depend heavily upon how the embassy handles the process, ie: do they do exams and interviews at the same time, or do they do exams and then interviews weeks later? It'll also depend on the dates for when classes start at your exchange school. If you go this route, talk to the office that handles the exchange programs and explain what you are trying to do and try and find out what day classes would start up after summer break.

A couple more things. If the exchange school you might be going to is good and you think you'd want to do your grad work there, then I highly recommend investigating the faculty there and talking to them (in-person). You might be able to pull off a university recommended MEXT scholarship instead of an embassy scholarship. The university recommendation tends to be harder to get and is more academic but the professor's/advisor's recommendation has some weight in the decision process.

In the meantime, I would recommend googling in Italian cyberspace and try and find blog postings or forum posts about people that did the MEXT process and were accepted. I tried but I don't know Italian and didn't see much when I tried ("borsa di studio MEXT" on Google), you'll probably have a better idea as to what to search for. If you don't find much, then move SNS, try searching on LinkedIn and see if you can find any person that received the MEXT from the embassy in Italy. Reach out to them and ask them about the process, was it competitive (did many people apply?), maybe ask for any tips.

I checked the Italian embassy's site, there's all the informations regarding last year's round.
Starts in March/April, in May there's the document inspection, in July written and oral tests and by October letter from the university. Then there's a very misterious second screening phase and in January/February 2016 the final verdict.

My plan is to skip the exchange application of this January, because unfortunately both exchange and MEXT are for the 2015/2016 year. I could in fact do the exchange in October 2015 until February 2016, come back, and go again to Japan in April 2016 (the minimum date for MEXT), but it's not really an easy option, because I'll have to cancel my enrollment in Italy's school. Probably it would be a waste of time and resources and they could not like it.

I'll probably try the previously written MEXT process, and if I fail it, I'll request the exchange program in 2016/2017. Hopefully the embassy will let me know before the end of January, which is the deadline for the exchange program.
I'll ask them soon about this and other things.

I'll also google a lot about the various solutions, and ask a couple of friends that has been in Japan with my university's exchange program. I'll also try to find past MEXT grantees (I haven't thought about it).

For now I thank you for your precious words of advice, and apologize for my rough English (I'm mainly studying it reading this site)