Entrance scholarship applications are now open (July 1 – Aug 15).

Accommodation application window is 1 Aug – 30 Sept)

Scholarships

• Why scholarships? The University invests in potential, please apply, it’s free to apply and you don’t have to say yes

• Prepare https://www.otago.ac.nz/future-students/fees-and-scholarships/scholarships

• Do some reading at the prepare tile and then you can write up your application in a document before you apply. That way you can cut and paste, edit, and use the information for other applications later.

• Apply to enrol (most applications for courses in 2027 open in May) before entrance scholarships open on 1 July – www.otago.ac.nz

• Go to ready to enrol tile to follow steps to create an eVision portal

• You need to select a course of study/qualification. This doesn’t commit you to coming to Otago and you can change your course later in the year

• Just enter one qualification (course or degree) for now – you can add majors and minors etc later

• Make sure you use EXACTLY the same name in your Otago application as the one that is on your NZQA records

• You need to complete the first two steps of the application for the apply now button to appear – personal details, contact details and educational background

• 1 July – applications open on-line – go to my scholarships and awards title in your portal and follow the yellow button

• 15 August – most applications close

• Range $2,000 – $45,000

• You will be awarded the highest value possible

• Range of types – academic, educational achievements, leadership, extracurricular activities, sporting, cultural, sustainability, ethnic diversity, financial and family circumstances, disabilities – fill out every field that is applicable to you

• For the high performance scholarship, you do not have continue with your sport or other activity while you are studying – the last question in this section is not a trap – if you don’t want to continue that activity, you are still eligible for that scholarship

• Tell us the full story of you and your family, not just your school results (everything is confidential and seen only by a handful of people)

• Be precise and concise and seek advice – bullet points are fine

• Select the relevant information and brag humbly

• Save your comments elsewhere so you can use them for other applications, colleges, other scholarships etc

• Select the best referee – they are vital to support you, please let them know you have chosen them. Your referees will be contacted after applications have closed

• Save your application as you go – you don’t have to do it all at once

• A good application can take two hours in total, please check your spelling

• Meet the deadline – 15 August and remember to hit the submit button

• You will receive a pop-up message and an alert in your portal when you have submitted the application – if that doesn’t happen contact the entrance scholarships team as there may be a glitch in the system – entrance.scholarships@otago.ac.nz

• Other scholarships available from the University of Otago can be found here – worth a look through these too – https://www.otago.ac.nz/study/scholarships/undergraduate

• Nationwide databases of all scholarships worth a browse too –https://studyspy.ac.nz/search/scholarships & https://www.moneyhub.co.nz/students.html

FAQs and myth busters:

• You can be considered for entrance scholarships if you are going into Health Sciences First Year. The only scholarship that you would be ineligible for is the New Frontiers Excellence/Sustained Excellence Scholarship.

• Whilst the majority of our scholarships require applicants to have achieved at least NCEA Level 2 endorsed with Merit (or equivalent), we still encourage students to submit an application regardless of their Year 12 results. We take other circumstances into consideration when assessing applications.

• If you want to be considered for scholarships based on Māori or Indigenous Pacific ancestry, you do not need to have had your ancestry verified in order to submit your scholarship application. You just need to complete the relevant sections and submit your application by the 15th August to be considered. However, we recommend that you start the process of verifying your ancestry as soon as possible.

• You do not need to have competed at international/national level to be considered for a sport or cultural activity based scholarship. The activities and achievements listed in the application and on our website are just examples. Regardless of whether your sport or cultural activity is conducted inside or outside of school, we want to hear your story!

Details regarding the referencing process for entrance scholarships.

Some general points around the references:

• Otago will contact the schools and nominated referees (two different processes) after applications have closed

• As a rough guideline (still to be confirmed) requests for referee contributions will be sent out around 20 August with responses due back by 31 August

• The school contributions will come as a single email with links for each applicant to the nominated school representative

• In the lead up to sending the email we will contact schools to confirm who it should be sent to

• Schools are asked to rank the applicants in terms of their leadership involvement and to provide comment

• The comments can be brief and don’t need to be overly complex i.e. let us know if you support or not, and if there is anything important, we should know about. It is all confidential

• If a student is not showing on the school list, they have either not applied (at all, or on time) or they did not complete a section of the scholarship application that would require us to engage with the school

• For the nominated referees, the reference request will relate to a specific section of the scholarship application where we have asked the student to provide the details of someone to comment in relation to that specific section of the application

• These will be sent out as individual emails to the referee

• Please note that if the student nominates a person to be a referee in more than one section of the application, a request will be generated for each different section i.e. they will receive more than one email asking them to complete the reference in relation to the different section(s). Each request will need to be completed as one response will not cover everything

• The nominated referee requests contain links to provide feedback. These links can only be clicked on 5 times before they expire

• It is important to be aware for all reference requests to keep an eye out for the emails. Many often end up being diverted to Junk or Spam folders (given that the language of the requests: talking about scholarships i.e. free money, request to click a link, timeframe to complete, etc. will trigger warnings that it is likely a scam)

• To try and avoid the emails being not coming through it is recommended that referees put in their email settings that anything with an address from @otago.ac.nz is safe

• If there are issues in accessing the links or if they have expired, always reply to the original email so we can quickly fix this

• Please be aware of the deadlines, unfortunately we will not be able to accept any late responses. Any issues that occur in the lead up to the due date we are happy to help

Residential Colleges Application

Tips for applying for Residential Colleges/Halls

There are 15 residential colleges (halls) for first year students – do your research – on-line (websites, Facebook public pages) and in person – https://www.otago.ac.nz/accommodation/colleges

• Total cost per year, approximately $22,500, some colleges charge more than others.

• Applications open on 1 August through your eVision portal.

• The Universities of Otago, Canterbury and Lincoln, along with Ara and Otago Polytechnic will require a Common Confidential Reference Form (CCRF) to be completed and submitted.

• Applications for the first round of offers are due on 30 September at 11:59pm.

• If you are applying for Salmond College because you are attending Otago Polytechnic, please tick the Otago University box as well so the application will go to Salmond College. For students enrolling at Polytechnic, you need not create an eVision account. You will need to click on the register button on the Te Puna page and go on from there.

• You can choose three colleges or tick a different option saying you are willing to be considered by any college.

• If you prefer to choose the three choice option, be strategic, not everyone from your school can go to the same one, 70% of applicants get their first choice and 76% who don’t get their first choice are satisfied with the college they stayed in.

Unique characteristics about some colleges:

• Caroline Freeman has 11 BIG ensuite rooms available for people who want to share and save costs

• Unicol has a villa with 25 ensuite rooms with queen beds

• Knox and St Margarets take returning students (second years+)

• 192 Castle, all rooms have queen beds and ensuites

• Te Rangihīroa has ensuite options.

Take care and time over your application – there has been a lot of competition for places over the past few years.

Selection process involves looking at what you say about yourself, what you can contribute to a college, your course of study, academic results, extracurricular activities, and the reference from your school.

If you are offered a scholarship (excluding New Frontiers) and your application for a college is in by 30 September, you will get an offer of a place in a college but not necessarily in any of your choices. It may not be in the first round of offers but there will be an offer of a college place asap.

College heads are trying to achieve a balance of genders, schools, locations, and study areas

If you are on the waitlist, there are homestay and flatting options available to you – contact the accommodation office about these.

The first payment is due mid-October and is approximately $1,000, you need to have funds for this, scholarships and Studylink can’t be used until the following year.

Scholarship funds can be used to pay the next payment due mid-January, but Studylink financing is not available for this payment as it is due before University starts.

More information about how to apply can be found here –

https://www.otago.ac.nz/accommodation/colleges

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