Zorlee Wrote:Thank you guys!
dizmox - Are you in Kyoto?

Not yet, but I'm in the same position as you. Arriving October 3rd probably.

Cool! You're doing the Japanese studies program as well? Or are you doing the research program?

I'm doing the maths Masters course.

So I'll be around for 2 years then hopefully get a job in Japan after...

One of my students is finishing a BA in Japanese currently here in the states, and was asking me about using the MEXT scholarship to go get an MA in Japanese in Japan once she graduates. I know nothing about MEXT, so did a search here to try and find some personal experiences to relay to her. Hopefully some of you guys that have gone through this/gotten the award can help me give her some answers

Is the only test applicants have to take the one by the consulate, or do they have to take the same entrance exams that would be expected of Japanese students for whichever university they go to? Sounds like she wants to go to Tokyo University, but even looking at their website I couldn't find details on how possible that is using this scholarship.

I do not have first hand knowledge, but at least at Waseda, the foreign students on a monbusho scholarship going into an MA program (in the literature department) do not take the same entrance exam as the Japanese students. There is an entrance exam, but it's different. I don't know any more detail than that.

I don't know how the embassy approach works, but if the faculty she wants to enrol in has MEXT scholarship places, she can apply via the university recommendation route which is pretty straightforward (just apply as normal and say you want to be considered for the scholarship).

I can't say in general which route has a higher success rate. My feelings are that if you're dead set on one university and are confident you're beat the competition academically/there isn't much competition, go through the university recommendation route.

Some universities have pages for MEXT scholarship applicants (ex. http://www.ic.keio.ac.jp/en/study/mext/index.html and http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/education/in...ship_2.htm)

I didn't get a MEXT scholarship but I read for days about it.
Here's how it goes: The student applies for the scholarship (a lot of work) which includes suggested professors (embassy prohibits contacting any prof prior to getting the embassy's acceptance letter, though some says if you ALREADY have an approval from a prof it boosts your chances, I'm still confused about this) to his country's Japanese embassy and goes through the selection process (three stages). After getting the embassy's acceptance letter, the student starts applying for universities for another acceptance letter from the university, and if I remember correctly they also try to find a university for you starting with the ones you mentioned in the application (professors).

Also, it seems the university acceptance is based heavily on the prof/adviser, if he/she says yes, then things go well, else, no!

If you notice in Keio's page they say that SOME of their schools require additional certificates such as TOFEL.

I've read somewhere that a guy was looking for a university to accept him and one replied that it required him to GO TO JAPAN and do the entrance exam before accepting him.

Finally, it's not really a straight forward process, someone was received the embassy's letter of acceptance, then it was taken from him! They said there's a shortage in money or something.

Honestly, it requires a lot of searching. The first place to start is obviously the embassy, but it's not as straightforward as it seems, so, contacting a prof or someone from the embassy who knows how the system works (this is the best thing to do!), then searching online forums (Gaijinpot has many people who applied) can be helpful.

undead_saif Wrote:which includes suggested professors (embassy prohibits contacting any prof prior to getting the embassy's acceptance letter, though some says if you ALREADY have an approval from a prof it boosts your chances, I'm still confused about this)

I've never seen anything that prohibits you from contacting professors (I did that and I'm here). Vix posted something earlier but I'm pretty sure they're talking about contacting the administration or admissions offices of the college. You need letters from there eventually, but not at the first stage, so they're telling you that you don't need to contact them until you've actually been accepted.

I'm not sure what you mean by an "approval"; what I had was a letter basically saying "If yudantaiteki comes to the university, I can help him with his research."

It does seem like a ridiculously tangled and confusing process. I guess I'll just tell her to contact the embassy/university directly since I can't get any firm answers searching. Tokyo University's page for international students says they have to take the same entrance exams as Japanese citizens to enter into a grad program, yet the MEXT page for the school has no mention of entrance exams.

Would be good to have a clear answer on the contacting a university prof, though, since I'll likely be the one she asks to proofread her letter for her. The school's page for MEXT says this:

Quote:"Important!
Previously, applicants were required to contact a faculty of the university they wished to enroll in, obtain an informal consent of acceptance and apply directly with the Embassy or Consular Office concerned. Please note that from the 2006 application, only applicants who have passed the preliminary screening at the Embassy or Consular Office need to obtain an informal consent of acceptance or a certificate of admission."

Am I correct in interpreting that as "You don't HAVE to get a letter from a professor until you've completed preliminary screening, but you can contact them beforehand if you so choose"?

I don't know the specifics about MEXT. But regardless of the grant/fellowship you're going to apply for, it's essential to contact your prospective supervisor before you apply to the school. If anything, you must tell them what you're interested in and discuss your research project first. Professors aren't always ready to supervise a random stranger who came to the lab suddenly. Any grad school strongly encourages prospective students to talk to professors way before enrollment. Make sure your perspective supervisor accepts you if the MEXT thing goes well and you get accepted by the school.

It's ridiculous to forbid to contact professors. What if the professor takes a sabbatical next year? What do you do if it turns out that he's moving to a different school? How can you be sure your professor isn't going to change their research project drastically next year? Make sure everything is ok before you apply. Fellowships and the like usually ask you to contact your prospective professor. Some even require you to submit a written letter from professors. Forbidding it is utterly ridiculous.

Talk to professors and make them want you as a grad student. That's a must. Besides, if the MEXT thing doesn't go well, the professor might have a grant to support their grad students from overseas. Since she's going to apply to University of Tokyo, chances are pretty good.

Don't send the same general letter to a bunch of professors though. Professors are sick of those copy&pasted emails.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I've never seen anything that prohibits you from contacting professors (I did that and I'm here). Vix posted something earlier but I'm pretty sure they're talking about contacting the administration or admissions offices of the college. You need letters from there eventually, but not at the first stage, so they're telling you that you don't need to contact them until you've actually been accepted.

I'm not sure what you mean by an "approval"; what I had was a letter basically saying "If yudantaiteki comes to the university, I can help him with his research."

What I meant with approval is what you said.

This is from the embassy in my country website: "Important: Any contact with a Japanese professor without the Embassy's approval is not acceptable." (http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/eng_pa...ship11.htm)

I'm sure they changed it this year! It was something like what I wrote earlier. Either way there's a rule for contacting prof.

Aijin Wrote:It does seem like a ridiculously tangled and confusing process. I guess I'll just tell her to contact the embassy/university directly since I can't get any firm answers searching. Tokyo University's page for international students says they have to take the same entrance exams as Japanese citizens to enter into a grad program, yet the MEXT page for the school has no mention of entrance exams.

Someone here mentioned that MEXT scholarship bypasses the entrance exam, not all international students have a MEXT scholarship. No source, sorry!

Edit:
@magamo Thanks! That was indeed insightful!

undead_saif Wrote:What I meant with approval is what you said.

This is from the embassy in my country website: "Important: Any contact with a Japanese professor without the Embassy's approval is not acceptable." (http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/eng_pa...ship11.htm)

I'm sure they changed it this year! It was something like what I wrote earlier. Either way there's a rule for contacting prof.

The rules and process differ from country to country (and even from consulate to consulate); I checked the 2013 application rules and forms for the Detroit (US) consulate and it doesn't mention anything about contacting professors, although apparently some of the other consulates say you shouldn't contact "the university".

undead_saif Wrote:This is from the embassy in my country website: "Important: Any contact with a Japanese professor without the Embassy's approval is not acceptable." (http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/eng_pa...ship11.htm)

Are you sure you're looking at the correct page? Since forbidding any contact sounds so ludicrous, I checked the Japanese embassy's website for MEXT 2013 myself:

http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/Englis...arship.htm

The MEXT page I found seems different from the one you linked to. Actually it forwards you to the general page for MEXT applicants from every country, not Jordan specifically. Your page seems to be a special program specific to Jordan. Your link doesn't say anything about MEXT either. I understand a strict rule about contacting prospective supervisors etc. may make sense if it's a particular scholarship of some exchange student kind that is only available to citizens of a specific country like the one you linked to; the application process can be very different. But the no-contact rule is absurd if you go through the usual application process for a general grant/fellowship.

magamo Wrote:

undead_saif Wrote:This is from the embassy in my country website: "Important: Any contact with a Japanese professor without the Embassy's approval is not acceptable." (http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/eng_pa...ship11.htm)

Are you sure you're looking at the correct page? Since forbidding any contact sounds so ludicrous, I checked the Japanese embassy's website for MEXT 2013 myself:

http://www.jordan.emb-japan.go.jp/Englis...arship.htm

The MEXT page I found seems different from the one you linked to. Actually it forwards you to the general page for MEXT applicants from every country, not Jordan specifically. Your page seems to be a special program specific to Jordan. Your link doesn't say anything about MEXT either. I understand a strict rule about contacting prospective supervisors etc. may make sense if it's a particular scholarship of some exchange student kind that is only available to citizens of a specific country like the one you linked to; the application process can be very different. But the no-contact rule is absurd if you go through the usual application process for a general grant/fellowship.

This is from the site you've linked: "No direct contact with the professor before embassy approval."
Thanks for showing that page!

undead_saif Wrote:This is from the site you've linked: "No direct contact with the professor before embassy approval."

Like I said, it's a Jordan thing, right? That line is under the "Local Regulations." And the groval page for MEXT linked from there doesn't seem to say anything like that. Because Aijin's friend is going to apply from the US, that local rule is irrelevant. Your country seems to have a special treaty or something about sending students to Japan. It doesn't seem like it was called MEXT until this year anyway. Aijin's friend should follow local regulations of her country if there's any.

@magamo I just wanted to show that there might be a rule for contacting a prof. since there's for my country

@Aijin I found these here :http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/ryugaku/boshu/1319066.htm (Thanks magamo)

"If a grantee desires to move on to a regular graduate course from a Research Student course, or to a doctoral course from a master’s course or a professional graduate course, he will be able to do so provided that he/she takes an entrance examination provided by the relevant university and passes it. To continue receiving the national scholarship after advancing to a higher level, the grantee must undergo a separate examination and be awarded an extension of the scholarship. (See 3.(2).)"

"Note 4: Entrance examinations given by a graduate school vary from one university to another. In general, applicants have to take examinations in two foreign languages, his/her major subject, and an essay test."

Just to make sure that applicant must collect as much info as she can, and contact specific universities and ask them about everything.

dizmox Wrote:I'm doing the maths Masters course.

So I'll be around for 2 years then hopefully get a job in Japan after...

Is this based solely on "hope" or do you have some solid info about working in Japan after finishing studying there, especially for a Master's graduate?

For me this would be the ideal situation.

undead_saif Wrote:Is this based solely on "hope" or do you have some solid info about working in Japan after finishing studying there, especially for a Master's graduate?

For me this would be the ideal situation.

I was talking to another company who expressed interest in having me work for them there after I graduate, but in the end that job wasn't for me. I'm pretty confident I can find somewhere to employ me before I graduate, to the same extent as a normal student.

dizmox Wrote:I was talking to another company who expressed interest in having me work for them there after I graduate, but in the end that job wasn't for me. I'm pretty confident I can find somewhere to employ me before I graduate, to the same extent as a normal student.

So you were 'talking' to aother company through a contact or did you work for it earlier and it has a branch in Japan? Or just contacting randomly?

Also, any info on what's the chance for a non-citizen to find a job before graduating?

I don't think it's easy. If you have any solid info, it would be great to know of!

Quote:So you were 'talking' to aother company through a contact or did you work for it earlier and it has a branch in Japan? Or just contacting randomly?

I contacted it with regards to a temporary job ad I saw, introducing myself and describing what I'm looking for in the future.

Honestly I can't give any general advice. Someone who has no skills and poor Japanese ability will have real trouble. Someone who is an in demand skilled professional with strong Japanese skills shouldn't have too much trouble if they look properly. It's just a matter of impressing the employer; the person behind the interviewing table.

Ok. Thank you!

Being a MEXT scholarship student for three years now, I will offer a short summary of my experience, with bullet points.

I applied through the Portuguese embassy.

essential things are:
1. you must pay for full medical exams on your own, don't skimp out anything. Find a doctor that will write the forms in English, which is more difficult than it seems outside of the US and UK.

2. You must have a recommendation letter from a former supervisor, boss, or someone superior to you that knows your work well. If you did a good job at undergraduate school, you will easily find a teacher willing to write a few good words about you in a letter. Some embassies might require letters from more than one supervisor or teacher.

3. you must do some kind of exam at the embassy itself. Depending on the country, the subjects vary. I had Japanese and English. Results of English are vinculative; Results of Japanese are not (simply to ascertain your abilities and see how interested you are about it, but you are not required to know Japanese in advance before applying, and they will not exclude you simply based on the results of the Japanese test alone).
You WILL do an interview if you pass the preliminary stage after doing the exams. This interview, along with the study plan and exam results, are extremely important. Do not be nervous, give calm, concise and clear answers to the interviewers. You might get what's called a "3 answers in 3 minutes" final assault: this is used in some job interviews in japan, as well as some university entrance exam interviews. They ask you three questions in a row, and give you three minutes to answer all of them, calmly and concisely. If you exceed 10 seconds no one will kill you, but more than 30 seconds might not be that good. Get used to explaining simple questions about your future plans and interests in Japan in one minute. Get used to explaining your study proposal and why it is important for Japan as well as your native country in two or 3 minutes.
P.S. approx. 30 minutes of interview, 15 in your native language and 15 in English.

3. Regarding contacting prospective professors in Japan before applying:
Until 2 years ago, it was fine to do this. I contacted my future supervisor 6 months before I applied, and he liked my proposal. I mentioned it in the interview, explaining why he had found my study topic interesting, and I believe it was a plus.
But the hordes of foreign students harassing Japanese teachers through e-mail has led many of them to complain to MEXT, which then led to them officially discouraging prospective applicants from contacting professors before passing the preliminary stage.

You have to understand, teachers are a lottery. For each one who would love to have a foreign student, regardless of his ability as a researcher, there is one or two who couldn't care less. They are often forced to put their email contacts on websites due to several circumstances, but they do dislike being contacted frequently by students who are not even sure they can get the scholarship.

Having a teacher accept you will only benefit you in the interview stage, if you can convey clearly to the interviewers what would be the merits of your research. If a Japanese teacher simply accepted you without saying anything more, it means he probably only wants the government money that he gets from accepting you, and after you arrive in Japan he might abandon you to your own luck (I've seen it happen 2 times).

What is essential is that you have an extremely well thought-out study plan, that is clear, meaningful and concise (i.e. it shows that you have a knowledge of the study field beyond average, but cutting all the unnecessary fat, and sparing the embassy staff from having to read boring and meaningless details). Make your study plan informative and appealing, well-written, not overtly simple but also not overwrought. Try to strike a meaningful balance between the two.
I did research on my own for 7 or 8 months before handing my application to the embassy. I showed my study plan to a teacher who had already supported other students to travel to Japan on different scholarships, and he pointed out some aspects in which my proposal was faltering and was blatantly incorrect. I strongly recommend you to do the same. What is the value of your research in the future for Japan or your home country? Why is Japan the only country where you could successfully conduct this research? You had better have a decent answer for these questions.

If you have a good study plan, then you don't really need to get a Japanese professor in advance, but paradoxically you will have an easier time getting a professor to accept you. If you don't have a good study plan, then in my opinion you are solely dependent on sheer luck, and you will have a hard time contacting professors and getting them to accept you.

If you really need to contact a professor in advance, here are some tips:
check his previous work and whether he has his own website. If the website has an english version, it is a good sign that he is interested in prospective foreign students. Did this teacher study abroad? Also a good sign. If not, it's not the end of the world, but create a top 3 list of professors based on these criteria: the quality of his work; the relevance of his experience for what you wish to study; his eagerness to reach out to the international community through his website.

when you do write an e-mail to your first choice, be extremely polite and with easy-to-understand English, explain who you are and where you study, how you heard of him and his work, why you are contacting him and then explain your proposal as briefly as possible, including all the juicy bits and main points. Finally, if you are considering contacting other teachers, tell him so, along with the other teacher names and universities, and say that you will only contact the other teachers if he or she declines.
Be upfront if possible. Keep it under one page, preferably half a page. If you are proficient in Japanese, good, but if not, you will screw yourself by using incorrect keigo. Use English unless you are great at Japanese. But if your research involves the usage of only Japanese documents, and that university only allows dissertations to be written in Japanese and not in English, then make sure you write the mail in your best Japanese. Ask someone in lang8 or a Japanese friend to correct your letter.

Most Japanese teachers take ages to reply to emails, or if they are in English, they often ask a student to reply for them. Many teachers do not even reply at all, unless it is a serious emergency. I was lucky, and got a positive reply within an hour. If you don't get replies, don't get discouraged, it does not mean the teacher hates you. they are just super busy. But if you try to contact them again, only do so after you've passed the preliminary phase (even if the teacher accepts you before the preliminary phase, send a short email after you pass that phase to keep him updated and show you are committed to being his student). Do NOT, DO NOT bother them with regular emails. If you have further questions about your candidacy, contact the secretary at the department that you wish to apply for.

Finally, when you come to Japan, your method for entering the master or doctor course varies wildly. In most cases, you will spend a year as a research student, and near the end of that period you will have to do 1 or more exams and an interview to officially enter as a graduate student. Some teachers might exempt the student from such exams, but they must write a recommendation letter and other procedures. Very few teachers will do this for a student they barely know, so do not count on it.

As soon as you arrive in Japan, in the first three days you might need to fill the paperwork for extending the scholarship beyond the research student period. I know I had to. Make sure you are completely informed (by the secretary or office for international students of the university you are applying to) of all the necessary paperwork you need to do and submission deadlines before you take the airplane to Japan. If you get assigned a tutor (some guy from the same lab as you), use and abuse his services. They get paid for helping you, and few students know this. In reality, many tutors simply suck the money but invent excuses not to help you more. Try to avoid such a situation at all costs. Sure, be reasonable with his or her time, but do not hesitate in contacting him or her for any doubts you may have.

Finally, there has been a case where even if you do have an acceptance letter from an university, they might withdraw it due to some bureaucratic confusion or lack of money. For this reason, some embassies recommend students to get acceptance letters from at least two universities. This is a horrible burden for students, and I did not have to do it, but if your embassy recommends you to do this, then I do as well. I've seen some pretty crazy mix-ups at the secretaries of my department, and you have sacrificed too much work on your application to suffer losing everything at the last minute due to some unknown problem. If told to, get an acceptance letter from a second university.

That's all. I cannot come here regularly, so I will not be able to reply to further questions, but I hope this long text will be enough. Each country's embassy will tell different and contradictory things to applicants. EXPECT IT!

After reading the above post, I should probably clarify about the professor issue because I realize what I've said is misleading. I did not contact the professor I'm working with out of the blue. I was introduced to someone at Waseda by my advisor, but that person is not a full professor so she wasn't able to sponsor me, and she introduced me to the person I'm currently working with. I contacted him when I was applying for Fulbright and the Japan Foundation scholarships, well before I applied for MEXT.

I would not recommend contacting a professor out of the blue before you apply. But if you have some sort of introduction I don't think it's a problem even if the consulate tells you not to do it. Of course if you want to be super safe you shouldn't do that but if you have an introduction and know the professor has dealt with foreign students in the past it's unlikely he'll complain.

(Honestly if you're in the PhD stage and trying to get this award I wouldn't recommend even applying if you have no idea where in Japan you want to go or who you want to work with. If you're at MA or bachelor it's probably OK.)

BTW, what does "vinculative" mean?

EDIT:

Quote:Finally, there has been a case where even if you do have an acceptance letter from an university, they might withdraw it due to some bureaucratic confusion or lack of money. For this reason, some embassies recommend students to get acceptance letters from at least two universities.

Yes, this is probably recommended to everyone. I didn't do this because Waseda accepts a lot of MEXT students and has a long record of working with foreign graduate students so I didn't think there was much chance they would withdraw the offer.

bebio Wrote:Being a MEXT scholarship student for three years now, I will offer a short summary of my experience, with bullet points.

Great post, after writing the above I wanted to add a little more to some of these points.

Quote:What is the value of your research in the future for Japan or your home country? Why is Japan the only country where you could successfully conduct this research? You had better have a decent answer for these questions.

This is very important. I mentioned this on the blog post I wrote and linked to earlier, but if you are planning on doing relatively high-level research in Japanese in Japan, I think you should also write your plan in Japanese (at least the US consulates accept both English and Japanese plans). Not only is it good practice but it helps prepare you to talk about your research in Japanese.

Quote:If you are proficient in Japanese, good, but if not, you will screw yourself by using incorrect keigo. Use English unless you are great at Japanese.

Depending on the situation, I think it can be a good idea to write your initial e-mail in Japanese if you can get it checked by a knowledgeable native speaker, even if the result is beyond your ability to write alone. Your actual ability will become clear in subsequent e-mails.

Also it should be emphasized again that there are big differences based on what you're doing with MEXT -- it sounds like you are getting a degree from a Japanese university whereas I'm just doing a research period and then going back to the US, so our experiences and applications are probably very different.

bebio Wrote:Finally, when you come to Japan, your method for entering the master or doctor course varies wildly. In most cases, you will spend a year as a research student, and near the end of that period you will have to do 1 or more exams and an interview to officially enter as a graduate student. Some teachers might exempt the student from such exams, but they must write a recommendation letter and other procedures. Very few teachers will do this for a student they barely know, so do not count on it.

As soon as you arrive in Japan, in the first three days you might need to fill the paperwork for extending the scholarship beyond the research student period. I know I had to. Make sure you are completely informed (by the secretary or office for international students of the university you are applying to) of all the necessary paperwork you need to do and submission deadlines before you take the airplane to Japan. If you get assigned a tutor (some guy from the same lab as you), use and abuse his services. They get paid for helping you, and few students know this. In reality, many tutors simply suck the money but invent excuses not to help you more. Try to avoid such a situation at all costs. Sure, be reasonable with his or her time, but do not hesitate in contacting him or her for any doubts you may have.

Holy smokes this was a very informative post, but the above quoted section is probably the most informative I have seen to date. There is very little out there in the way of explaining moving from being a simply research student to a full blown student while on the MEXT.

When you say exams, do you mean that you will probably have to take the entrance exams?

Again, thanks for such a great post.