Top 5 Canadian Scholarships for International Students

Canada has many prospective scholarship programs for international students. If you compare them with similar programs offered by other Anglo-Saxon countries, you will be pleasantly surprised. We have created a brief but well-thought-out list of Canadian scholarships you can start working on right away.

Scholarships In Canada You can Get In 2021

#1. Vanier Canada

The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships (Vanier CGS) — attracts world-class doctoral students. The Canadian government is interested in retaining the best postgraduate students around the world. The scholarship is only towards postgraduate degrees, but international students of any nationality can apply. It is not a scholarship given by one school. You can apply to any university with Vanier CGS allocation, and there are several. Annually, up to 166 scholarships are awarded. You can get a $50.000 annual scholarship for three years. 

#2. University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowships

The University of Manitoba annually welcomes international students seeking Masters and Ph.D. degrees. You can apply for a scholarship entering any graduate degree program at this University, except for the Faculty of Medicine and MBA. UMGF Master’s awards are $14000 per year (renewed for the second year). UMGF Doctoral awards are valued at $18,000 per year (renewed for the second, third, fourth year). To be considered, you need a GPA not lower than 3.0 and full-time student status without provision. 

#3. Carleton Prestige Scholarships

If you manage to get admitted to Carleton with an admission average of 80 percent or better, and if you can initially meet language requirements, you will be automatically considered as a candidate for a renewable entrance scholarship. What about the money? Scholarship values for CAD 20,000-30,000. However, to renew a scholarship, you need to have your annual GPA of 10 (A – standing). 

#4. Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship Program at the University of Toronto

The Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship Program at the University of Toronto was established to ensure recognition of international students demonstrating excellent academic achievements along with creativity. To get this scholarship, a student should, among other requirements, show his impact on the community, connection to others, future potential to affect the global community. Every year University provides scholarships for 37 students. The scholarship covers tuition, books, incident fees, and residence support for four years.

#5. Waterloo International Master’s Award of Excellence

This scholarship program targets students willing to undertake Master’s degree programs in areas that are research-based. The process of admission is classical — based on the Faculty’s award allocation and demonstrated excellence of each candidate. The number of scholarships is not specified and varies from one year to another. The value of the scholarship is $2500 per term. You can apply for a maximum of 5 terms. 

If you want to become a top candidate for one of these scholarships, you may need to address professional writing services e.g. SmartWritingService for getting a winning custom-written scholarship essay. If you plan to write one on your own, keep reading, we have some tips for you. 

How to Write a Successful Scholarship Essay

What to do next after you have chosen the most suitable scholarship for you in Canada? You need to do everything in your capacity for that scholarship to choose you. If you don’t have much experience with it, this brief list of tips will help. Of course, an entire book can be written about preparing a scholarship essay, especially for top Canadian schools, but we decided to start with the ones everyone can follow. 

Make sure you understand a scholarship essay question/statement

You don’t write whatever comes to your head. Normally, you need to answer a question or several questions or develop a statement proposed. There is not much difference between a statement and a question. For example, a question may sound like “In which situations did you reveal your communication skills for the benefit of a group?” while the statement will go like “Situations in which you managed to reveal your communication skills for the benefit of the group.” The forms are different; the idea is the same. 

Identify the key topic and write a list of keywords for it

The rule is simple — each word in the scholarship essay question/statement is meaningful. You should make sure that your answer reflects it. For example, “In which situations did you reveal your communication skills for the benefit of a group?”. It means that you need to describe more than one situation, write only about your communication skills, not wandering towards general storytelling, that communication skills should remain the main hero of the story, and that all this in total should benefit not only, but a group of people. It sounds obvious, but more than half of students writing these essays neglect this rule and give too much space for their take on the topic. Well, they lose.

Start with a hook

The beginning is everything. Of course, a member of a scholarship committee has to read your essay, but no one ever checks how attentively he or she does it. They can just look through your paper and put it aside or get genuinely interested. You have only one or two sentences to reach this effect. If applicable, try to use a you-vector, engaging a reader into the topic. However, remember that it should not contradict the rule we talked about above—Google “hook phrases to start essays” to have more examples to choose from. 

One abstract — one thought

Remember, you are not writing a novel, which means you should keep your scholarship essay straight to the point. Canadian scholarship essays don’t differ in this sense from essays for any other Anglo-Saxon university. Brief sentences are better than long ones, dots are better than commas, verbs are better than adjectives. By the way, many people think that to add emotion to the text, they need to add more adjectives, like “serious, happy, sad, hopeful.” However, readers react much better to the verbs, as it is much easier for our brains to imagine action. 

Proofread your essay thoroughly

This shouldn’t need a reminder, but we know too many stories about good essays that were rejected because of some technical omissions and poor grammar. When the idea is good, but the execution is academically irritating, you have zero chance to win that Canadian scholarship. So, use online proofreading services before you send the final draft to a committee. 

Recycle content wisely

If you apply to more than one university, you can recycle your essay. The key idea is to recycle, not copy-paste, even if the question is almost the same. Try to adjust your writing to the topic of the scholarship essay and the character of the program, and the peculiarities of the chosen Canadian school. Do brief research — it will come in handy. 

We hope this list of Canadian scholarships available for 2021 will help you choose the most suitable program, and our tips will help create a winning scholarship essay.