10 Indian students get TOEFL scholarships

CHENNAI: Ten young go-getters from across the country received their TOEFL scholarships on Wednesday. Valued at approximately US$70,000 the scholarships recognise the academic excellence of TOEFL test takers throughout India.

"The TOEFL Scholarship programme has helped increase our communication with test takers, rather than with just the institutions accepting our test scores. The response has been good with the number of applications increasing by 30% this year when compared to 2011," said ETS' vice-president of marketing and public affairs Scott Nelson, who gave away the awards at a function in Delhi. ETS received 960 applications for the TOEFL scholarships this year.

The scholarships, funding for which was increased by US$10,000 since 2011, were awarded to help students continue their education at the undergraduate and graduate school levels. While four students were awarded a US$10,000 scholarship to study in universities or colleges in the UK, US, Australia and Canada; six other students received a US$5,000 scholarship to pursue graduate programmes elsewhere in the world.

Two of the 10 scholarships went to Swathi Meenakshi Sadagopan and Abhay Gandhi of Tamil Nadu. Both are graduates of the Guindy College of Engineering but will be specialising in different fields. Swathi, who has graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering will be continuing higher studies in the same specialisation at McGill University in Canada. "The research opportunities available overseas cannot be compared even to that in the IITs or in Anna University, where I studied and which gets a lot of funding. So pursuing research abroad is an obvious choice, and the first thing that anybody thinks about is the money involved in studying abroad. The scholarship has taken a load off my mind," said Swathi. She is one of the recipients of the US$10,000 scholarship.

For Abhay from Tiruchi, it is a matter of pride. "Being recognised by ETS, which conducts so many globally renowned tests adds a lot of value to what I've done before. It tells us how good we are when compared to so many other test takers," said Abhay, who will attend Ecole des Hautes Commerciales in Paris, a top ranking B-school. Abhay is a recipient of the US$5,000 scholarship.

The TOEFL Scholarship was introduced in the 2010-11 academic year in India, and has since covered other Asian countries including Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The funding for the programme has increased from US$50,000 to US$70,000 in two years.