UK & US Full Scholarships for Malaysian Students

Overseas Scholarships

Posted by Celine Wan

Hello all,

It has been a long time since I last posted about education or anything serious, mainly because I was in university. Now that it is summer break, let me just update you all with stuff pertaining to education.

This post will be about overseas scholarships to fund your studies to the UK or US. Based on my observation, most corporate scholarships provide funding to UK and/or US because most “top 10 universities” tend to be from these countries. Please note the emphasis on “most, not all.”

Anyway the purpose of this post is because I noticed that it’s quite difficult to find all available scholarships that fully fund students abroad for their undergraduate studies. Weird, because even though there are many main websites that give you these, they are in a website that gives about hundreds of other different kinds of academic funding: some may just be partial scholarships; some are actually locals; some are to countries or courses you are not familiar with; some have already passed their deadlines or haven’t opened; and some may no longer exist such as Axiata. I don’t blame these service websites because it is only politically correct to list all available scholarships in Malaysia. In any case, if you intend to find the conventional “full scholarship to top university with Asian-approved course scholarship,” you’re in luck because I just shortlisted some of the most popular scholarships for you to apply to!

UK & US Full Scholarships for Malaysian Students / PicCredit

Below is my own version when it comes to full scholarship compilations based on popular scholarships that students tend to choose (disclaimer: popular country and popular course doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for you). I have included the most updated scholarships available to my own knowledge, so there may be a few more scholarships that fully fund students abroad. Below are the scholarships that I actually see Malaysian students in the UK (namely London) actually hold— from year one till graduation—so it’s a very credible indicator that students actually go abroad fully funded by them. I excluded university-specific sponsorships and partial bursaries because students who really need financial assistance tend to look out for the services provided by the scholarship bodies as compiled by me.

Name of Scholarship	Website	Bond	Deadline (Based on 2014)	Course	Other Details
Khazanah Scholarship	Link	Yes	March	Almost any course	Various Courses accepted
Shell Overseas Scholarship	Link	No	February	Engineering (not limited)	Various Courses accepted
Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) Scholarship	Link	Yes	July	Any Course	Application period for 7 days
Petronas Education Sponsorship Programme	Link	Yes	June	Engineering (not limited)	Various Courses accepted
Bank Negara Malaysia Sponsorship Programme	Link	Yes	March	Economics or Law	Application period for 7 days
Maybank Foundation Scholarship Award	Link	Yes	March	Social Sciences & Technology	Various Courses accepted
Sime Darby Foundation Education Scholarship Programme	Link	Yes	NA	Almost any Course	Usually Pre U sponsored first
Education Sponsorship Programme (ESP)	Link	Yes	July	Social Sciences & Technology	Various Courses accepted
Maxis Undergraduate Scholarship	Link	Yes	May	Social Sciences & Technology	For Maxis customers
Astro Scholarship Award	Link	Yes	April	Not specified	For Astro customers
UEM Scholarship	Link	Yes	April	Economics or Engineering	Application from Pre U only
Tenaga National Berhad Scholarship	Link	Yes	March	Engineering	Civil, Mechanical, Electrical only
Securities Commission	Link	Yes	April	Economics or Law	Various Courses accepted
Bank Pembagunan Scholarship	Link	Yes	July	Social Sciences & Technology	Various Courses accepted
MyBrainSc Scholarship	Link	Yes	January	Science or Maths	Degree, Masters, or PhD
Jeffrey Cheah Foundation-Sunway Group Scholarship	Link	Yes	NA	Social Sciences & Technology	Various Courses accepted
Gamuda Scholarship Award	Link	Yes	April	Engineering	Civil, Mechanical, Electrical only
MARA Scholarship	Link	No	March	Any Course	Bumiputera only

Note: There are many, many more scholarships available for Malaysian students who want to study abroad but I have filtered them according to the criteria that students tend to auto-shortlist when it comes to studying in the UK, the most popular scholars’ destination. Note that the lucrative offers given in these scholarships mean they are on the more competitive side as well.

Criteria of my filter: UK or US (most common countries to be sponsored); courses varies based on company’s need but they tend to be the conventional “Asian-approved” courses if you get what I mean (e.g Maths, Science, Econs, Law, Finance, Engineering, Medicine).

Lastly, it is worth to note the flexibility of these scholarship providers. There are many, many cases where these scholarship bodies fund students outside of the intended course they prefer to sponsor. For example there are a few students sponsored by BNM to study engineering, including me. Country of sponsorship is also something you can possibly alter. I am in no position to talk about other popular study destinations such as Australia, Canada, or Singapore because this is my own experience when dwelling in the scholarship-mania. Liked this post? Subscribe now to read more post like this one! Tweet