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MEXT Japanese Studies 2017/2018

@kamalu you have some experience with Sophia? Or know someone who had? Could you maybe tell me a bit about the workload at that school, or general impressions?

Trying to find some information on the internet but it's all rather vague and I can't really get a clear image. I know it's a good school but I heard the workload can be really high.

Anyways, hoping for some results soon
 
Thank you for the details kamalu ! I sent an e-mail to the embassy, since I realized we were the only ones (?) in France receiving an acceptance mail which wasn't conditional. The embassy confirmed that "it is not impossible that your scholarship gets cancelled if you none university accept your application. However, this case is rare." And she finished the mail by "we will tell you the uni you will be placed in as soon as possible."

So, it's not impossible being rejected after the 2nd screening but extremely rare. Even if I believe that the unis have no reason rejecting us since the ministry has accepted our application, I can't help worrying, gonna try not to think about that too much...
 
JpStudies: A schoolmate wrote a whole blog about her experience in Sophia University through the same scholarship as us, but the blog is in French. If you want, I can translate the most dimportant posts when I have time :)
 
@Oaneyl hey Thanks for your reply, if you have time and could translate the important posts that would be really cool! I just want to find out as much information as I can, since I want to know how others experienced certain universities. Of course i'm not sure if I can go yet, but just finding information keeps me busy somehow haha! Thanks again!
 
JpStudies: No prob, if I remember well, the posts are about the dormitories, the placement tests and so on. I don't know if I will have time now because of my job, but I will try to make a translation by this week-end. Don't hesitate to recall me if I forget.

Edit to all: I guess you all gonna register in your home country as a Japanese major student (whithout attending classes as well). Is your uni ok to make you pass all your exams as if you were attending (by "compensation"? I don't know if we say that in English...) or will you be forced to attend the same year of study when you come back to your home country? The unis in France don't want us to pass our exams in Japan but I know that in some countries it's possible. Find this pretty unfair, but still...
 
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@Jpstudies I do not have any firsthand experience with Sophia, though I do know someone that attended there. The workload (for him) was relatively light and he had enough free time to join circles and socialize with other people. Take this information with a huge grain of salt though as one person's "light" can be another person's "heavy". My info on Sophia is a bit vague as well, so hopefully Oaneyl can find something more concrete.

@Oaneyl I had the exact same response from my embassy. Passing the second screening does not necessarily guarantee a 100% chance of getting into a school in Japan, as there is a small possibility that no schools will be able to accept you. That being said, however, no one has ever been rejected after passing the second screening, at least through our embassy.

If I'm not mistaken Oaneyl, I think that what you're referring to is whether or not we will receive credit for the classes taken in Japan at our home institution. In the US at least, I would say that it varies based on the university. For my university a lot of it is dependent upon the content of the courses - if the content of a class in Japan is similar enough to a course at my home university then it's likely that I will receive credit for it. In my case, I decided to choose Japanese universities that already have other exchange programs with my university, which should hopefully increase the chance that courses will carry over.
 
OMG guess what? I've just got an email from Doushisha telling me that I was accepted xD I'm really happy. They did tell me that I probably haven't received any notice from the embassy but that I was officially accepted by Doushisha and that they already informed MEXT about it.
It was my first choice.
And they already told me that I'm leaving for Japan either on the 5th or the 6th of September.
 
@alchie Congratulations! You must be really happy!! Sounds awesome you got your first choice as well!!

I'm still in the dark and it really sucks hearing everyone get messages.. Maybe I didn't pass.. maybe I just don't get contacted until the end of July... who knows. Just hoping for a good result.
 
Alchie: OMG Congrats !! You applied through uni recommendation right ? That's certainly the reason why you got the results that "early". Really happy for you !

JpStudies: Honestly, it's still quite early to know the results, if you take a look at the past threads, you will notice that some got their results in late august. I guess the wait is pretty horrible, but it doesn't mean you won't pass. I'd say, if nobody got its results in Netherlands, then it's normal you don't get anything.

Kamalu: I don't remember, were applying through uni recommendation ?
 
Thanks everyone.
@Oaneyl I got through the embassy recommendation. I think that Kamalu got the same e-mail since he also got in Doushisha. Btw Kamalu which dorm are you chosing?
Alchie: OMG Congrats !! You applied through uni recommendation right ? That's certainly the reason why you got the results that "early". Really happy for you !

JpStudies: Honestly, it's still quite early to know the results, if you take a look at the past threads, you will notice that some got their results in late august. I guess the wait is pretty horrible, but it doesn't mean you won't pass. I'd say, if nobody got its results in Netherlands, then it's normal you don't get anything.

Kamalu: I don't remember, were applying through uni recommendation ?[/QUOTE
 
Don't worry I didn't get the 'official' notice from the embassy either. I got en email directy from Doushisha telling me that I was officially accepted. Doushisha's program starts in early-mid September so the preparations need to be done early.
This is a part of the e-mail:
'Your local Japanese Embassy has not notified your formal placement in Doshisha University as a MEXT Scholarship Student yet.
However, we contact all the Japanese study students who will be placed in Doshisha University before the formal announcement from each embassy because the preparation of their dormitory and for accepting them is needed.'

Maybe private universities announce you earlier than the national ones. My friend who got in Todai a couple of years ago received his final answer in August.
@alchie Congratulations! You must be really happy!! Sounds awesome you got your first choice as well!!

I'm still in the dark and it really sucks hearing everyone get messages.. Maybe I didn't pass.. maybe I just don't get contacted until the end of July... who knows. Just hoping for a good result.
 
@alchie I just got finished talking with a friend about Doshisha and I am probably going to apply for Dorm Kamogawa. Once I get established in Kyoto however I am thinking about switching to Maison Iwakuni or maybe even rent my own apartment.

I went with the embassy route, but as alchie said Doshisha starts their preparations early. I got the acceptance notification from them and have not heard from my embassy yet.

Hope you guys get some good news soon!
 
@alchie I just got finished talking with a friend about Doshisha and I am probably going to apply for Dorm Kamogawa. Once I get established in Kyoto however I am thinking about switching to Maison Iwakuni or maybe even rent my own apartment.

I went with the embassy route, but as alchie said Doshisha starts their preparations early. I got the acceptance notification from them and have not heard from my embassy yet.

Hope you guys get some good news soon!
I think I am going with Mansion Iwakuni. Although it's farther away it has better conditions and a toilet included in the room. Casa Kitayama (dorm for girls only) is closer and has internet included in the rent but no toilet in the room and the bed has no mattress. :(
They also have other accomodation options, but I guess that only these three dorms are the only ones mext students can apply for.

I found this file on the internet. You can also check it to see all the options available for exchange students (page 10).
 

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My bad everyone, I thought you were applying through uni recommendation. I chose Dōshisha as my second choice but didn't receive any e-mail, don't know if it's good or bad haha...
 
My bad everyone, I thought you were applying through uni recommendation. I chose Dōshisha as my second choice but didn't receive any e-mail, don't know if it's good or bad haha...
Maybe you also got your first choice. Which was it? I guess it takes longer to get a reply from the national universities.
 
As far as I know, if you are applying to the japanese studies scholarship (undergraduate major Japanese) they don't care about your GPA. Mine is horrible (1.9) and I got accepted (don't know if the uni will accept me, but the ministry did).

Alchie: I hope I got my 1st choice but Doshisha may not know it, I don't know... I mean, I'm wondering if I'm not going to Doshisha because they know my first choice already accepted me or just because they don't like my application. No idea. My first choice is Osaka Daigaku, the same as Kyrie if I remember well.
 
Just in case you didn't know, this a thread of undergraduate student studies majoring in Japanese studies. If you are looking for the graduate thread, it's the wrong one :)
 
Alchie: I hope I got my 1st choice but Doshisha may not know it, I don't know... I mean, I'm wondering if I'm not going to Doshisha because they know my first choice already accepted me or just because they don't like my application. No idea. My first choice is Osaka Daigaku, the same as Kyrie if I remember well.
I think that my colleague's first choice was also Osaka, and I don't think she has received any notice yet. I barely speak with her anyway.
 
My embassy just contacted me requesting a copy of my passport page so that they could "begin arranging [my] ticket to Japan"! Interesting, considering I haven't heard anything from my individual schools yet. It makes me hopeful that the embassy received some news that they'll hopefully be sharing soon!!
 
@HikariKaitou : Cool ! It seems to take shape for you, that's a good thing !

@Jpstudies : Here is the link of the blog I was talking about. It's all in french, but if you want to take a look at some photos, or I don't know, feel free to. I roughly translated the most important parts of some posts:

Sophia University : In this post she explains how to apply through MEXT, I don't translate all the post because we all already know how to, but the last part is about the dormitory in Sophia: "It takes about 50 minutes to go from the dorm to the uni. I have a single room of 15m², the bathrooms and the kitchen are shared. The rent is 40,000 yens/ month."

Sophia University & Shibuya [19/09/2015] : "My arrival in Japan went all right, a little bit hard with 3 wallets to carry, but fortunately, a friend of mine was here to help me. Otherwise, I think I would have recourse to the shipping of my luggage to Japan, a fast and cheap way. Talking about my dorm, I have been welcome as soon as I arrived in the hall. I think I got the keys like 3 minutes after my arrival. My room is located at the 4th floor. It's quite spacious, with a lots of storage units. I met a lots of the other students, most of them don't speak japanese at all. I've not visited the campus yet, but I went for a walk around the neigborhood, which is really nice. The streets are quite narrow, everything is very clean. The supermarket is 5 mn by walk from the dorm, there's also a 100 Yen in the area, that's perfect."

Le logement ♥ : There's nothing to translate here, but if you want to take a look at some photos of the dorm... Click on the link to see more photos.

Welcome Party & Akihabara [22-24/09/2015] : "The 22nd of September, we got the orientation test for all the new foreign students. The test is mandatory to be placed in the right classes regarding our level. As usual, the test was split into 3 parts, beginner, intermediate, and advanced and as usual I found the beginner part super easy, and the advanced part super hard. For students like me, there are two different programs: "regular program" (90 minutes of japanese class a day + other classes in english) or "intensive program" (3h of japanese class a day). I decided to choose the intensive one, and we were a lot to choose the same, maybe the majority. The teacher was quite surprised and remind us that the intensive program was really hard and that if we wanted, we could change our mind whenever we wanted. In this program, there are 4 different classes depending on our level. The aim of the class I will attend is to make us get an advanced level. I go to school only in the morning, from 9:15 AM to 12h30 PM everyday. After the test, all the new students got invited to a welcome party, and there were a lot of people ! Each person got a name tag with its nationality. Some teachers introduced themselves and delivered a speech (time after time in English, I'm glad I have a good level in English). There were also activities and a buffet, it was delicious. They offered us a calligraphy demonstration and a dance prestation (similar to the idols' ones, really famous in Japan). Spent a good time."

This is the most important I noticed. Sorry for the mistakes, I'm exhausted and don't have enough courage to read over myself haha. As far as I know, she loved her stay there, I hope you will get this choice, I'm sure you will have a good time there !
 
@Oaneyl Thank you for translating the most important parts! It seems like she had a really good time in Sophia and that it really depends on your level, own choices and tests in regards to the level of stress. I'm gonna look on the internet for more posts or blogs regarding MEXT applicants as I find them very interesting.

I'm still waiting for any news but at this point I feel I am either going to get a message from the university before I get any results from my embassy. Anyone else going for the JLPT test tomorrow? I believe it's the date for all the countries right? Trying to keep myself busy while waiting haha!
 
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