Get ready for your Chevening Application 🚀 : A Collection of useful resources.🔖
It is that time of the year when the Chevening Application Opened! In fact it have opened for a couple of days now!
I was awarded the scholarship in 2021 and since then I have been collecting resources to help applicants crafting a strong application that will help them to be selected for the so called: most prestigious scholarship an African can dream off 🤔.
Below is a summary of key resources and guides that will assist you in navigating the application process, crafting effective essays, and increasing your chances of success. Please analyze them one by one and digest them, they answer most of the question you have about the scholarship. I will divide those resources into two, the first section will contain the blogs for the chevening application, and the second one will contains resources for the universities application.
I assume the reader of this post knows what the Chevening Scholarship is, if that is not the case start from this post.
Otherwise tokende! 🚀🚀
Part One: the Chevening Application.
0. Chevening Application Book: A Good Practical Guide.
A well-written, in-depth guide to the Chevening application, it highlights everything you need to know, from the application form to the essay. You can ignore everything else I have given here and just read the book.
1. Chevening Reading Committee Feedback
Reading Committee Feedback for Applicants:
This page directly provides insights from the Chevening Reading Committee, offering invaluable feedback to help you understand what makes a strong application. It emphasizes the importance of clarity, coherence, and demonstrating leadership and influence in your essays.
2. Step-by-Step Application Guides
Kusemeh Iseh: Step by Step-by-Step Application for Chevening.
A detailed step-by-step video guide that walks you through each part of the application process, ensuring that you don’t miss any critical steps.
You can bookmark this channel because she later gave insights on how to navigate life in the UK once you have secured the scholarship.
Cynthia Kimola Playlist: Guide on Writing the Essays.
This a a playlist that contains bite-sized videos, which help in all aspects of the Chevening essays. There is one for each part of the essay. One for leadership, one for networking, one for study in the UK, and one for return.
3. In-Depth Essay Writing Guides
This blog post provides a thorough breakdown of the essay questions you will need to answer in your Chevening application. It helps you understand what the selectors are looking for and how to structure your responses effectively.
A detailed guide on how to write compelling essays that stand out. This resource is crucial for anyone looking to make a strong impression with their written responses.
4. Chevening FAQ
This official Chevening FAQ section answers most of the common questions applicants might have. It’s a great place to start if you’re unsure about any aspect of the application process.
5. Tips and Personal Experiences
7 Winning Tips for Chevening Scholarship Application
In this article, Olanrewaju Gideon shares his personal experience and provides seven practical tips to help you craft a winning Chevening application.
Olanrewaju Gideon’s Twitter Thread
A Twitter thread where Olanrewaju shares additional insights and advice on applying for the Chevening Scholarship, offering a quick yet informative read.
6. Essential Resources
This blog post is highlighted as one of the most crucial resources for understanding and tackling the Chevening application. It provides a detailed analysis of the essay questions and what you need to convey in your answers.
7. Sample Essays.
I have some sample essays in my Google doc, but I am not sharing them here to avoid plagiarism.
If you have written your essays and want to look at some sample essays, reach out to my inbox with your essays I will share the sample with you for more information.
9. Other tips
- Please avoid plagiarism at any cost, you can’t get away with it and you will be caught.
- Please avoid using Generative AI to generate your essays. You can use AI tools to proofread prompt it wisely, do not let it generate essays for you.
- If English is not your first language, don’t start by writing your essay in French and then translate them in English. You will end up being flag for using AI, and your essay will not look genuine. Take some time to write your essays in English and get them proofread by a native english speaker. It is a tedious process but give it a try.
Part two: The universities
In parallel to the Chevening application, you will need to submit your application to three universities of your choice.
Based on my experience, I have mixed views on British universities. I see most of them as money-making machines that, instead of being designed to provide quality education, primarily aim to profit from international students. So, be wise when choosing your university. You need to find the right balance here:
On one hand, you have top universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, etc., which are prestigious for most of their programs but are very hard to get into, especially for international students.
On the other hand, there are low-tier universities that do everything to attract international students but fail to deliver a proper education.
In between them, you can still find some decent programs in your field that are worth considering.
One day, when I’m motivated enough, I’ll write that guide on UK universities.
Here are some resources I have collected:
- Universities Ranking: I personally don’t think this ranking is accurate. For computer science schools, I recommend a ranking that considers university output (research papers by their faculty members are more accurate). That’s why for the CS field I consider this ranking.
- In order to get into a university, you need to write a statement of purpose. This is the most important guide for SOP writing.
- A couple of years ago, I wrote about my experience applying to universities. You can read about it here.
- Resource for Writing a good Statement of Purpose
- The Statement of Purpose SubReddit
That’s all I had to share on Chevening and university applications. For anyone applying for Chevening this year, good luck! If you have any other resources, feel free to add them in the comments.
Cheers, and see you next time for the interview preparation guide or any other guide for your Chevening application.
PS: If you have gone through the guide and still have questions about your application, feel free to reach out to me. I can give you 15 minutes of my time to speak with you about the application.
For now, see you next time! Cheers…