Sheffield International Scholarship

There Is No Application Form — You Qualify by Accepting Your Offer on Time

Most scholarship guides tell you how to apply. For Sheffield’s International Scholarships, there is nothing to apply for:

Eligible students receive the scholarship automatically as a tuition fee discount on their invoice — no application form required.

You do not submit a form. You qualify by meeting eligibility conditions and accepting your offer before a fixed deadline.

No essays, no references, and no scholarship portal. Your only action is accepting your offer before the cutoff.

That simplicity is also the danger. Students lose the award simply by accepting their offer a week late, Sheffield is clear that nothing can be done afterwards.

It is your responsibility to ensure you receive any funding you are eligible for. Funding cannot be backdated to previous years regardless of eligibility.

The Headline for African and South Asian Applicants

International postgraduate students from the following regions are eligible for a £7,000 scholarship: India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye, and Vietnam.

Nigeria, Kenya and India are on the £7,000 list. That is a substantial automatic discount requiring no competitive application whatsoever.

The Awards

International Postgraduate Scholarship — Selected Regions

International postgraduate students from the following regions are eligible for a £7,000 scholarship.

⚠️ Pakistan and Bangladesh are not on this list. The region list is reviewed each cycle check Sheffield’s official page for the current year before assuming.

International Postgraduate Scholarship — Mainland China

Postgraduate students from mainland China are eligible for a £3,000 scholarship.

For the mainland China version, applicants must instead be permanent residents of China or have lived there for the previous three years.

International Undergraduate Scholarship

We are offering scholarships of £2,500 for each year (subject to a 60% average) of your undergraduate degree. The maximum value is £10,000 for four year programmes.

It is a fee discount, not cash. It is a tuition fee discount rather than a cash stipend.

⚠️ The Deadlines Are the Whole Game

Since there is no application, the acceptance deadline is the only thing standing between you and the money.

Postgraduate

Eligible students must accept their offer and pay the £2,000 postgraduate taught deposit before: March 22, 2027 at 5:00 PM UK time.

⚠️ You must pay a £2,000 deposit to secure a £7,000 discount. Plan your cash flow, the deposit comes months before your course starts, and the discount only appears later on your fee invoice.

Undergraduate

You must choose the University of Sheffield as your firm or insurance choice before 4pm (UK time) on 3 June 2026.

The 2027-28 deadline is expected to fall in late May or early June 2027.

⭐ Firm OR Insurance — More Generous Than Most

Compare this with Bristol’s Think Big, which requires Sheffield’s rival to be your firm choice only. Sheffield accepts insurance choice too.

That means you can hold a more ambitious university as your firm choice, keep Sheffield as insurance, and still qualify for the scholarship if you end up at Sheffield. That is a genuinely useful flexibility.

Eligibility Conditions

Core Requirements

❌ Excluded Courses

All undergraduate courses qualify except Medicine (A100/A101) and Dentistry (A200).

For scholarship purposes, all MArch programmes count as postgraduate taught and are not eligible for undergraduate scholarships.

Students studying postgraduate Diploma (PGDip) and postgraduate certificate (PGCert) courses are ineligible.

⚠️ Sponsored Students Are Ineligible

Students with external sponsorship covering their full tuition or more are not eligible, except for loans that must be repaid.

A sponsored student is defined as anyone receiving total funding from the University or an external source that matches or exceeds the required tuition fee. Government or governmental organization – international, national or regional; research council; charity; private enterprise; or any similar organization.

Loans are fine. Education loans that must be repaid do not disqualify you.

Sponsorship is not. Government scholarships, charity funding, employer sponsorship or research council funding can make you ineligible.

Important: Chevening and Commonwealth scholarships replace Sheffield fees entirely. The Sheffield automatic discount becomes irrelevant if you hold one of these awards.

If you win Chevening or Commonwealth, your fees are already covered, the Sheffield discount serves no purpose. These awards do not stack.

Undergraduate Renewal Conditions

The scholarship is applicable to each subsequent academic year of study, subject to achieving 60% (wmg) or above and achieving a minimum of 120 credits in the previous academic year.

⚠️ The scholarship is not applicable to any compulsory or optional years in industry, work placements or year abroad.

Placement years and study-abroad years are not funded. If your degree includes a compulsory year in industry, you receive nothing for that year, which is why a four-year programme yields £10,000 rather than more.

⚠️ The Award Cannot Be Deferred

This scholarship cannot be deferred to a future year of entry. If you decide to defer entry to another year you forfeit this award.

The scholarship cannot be deferred to a future year for admission to the University.

Defer your place and you forfeit the scholarship. You would need to requalify in the new cycle.

Honest Cost Planning

Sheffield’s awards are modest discounts, not funding packages. The arithmetic matters.

Postgraduate Example (£7,000 award — Nigeria, Kenya, India)

Sheffield is one of the UK’s more affordable student cities meaningfully cheaper than London, Bristol or Edinburgh. That helps, but £7,000 against a £30,000+ total is a useful reduction rather than a solution.

Undergraduate Example (£2,500/year)

£2,500 per year against international undergraduate tuition of roughly £20,000–£28,000 covers around 10% of fees. Over four years, £10,000 total.

Treat these awards as a discount you receive automatically for going to Sheffield not as a reason to choose Sheffield if you cannot otherwise afford it.

Who This Suits

✅ Good fit if you:

• Are from India, Nigeria, Kenya, Vietnam, Türkiye, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea or Taiwan (postgraduate)
• Have substantially funded your studies already and want the cost reduced
• Have an education loan rather than a sponsorship
• Want Sheffield as a UCAS insurance choice with scholarship protection

❌ Poor fit if you:

• Need full funding, look at Chevening, Commonwealth or Clarendon
• Hold a government or charity sponsorship (ineligible)
• Are applying for Medicine, Dentistry, PGDip or PGCert
• Want to defer entry
• Are from Pakistan or Bangladesh (not currently on the £7,000 PG list verify)

Quick Reference

FAQ

How much is the postgraduate award?

£7,000 for students from India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam; £3,000 for mainland China.

How much is the undergraduate award?

£2,500 for each year, subject to a 60% average, up to a maximum of £10,000 for four-year programmes.

What do I actually have to do?

You qualify by meeting eligibility conditions and accepting your offer before a fixed deadline. Postgraduates must also pay the £2,000 postgraduate taught deposit before 22 March 2027, 5:00 PM UK time.

Does Sheffield have to be my firm UCAS choice?

No, firm or insurance choice both qualify.

Can I defer?

No, if you decide to defer entry to another year you forfeit this award.

Free Application Tools

• Motivation Letter: Motivation Letter Generator
• SOP / Study Plan: SOP Generator
• CV: Free CV Builder
• Reference Letter: Reference Letter Generator
• MOI Certificate (if needed): MOI Generator
• Research Proposal (PhD): Research Proposal Generator