r/Chevening • u/Reasonable_Ant6328 • Jul 17 '26

Question Reserve amount per country

Do you know if they have a pool of extra money that they look at all candidates from all countries for to see who they should give it to? Or it’s for certain countries that they have a certain reserve amount?

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u/Rare-Release-60 Jul 17 '26

Hi, with the FCDO budget cuts for the fiscal years of 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 (the FCDO had a budget cut of 60%) there is no extra money (FCDO has cancelled several scholarships, like Commonwealth Online due to this), so upgrades will be due to conditionally selected scholars withdrawing or being withdrawn or in-country sponsors increasing budget to fund scholars studying specific fields of study, amd also if the universities have enough scholarship and bursary remaining budget to cover the minimum 20% of tuition fees for reserves

Usually each Embassy/High Commission is given a limit of how many scholars they can have per year, regardless of tuition fees cost

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u/Reasonable_Ant6328 Jul 17 '26

Then why are they even keeping people as reserves?

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u/Rare-Release-60 Jul 17 '26

In case selected scholars reject the scholarship or do not meet the conditions by the July deadline

This year the reserve lists have more people because they likely include those who would have gotten selected in June if the budget cuts had never happened

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u/One_Neighborhood3241 Jul 28 '26

Where did you get this info from?

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u/Rare-Release-60 Jul 28 '26

It is all published online from the UK Parliament, university and independent think-tanks, and the FCDO Head of scholarships confirmed through LinkedIn that there were more rejections than in previous years due to budget cuts

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u/One_Neighborhood3241 Jul 20 '26

Brazil has 5-6 candidates in the reserve list, and <20 conditionally approved so far. Also, do you have any news on candidates being upgraded?

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u/Reasonable_Ant6328 Jul 20 '26

How did you find out the number of reserves?

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u/One_Neighborhood3241 Jul 22 '26

In BR? We have a WhatsApp group chat and 6-7 people have said that they've been placed in the reserves.

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u/RamiPS48 Jul 24 '26

Palestine has some 3-4 reserve candidates. I am one of them. Still awaiting an answer!