10 Best Scholarships for Blooming MBA Specialization

Scholarships play an important part in your financial planning when going for an MBA. Most graduate business school degrees are expensive. Top MBA programs in the United States or Germany, or Canada, for example, can cost upward of $100,000.

MBA schools have tried to court underrepresented minorities worldwide by providing them with scholarships. Scholarships have nowadays become abundant and common among all B-schools across the world.

Getting a scholarship becomes a tough task for students as the competition is increasing day by day.

Many students marvel at their B-school after a scholarship, while others struggle even to get a scholarship. Many online resources are available to assist you in your preparation for scoring scholarships to up your game. 

Let’s examine some of the ways to study abroad with scholarships. 

Individual business schools offer scholarships and fellowships to incoming students from various cultures.

The scholarship information is usually mentioned on the website’s page, or you will have to connect with the university administration to know more about the scholarship. It depends on the University’s guidelines. 

Listed below are various scholarships which will help in reducing the financial burden off your shoulder. 

SCHOLARSHIPS IN USA

1. Consortium Fellowship

This scholarship is one of the best-known opportunities given for scholarships. The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, since 1966, has been connecting its member schools with a more diverse set of candidates.

This is a diversity-based MBA scholarship, open to US citizens and permanent residents of any race. This scholarship commits to reducing the underrepresentation of Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans in the corporate world.

It has offered more than $465 million in fellowships to the brightest MBA students in the country. It has programs that cover full tuition and mandatory fees for two years of full-time study. 

2. Credit Suisse MBA Fellowship

This scholarship is diversity-based. Credit Suisse offers this fellowship to first-year women students focusing on investment banking, women, Hispanic/Latino, Black/African American, or Native American descent.

After qualifying for the summer internship, they receive $40,000 for the first year. After completing the internship and first year of school successfully and agreeing to continue with school and accept a full-time job offered by Credit Suisse, they will receive another $40,000 stipend to cover the rest of their education.

3. Toigo MBA Fellowship

This is both a merit-based and need-based scholarship, as it considers merit and financial need together to offer the scholarship.

The Robert Toigo Foundation selects students the summer before students begin business school.

The eligibility for this scholarship includes the students who are ethnic minorities or interested in a career in finance and want to pursue it and have been accepted to a US business school.

4. Forté Fellows Program

This is a gender-based scholarship. It is dedicated to increasing the number of women who apply and enrol on MBA programs. These programs help women to become successful entrepreneurs in future and contribute effectively to the country’s GDP.

These fellowships are a major component of the institute’s mission to decrease the underrepresentation of women in the corporate world.

The participating schools have given $142 million to more than 6,300 students, according to the data on the Forté website. You need to first apply to one of the participating schools so that your application gets considered.

5. Rotman Problem Solving Challenge

This is a merit-based scholarship. Applicants must apply the Rotman approach to problem-solving to address an issue presented to them.

First, an assignment is given to them to write an essay. Then, an event is organised, and they have to present their solution there. Participants are given a fixed time of six and a half hours to work with a team of fellow Problem Solving Challenge participants at the event.

Awards included the grand prize of a full-tuition scholarship ($90,000), a second-place prize of $60,000, and a third of $40,000.

Prizes were also awarded for three categories: best-written submission, best individual presentation, and the top four teams.

6. McGill University MBA Scholarships

This is a merit-based scholarship. McGill University provides many scholarship opportunities. Students demonstrating academic merit and outstanding leadership are given the chance to win up to $10,000.

SCHOLARSHIPS IN EUROPE

7. British Chevening Scholarships for International Students

This scholarship is given by the United Kingdom’s government, designed to help developing global leaders. The funding has been provided for almost 35 years.

Awards are offered to students in 160 countries and territories. A Chevening Scholarship normally covers university tuition fees, a monthly living allowance, an economy class return airfare to the UK, and additional grants and allowances to cover essential expenditure.

8. Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals

If you’re interested in going for an MBA in Sweden, you should consider this opportunity. According to the program’s website, those with “ambition, leadership experience and a strong professional background” can apply.

This program replaces the erstwhile Swedish Institute Study Scholarships, and its coverage is much more than the previous ones.

It aims to develop future global leaders that will contribute to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and contribute to sustainable development in their home countries.

9. INSEAD MBA Scholarships

INSEAD offers various scholarships depending on the subject. It provides 100+ types of scholarships. The average scholarship size is Euro 18.7K.

There are various portals for scholarships like geography-based, Women’s scholarships, Diversity-based, Merit and Leadership based, Financial need portfolio and Social Impact portfolio.

Programs include INSEAD Andreas Lehmann MBA ’83J Scholarship, INSEAD MBA ’75 Nelson Mandela Endowed Scholarship, and INSEAD Alexis & Anne-Marie Habib Endowed Scholarship.

10. IMD MBA Scholarships

IMD is committed to fostering diversity through merit and need-based MBA scholarships awarded to candidates who have accepted an offer to join the MBA program.

IMD provides opportunities beyond its merit scholarships. Only 40% of scholarships awarded were merit-based.

Among the programs are the Lausanne Alumni Club Merit Scholarship, Emerging Market Scholarships, the Staton Scholarship, Nestlé Scholarship for Women and Stewart Hamilton Scholarship for Women.

This is not a fixed list of scholarships. Many universities in Asia and Oceania also provide scholarships. It would help if you were very keen-eyed about where you want to land up and then look for the scholarships accordingly.

All you need to grab these opportunities is a strong academic background and the will to succeed.

Author Bio: Abhyank Srinet is a passionate digital entrepreneur who holds a Masters in Management degree from ESCP Europe.

He started his first company while he was still studying at ESCP and managed to scale it up by 400% in just 2 years. Being a B-School Alumni, he recognized the need for a one-stop solution for B-School to get in touch with schools and get their application queries resolved.

This prompted him to create MiM-Essay, a one-of-a-kind portal with cutting edge profile evaluation and school selection algorithms, along with several avenues to stay informed about the latest B-School Updates.