Scholarship FAQs

Please allow up to one month after the closing deadline to hear back from the team regarding the outcome of your application.

During this time, the team may ask for further information or clarification on details you have shared – this is to gather information as part of the review process and isn’t an indication as to the success of your application.

This is part of the eligibility criteria for some scholarships, and this means only students who begin their first year of study within that academic year are eligible.

Foundation year students or students who are in their second year of study but have transferred to Surrey for the first time from another University are not eligible.

Yes, you can apply for multiple scholarship opportunities that are advertised, should you meet the eligibility criteria.

It is possible to be in receipt of multiple scholarship/bursary awards at the same time, however, please do carefully read the eligibility criteria of any scholarship that you are applying for, as specifics will be stated there.

We want to be able to support as many students as possible, so please do let us know on your application form if you are in receipt of any other funding, and we will check this with the relevant teams.

You do not need to have an offer confirmed with the University of Surrey before applying.

Most scholarships managed by the Advancement Team are not awarded until semester 1 has begun, which means we can verify if you have joined the University of Surrey as a student as part of the application review process.

If there are any specific criteria linked to offer holder status, this will be mentioned in the eligibility criteria information. 

Typically, there is one award available per scholarship, however this will be stipulated within the scholarship information page on the online application form and on the web page.

There are some examples of multiple awards being available under one scholarship.

We use the Student Finance England portal to verify your household income only for scholarships that have this specified within their eligibility criteria.

Please ensure that you have updated your sharing preferences with the Student Loans Company to enable us to verify your household income, as there is no alternative way to verify this fairly. You can do this by contacting the Student Loans Company directly on 0300 100 0607 (open Monday to Friday, 8am–7pm) and requesting that your information be shared with the University of Surrey.

If we are unable to verify your household income in this way during the application review stage, we will be unable to consider you for the scholarship.

For scholarships dedicated to supporting care-experienced students, we will need to verify their care-experienced history. This can be done in two ways:

• The student provides a confirmation document that outlines the dates they were in care and the type of care they were in (this document will need to be from either a Case Manager/Officer, a Doctor, a family member of someone from a Local Authority Office/County Council).

The student provides the name and contact details of a nominated individual that we can contact on their behalf to verify their care-experienced history. This person should be someone mentioned in the above bullet point.

Most of the WP criteria is self-declared, however we may ask for further information throughout the application review phase.

You can check your postcode online to find out if you are from a Low Participation Neighbourhood (LPNs, defined as POLAR4 Quintiles 1 and 2 by OfS) and/or from an area of high deprivation (Index of Multiple Deprivation IMD, Quintiles 1 and 2). You can access the postcode checker online.

This can vary depending on the scholarship being awarded. Typical methods of assessing applications include:

• Using the Widening Participation (WP) criteria weighting system (a score is allocated per WP criteria and then applications are ranked and reviewed from the highest scoring application). This is in line with the metrics used by the Student Success & EDI Team.
• Anonymised eligible applications are sent to external Trustees for review.

A selection panel is formed of colleagues from the Advancement Team and/or the applicable Faculty to review and award.

Please get in touch with the contact on the application form or the scholarship web page information to let the team know.

You can get in touch at any point should you no longer wish to progress with your application or if there is anything you would like to update.

Due to the volume of applications we receive, we will not be able to provide individual feedback.

However, you will receive an email notifying you of the outcome of your application and will be signposted to other support and resources available across the University.

If you meet the eligibility criteria of a scholarship/bursary, you are welcome to apply again in the future.

Most scholarships are paid in two instalments (for example, a scholarship worth £4,000 per academic year will be paid in two instalments of £2,000). The first instalment will typically be paid in semester 1 (November) and the second instalment paid in semester 2 (February). It is not possible to request the full amount in one instalment.

For scholarships/bursaries that are a one-off award, payment will be made in one instalment within one month of being awarded.

The payment model will be outlined on the scholarship application forms and web page information.

If you are awarded a scholarship through the Donor Relations Team, you will be asked to review, sign and return a Recipient Agreement.

This agreement will ask for your contact information (so we can stay in touch), payment details (so we can ensure you receive your funding) and outline support we may need from you. This can include but is not limited to:

• Submitting a thank you message for the donor(s).
• Submitting insights of your experiences and the impact of the funding you received for end of year reports.
• Attending any opportunities to meet your donor(s).
• Actively engaging with the Surrey Scholars Community.
• Responding in a timely manner to any communication from the team.

With these expectations in mind, we do appreciate and understand that you will have other commitments and responsibilities that you will need to balance alongside your studies. Therefore if you are successful in being awarded a scholarship and are unable to commit to any of the conditions set-out in your recipient agreement, please do speak with the team as soon as you can (this will not impact your funding, but will help the team understand your ability to contribute to the conditions). 

Please contact the Donor Relations Team at donorrelations@surrey.ac.uk.

Please note that a few teams award funding across the University – the best point of contact for each scholarship should be listed on the application form and/or scholarship web page information.