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Study in Japan · Scholarships · Step by step

Your academic journey,
paved with scholarships.

Tests, applications, scholarships, what to prepare, visa and the month it happens. Built from the experience of an international student who went from Myanmar to Shizuoka University on a full tuition exemption.

Explore your Journey

No account needed.

  • Shizuoka University ABP Full Scholarship 授業料全額免除
  • Mabuchi International Scholarship ¥100,000/month
  • JASSO Honors Scholarship ¥48,000/month
  • Shizuoka Innovation Scholarship ¥20,000/month
  • Exchange: Ontario Tech University, Canada
  • Bronze Award, International Student Essay Contest (endorsed by MEXT and MOFA)
  • Author of ゼロコスト日本留学
  • Talk at Yangon University of Foreign Languages
  • Selected to the Business Boost Program by FUSE, Hamamatsu City
  • Selected for the Entrepreneurship Program from JETRO

The journey

From picking your path to your first day in Japan.

Pick your path. Each stop shows what to prepare and roughly when it happens, checked against official sources.

A 4-year bachelor's degree, taught in Japanese. This is the journey our founder took, through Shizuoka University's Asia Bridge Program.

About 1.5–2 years from your first exam to your first day

Dates from Shizuoka University's Asia Bridge Program (ABP), October 2026 intake. Other universities follow a similar order on their own dates.

  1. Jun–Oct · the year before you enter

    Preparation

    Get every score the application asks for before the window opens in November.

    What to prepare

    • Register for the June EJU in February–March: November EJU results come out after the deadline
    • Japanese: JLPT N2 or N1 for most faculties (some accept N3 with 135+ points, or EJU Japanese 220+)
    • English: TOEFL iBT, IELTS Academic or TOEIC L&R (TOEFL ITP, TOEIC IP and IELTS General don't count)
    • Transcripts, graduation certificate and a ~500-character essay in Japanese

    Scholarship tip: tick the JASSO reservation box when you register for the EJU. Top scorers can secure the Honors Scholarship (¥48,000 a month) before they arrive.

  2. Nov · Nov 10–26 for the 2026 intake

    Application

    Apply online in a short window. You can apply to one faculty only.

    What to prepare

    • Upload scores, transcripts, photo and essay to the online portal
    • The portal closes at noon Japan time, so don't leave it to the last day

  3. Jan · results on Jan 16 for the 2026 intake

    Document screening

    Your scores are screened first. You need at least 50% in each scored category (60% for Agriculture).

    What to prepare

    • Watch the portal on results day
    • Book your interview slot and run the online connection check

  4. Feb · Feb 5–20 for the 2026 intake, by faculty

    Interview

    An online interview on Zoom, mostly in Japanese. Science, Engineering and Agriculture add an oral exam on your field.

    What to prepare

    • Practice explaining your goals and your chosen field in Japanese
    • Revise core subject basics if your faculty has an oral exam
    • Test your camera, mic and connection the day before

  5. Mar · Mar 6 for the 2026 intake

    Final results

    Final results come out in early March. Accept your offer and follow the university's enrollment steps.

    What to prepare

    • Complete the enrollment paperwork on time
    • Ask the international office which scholarships you can apply for after enrollment

  6. Jun–Aug

    COE & student visa

    The university applies for your Certificate of Eligibility (COE). Immigration's standard review is 1–3 months; then the embassy usually issues the visa in about 5 working days.

    What to prepare

    • Send the university the COE documents it asks for, including financial proof
    • From the Philippines, Nepal or Vietnam: you need a pre-entry TB screening certificate (Indonesia planned from January 2027)
    • The COE can arrive by email and is valid for 3 months: enter Japan before it expires
    • The standard single-entry visa fee rose to ¥15,000 on 1 July 2026 (some countries pay a different amount)

  7. Aug–Sep

    Travel

    Book flights and arrive before registration in late September. ABP students live in a university dormitory for their first two years.

    What to prepare

    • Budget about ¥70,000–80,000 a month for living costs in Shizuoka (ABP guide)
    • Budget for start-up costs: insurance (about ¥20,000–40,000) and a laptop (about ¥180,000–250,000, by faculty)
    • Fly into an airport that issues residence cards on arrival if you can (10 major airports do)

  8. Oct · Oct 1, 2026

    Admission

    Enrollment day. ABP students pay no entrance or enrollment fee and no tuition in year one. In years 2–4, tuition is waived 100%, 50% or not at all, depending on performance.

    What to prepare

    • Register your address at the city office within 14 days
    • Join National Health Insurance and the National Pension (students can apply to defer pension payments)
    • Get part-time work permission (up to 28 hours a week) if you didn't at the airport
Sources (checked 2026-10-23)

Dates change every year. Always confirm with the school.

Want the journey mapped to your own profile?

The Ecosystem

Everything you need,
in one place.

ScholarStark isn't just a course. it's a full support system designed to take you from “dreaming” to “funded.”

  • Digital Guides

    PDF playbooks for every step: essays, outreach, visa and interviews.

    Print-Ready

  • Resource Library

    Templates, scholarship trackers and checklists. Don't start from zero.

    Instant Access

  • Step-by-Step Courses

    Video modules, from your Statement of Purpose to professor interviews.

    Structured Learning

  • Q&A Forum

    Direct access to coaches and peers. No gatekeeping.

    Community Driven

  • AI Tools

    University Recommender and Scholarship Finder.

    AI-Powered

  • Internships

    Paid 2–8 week project internships at companies in Hamamatsu and Shizuoka, for students already in Japan.

    See internships
scholarstark.com/courses
Course library: video lessons on scholarships and applications
scholarstark.com/resources
Resource library: guides, essays and scholarship lists
scholarstark.com/ai
AI Support: University Recommender and Scholarship Finder
scholarstark.com/qa
Q&A forum: anonymous questions from students, answered by coaches and peers

Guides curated from experience, not brochures.

Scholarships, schools and life in Japan. The basics are free.

Join the community (free)

Founder

Built by someone who walked the journey.

Si Thu Lin left Myanmar for Shizuoka University in 2022 on a full tuition exemption, and has funded the degree with scholarships ever since, rejections included.

SI THU LIN

SI THU LINシトゥリン

ScholarStark Founder / Mentor

  • Shizuoka University ABP Full Scholarship

    2022 Oct ~

    授業料全額免除

  • JASSO Honors Scholarship

    2022 Oct ~ 2023 Mar

    ¥48,000/month

  • Mabuchi International Scholarship

    2023 Apr ~ Now

    ¥100,000/month

  • Shizuoka Innovation Scholarship

    2026 Apr ~ 2027 Mar

    ¥20,000/month

Plus 2 applications that didn't win.

Read the full story →

Know your Right Journey in one call.

Bring your situation. Leave knowing what to prepare next.

No account needed.

Testimonials

What students say.

  • Before the session, I had many questions about the Japanese graduate application process and wasn't sure how to approach it. You explained everything in a very clear and structured way, helping me understand how to define my research area, choose the right department, identify potential supervisors, and prepare a strong research proposal. You didn't just answer my questions, you gave me a clear roadmap and practical steps to follow, which has made me feel much more confident about my application.

    Fatima Alkali

    Jul 2026

  • အကိုဆီက clarity section မဝသ်ခင်က ဘာတွေကိုကြည့်ပြီးကျောင်းရွေးရမလဲ ဘာတွေ ပြင်ဆင်ရမလဲသေခြာ မသိခဲ့ဘူးဗျ။ eju JLPT ရှိပေမဲ့ eju ဆို ဘယ်ဟာအတွက်အရေးကြီးတာလဲ သေခြာမသိခဲ့ဘူးဗျ။ အခုဆို UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ‌ကိုရွေးချယ်ဖို့အတွက်ဘာတွေ အရင်ကြည့်သင့်လဲဆိုတာကို သိခဲ့ရပါတယ်။ နောက်တစ်ခုအနေနဲ့ scholarships အကြောင်းနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး ဘယ်လို scholarships တွေရှိတယ်ဆိုတာကို လဲသိရခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အခုကစပြီးဘာတွေ ပြင်ဆင်ထားရမလဲဆိုတာသေခြာလေးရှင်းရှင်းလင်းလင်းသိခဲ့ရပါတယ်ဗျ
    Thant Zin Aung

    Thant Zin Aung

    Jun 2026

  • Although I have previous experience studying in Japan, applying to universities, and working as a student advisor for graduate studies in Canada, there were still some areas where I needed updated information, such as the official JLPT website, current test fees, how often the test is held, and the latest daily living expenses in Japan. Your guidance helped clarify these points.

    MlnRoxana

    Jul 2026

  • I found Scholar Stark on social media, and I checked out their website. Since I realize Scholar Stark has a clear road-map and strategies for university applications, I registered for a free-onboarding meeting. I got knowledge during the meeting that I have not realized before. The personalized university lists and recommendations shared during the meeting also fit my field of interest.

    Thura Tun

    Jul 2026

  • The Clarity Session with LIN gave me a clear understanding of the language school application process and all the required documents. I now have a structured plan and know exactly what steps I need to take to pursue my studies in Japan.
    Roronoa Zoro

    Roronoa Zoro

    @naitkmittal · May 2026

  • Before this meeting, I felt confused and overwhelmed. I knew I needed to improve, but I didn't know where to start or what to focus on. This meeting helped me organize my thoughts and gave me a much clearer direction. The consultant not only pointed out my weaknesses, but also provided practical advice and a step-by-step plan to improve my interview skills.
    Yu Thinzar Khaing

    Yu Thinzar Khaing

    Jun 2026

  • ပထမဆုံးအနေနဲ့ကတော့ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်ဗျ။ကျွန်တော့်အနေနဲ့အဆက်အစပ်လည်းမရှိဘယ်လိုဖြစ်ဖြစ်သိချင်တာတွေသိရ​လို့တကယ်အဆင်ပြေပါတယ်။တချို့featureတွေကမသုံးကြည့်ရသေးပေမယ့်ကိုယ့်အခြေအနေနဲ့ကိုက်ညီတဲ့scholarshipတွေကိုရှာဖို့အချိန်တိုတိုအတွင်းသိရတာတကယ့်ကိုတန်ဖိုးရှိပါတယ်။ One on one sessionကလည်းမိနစ်၃၀ပေမယ့်တကယ့်ကိုefficientဖြစ်ပြီးတော့သိချင်တာတွေသိရလို့တကယ်ကောင်းပါတယ်။ကျန်တာလေးတွေလျှောက်ကြည့်ပြီးမှပဲပြန်ပြီးထပ်ပြောပါမယ်ခင်ဗျ။

    Hein Soe Paing

    Sep 2026

  • ကျောင်းလျှောက်ဖို့အတွက် လုပ်ရမဲ့ဟာနဲ့ essay ရေးတဲ့အခါလိုအပ်တာတွေကိုကောင်းကောင်းသိလိုက်ရပါတယ် အခုလို scholarship အတွက် informations တွေပို့ပေးထားတဲ့အတွက်လည်းကျေးဇူးပါ
    Nay Aung Thant

    Nay Aung Thant

    May 2026

  • Personally, it felt like a warm conversation, and I really liked that. Instead of just giving advice, it felt like we were figuring things out together and discussing what steps I should take next. Before, I felt quite lost about what to do, but now I have a clearer direction and a plan to work on. There's still a long way to go, but I feel much more confident moving forward.
    Zaya Taw

    Zaya Taw

    Jun 2026

  • You're really kind. Thank you for doing so much to help me. You've done more for me in the last two days than I experienced during my previous consultation. I truly appreciate it.

    Sujal

    Jul 2026

  • ရှေ့ဆက်ဘယ်လိုသွားရမလဲ သေသေချာချာ မသိခဲ့ဘူး Coaching သဘောအနေနဲ့ ဆွေးနွေး ပြီးနောက် စကော်လာ join ဖို့ သက်ဆိုင်ရာလိုအပ်ချက်တွေရော ကြိုးစားပြင်ဆင်ရမယ့် ဟာတွေရော စိတ်ရှည်စွာပြောကြားပေးတယ့် အတွက် အများကြီးကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်ခင်ဗျား
    Myo Thiha

    Myo Thiha

    May 2026

  • I was able to better assess my current situation and learn about the requirements for potential scholarships I could apply for. Overall, it was very helpful for what I needed to know specifically about the JASSO scholarship.
    Monoluvrs

    Monoluvrs

    @monoluvrs · Jun 2026

  • ဒီနေ့အကိုနဲ့ပြောတဲ့ခနလေးအတွင်းမှာမသိတာတွေသိခဲ့ရတယ်ရှင့် အစကဘာရွေးရမလဲလမ်းပျောက်နေတာ အကိုနဲ့ပြောပီးမှရှင်းရှင်းလင်းလင်းသိခဲ့ရတယ်ရည်ရှည်အတွက်လည်းသေချာစဉ်းစားပေးတဲ့အတွက်ကျေးဇူးပါရှင့်ပီးတော့uniနဲ့ပက်သက်တဲ့မသိသေးတဲ့အခွင့်အလမ်းတွေလည်းမအားတဲ့ကြားထဲကသေချာအချိန်ပေးပီးစိတ်ရှည်ရှည်နဲ့ရှင်းပြပေးလို့ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်ရှင့်
    Neyin Su Wei

    Neyin Su Wei

    Jun 2026

  • The session was really helpful. I was pretty clueless before, but after the lesson I have a much better idea of how everything is going to work and what I need to do next. Thank you for your guidance and support!
    Thanuja

    Thanuja

    @thanuja._.7 · May 2026

  • It's good for my next move. I know more about JLPT and EJU after this conversation. You completely created a good path for me. I truly appreciate it!

    pr1nce_rana

    @pr1nce_rana · Jun 2026

  • Thank you so much brother, your community is very very good for students. I give 10/10.

    Nayan Yuvraj Pawar

    Jul 2026

  • The meeting went well, he answered my questions and provided guided solutions and shared his experience.

    Samy

    Jul 2026

No account needed

FAQ

Straight answers.

Do I need to speak Japanese before I go?

It depends on your journey. Language schools take beginners, but for intakes from October 2026 immigration needs proof of at least A1 Japanese (a test certificate or an interview with the school). Technical colleges need JLPT N2-level Japanese or a year at a Japanese language school. Most Japanese-taught university programs ask for JLPT N2 or higher, and English-taught programs exist too.

How much does it cost to live in Japan as a student?

JASSO's 2023 survey puts the average at about ¥105,000 a month, not counting tuition, with rent averaging ¥41,000 nationally and ¥57,000 in Tokyo. Smaller cities cost less: Shizuoka University estimates ¥70,000–80,000 a month for its ABP students.

Can I work part-time while studying?

Yes, with permission: up to 28 hours a week, and up to 8 hours a day during your school's long vacations. You can apply for the permission at the airport when you land.

Which scholarships can I realistically get?

The biggest are MEXT (tuition, airfare and ¥117,000 a month for undergraduates, ¥143,000–145,000 for graduate students) and JASSO's Honors Scholarship (¥48,000 a month, or ¥30,000 at language schools). Many universities also waive tuition, and private foundations pay monthly stipends. Our founder combines a full tuition exemption with a ¥100,000-a-month foundation scholarship.

How long does the whole process take?

For a university, plan on about 1.5–2 years from your first exam to your first day. A language school takes about 10–12 months from choosing a school to your first class.

When are the EJU and JLPT held?

The EJU runs in June and November (2026: June 21 and November 8). The JLPT runs in July and December (2026: July 5 and December 6), though some overseas cities hold only one of them. EJU scores stay valid for two years.

Did visa costs change in 2026?

Yes. The standard single-entry visa fee rose from ¥3,000 to ¥15,000 on 1 July 2026 (some countries pay a different amount). From 1 October 2026, extending or changing your residence status also costs more: ¥33,000 at the counter or ¥27,000 online for a 1-year permit. The COE application itself is still free.

What happens in a clarity call?

We look at your profile together and map your journey: which path fits, which schools and scholarships to aim for, and what to prepare next. Your first call is free, no account needed.

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