Today, I received news that my national scholarship was revoked, despite it already being publicly announced. The reason? It requires students to be in the top 10% based on their raw GPA, and I ranked only 2nd out of 18 in my class. Consequently, my scholarship was handed over to someone else who had lower scores but from a larger class.
It sucks when ¥8000 slips out of your hands. What frustrates me even more is the flawed grading system. Here’s the deal: the selection process for this national scholarship is somewhat distortedly incentivized. First, the top student in our class (yes, that’s me) gets a first-tier People’s scholarship, determined by a blend of academic scores and other criteria. Then, students from various classes who receive this scholarship is qualified to run for the jackpot - the national scholarship which worth ¥8000, solely based on academic scores, with only three winners out of six competitors.
See the trick now? I could have graciously relinquished the first-tier People’s scholarship, passing it on to the student in my class who ranked just below me in the general criterion but slightly above me in academic scores, so that he can run for the national scholarship – a sure thing since he outranks me in terms of academic scores and falls within the top 10% criteria. Besides, I could also apply for another sponsored scholarship later in the year, worth approximately ¥6000. (There’s a rule that restricts students from applying for more than one major scholarship exceeding ¥5k, excluding the People’s scholarship which offers around ¥1k, in a single school year. And one can only receive the highest prize.) Our mutual welfare will be substantially better off. Plus, it’s not a big deal for me since I secured them all last year; possessing the titles is what matters.
The other reason this situation bothers me is that the scholarship has already been made public. Taking it away means someone inside or close to my social zone who happens to know the count of our niche 18-student class, have noticed and explicitly pointed out “Hey, she’s second in raw academic scores, so she doesn’t deserve it – 2 out of 18 is 11%.” Hmm, pathetic backstabber.
This is a huge setback for me in terms of my personal financing, long story. My family has always been supportive of my education, and they award any money I receive from college, be it scholarships, TA salaries, or competition prizes, tenfold. So the ¥2k gap left by the national scholarship will result ultimately in a loss of over ¥20k. I could have bought another long-focus lens for my Canon. Damnnnnnnn.
Gotta work now, like, getting my research paper published might earn me a bonus from my dad, making up for this setback.
