When I applied for my scholarship, one of the things I was genuinely worried about was whether I would secure university admission before the scholarship deadline.

I was dealing with two processes at the same time: applying for university admission and completing the scholarship application. I wasn't sure how the timelines would work out, or whether I would have an admission offer in time.

Now that applications have opened again, I've had several applicants reach out to me with exactly the same concern.

So, I thought I would share what I actually did.

I started with the scholarship website

The first thing I did was go back to the main scholarship website and read through the information carefully.

I wanted to understand the requirements, the timeline and the different stages of the application before making any decisions.

From there, I used the Find a Course option on the scholarship website. I entered my current BSc course, and it generated a list of related MSc programmes and the universities offering them.

I shortlisted the ones that interested me and went to the individual university websites to read through the course details.

After comparing the programmes, I selected the three that appealed to me most and applied for admission to all three.

Then I discovered I needed referees

While completing the university applications, I realised that I needed referees.

So, I paused and reached out to potential referees.

While waiting for their responses, I continued completing the sections of the applications that I could.

That was when I encountered a problem I hadn't expected.

I couldn't remember the exact date I started my BSc.

I started looking for my admission letter, but I couldn't find it.

Lol.

Eventually, I figured out the date.

Then I had another question: what should I use as my course end date?

For that, I used my convocation date. For the date my degree was awarded, I used the exact date on my award letter.

These might seem like small details, but when you're trying to complete multiple applications within a deadline, they can take up more time than you expect.

I didn't wait for everything to be ready

My referees were still taking their time.

I followed up with them and kept calling to remind them about the urgency, but the references still didn't come through immediately.

Rather than allowing that to hold up the entire process, I moved on to the scholarship application.

I started working through the scholarship questions while waiting.

Once the references eventually came in, I completed the admission applications and continued with the scholarship application.

By the time the scholarship submission deadline arrived, I had received three conditional offers of admission from the three universities I had applied to.

What I would say to applicants now

I've had quite a few conversations with applicants who are worried about managing university admission and the scholarship application within the same timeline.

I understand the concern because I had it myself.

But my experience showed me that the two processes can be worked on alongside each other.

If you already have your transcript and original degree result, my advice would be to start looking for suitable courses and applying for admission while you work on your scholarship application.

You may have to chase referees.

You may discover that you don't remember information you thought you would.

You may need to search for old documents.

You may have to compare different courses and universities before deciding where to apply.

I experienced all of that.

What helped me was simply keeping the parts of the process that I could control moving, rather than waiting for everything to fall into place before starting the next step.

So, if you're currently worried that you won't secure admission before the scholarship deadline, I hope my experience gives you some perspective.

I was worried about the same thing.

I started early, worked on both applications alongside each other, and eventually had three conditional offers before the scholarship deadline.

Your journey will be different from mine, but hopefully, knowing how I approached that period will help you decide how you want to approach yours.

A life of probity is worth living.

— Probity