First and foremost, I’m not entirely sure what to write here because many people have already shared their experiences of receiving this scholarship. Nevertheless, here’s my story.

Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) in a nutshell

The GKS is a fully-funded scholarship program from the Republic of Korea government designed to attract international students to study in Korea. The scholarship is available for both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. I won’t delve into the details of the scholarship itself because you can find comprehensive guidelines on the Study in Korea website. If you’re Indonesian, you can also find information on the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Indonesia’s website. Happy reading!

A Little Background

I applied for this scholarship twice, first in 2018 for GKS 19 and then in 2019 for GKS 20. In my first attempt, I was placed on the waiting list, meaning that if someone dropped out or failed in the scholarship application process, I could join as a successful candidate. However, if you’re selected as a waiting list candidate, don’t get your hopes up too high because there’s a 99% chance you’re NOT going to make it. In this post, I’m just going to share my GKS 20 story because if I also talk about my GKS 19 application story, it would make for a very long post, and frankly, I’m not a great storyteller.

1st Round

Document Screening

Honestly, for the GKS 20 application, I wasn’t as serious and ambitious to get this scholarship as I was for the GKS 19 application. I wasn’t really sure about my GSEP application because the quota for the scholarship was just for the 8 best students worldwide. Because of this, I convinced myself that I had to apply for other scholarships to increase my chances of going to college with a fully-funded scholarship.

The other reasons why I applied were first, the quota for Indonesia increased from 3 in GKS 19 to 5 in GKS 20, and second, I still had the documents from my GKS 19 application, so I didn’t spend any money on the application except for the shipping cost to send my documents to the Korean Embassy.

For GKS 2020, I didn’t make significant improvements in my application. I just changed my essays (personal statement + study plan) and added my SAT Subject Score. For your information, I also attached my TOEFL iBT score and several certificates to support my application. You also need to officially translate and notarize all of your documents. Even though in my GKS 19 application I didn’t notarize my documents and just translated them because I didn’t have a lot of money for that, I still passed the document screening! Then, during a phone call, the embassy asked me to notarize my documents and bring them during the interview. THEREFORE, I highly recommend you to NOT ONLY translate your documents BUT ALSO NOTARIZE THEM from the beginning before sending them to the embassy!

My Tips for Document Screening: Arrange your documents as neatly and as well as possible! Don’t get too confused because of other people’s opinions on how to organize them! Just believe in yourself!

The Interview

The embassy will announce the candidates who will be interviewed on their website and through an email to the interviewees. Here are the interview announcements for the GKS-U 2019 and 2020 in Indonesia. Every year in Indonesia, the number of people called for interviews is three times the quota of scholarship recipients. So for the GKS 20, because the quota was 5, the interviewees were 15 people, and for the GKS 19, because the quota was 3, the interviewees were 9 people.

For GKS 2020, the interview was held on October 30, 2019. There were two batches, the morning batch, and the afternoon batch. My interview was in the afternoon batch. I was pretty relaxed and confident for the interview because I had experienced something similar before and I wasn’t overly concerned about the result. Once again, the most important thing for me is making new friends and gaining new experiences. For the GKS 2020, I didn’t have any incomplete documents, so the embassy didn’t ask me to bring anything to the interview. The good thing about the interview of the GKS Embassy track in Indonesia is that you’re going to get a bag of Tous Les Jours for free. For your information, I felt that the interview questions for GKS 2019 were more challenging than for GKS 2020. For GKS 2019, two other candidates and I were interviewed for about 1 hour - the longest interview period in the GKS history in Indonesia as the embassy staff said, but for GKS 2020, it was just about 10 minutes. It was a really short interview.

The interview result came out on November 4, 2019 - the deadline for the embassy to forward the successful candidate’s documents to the NIIED. It was in the morning when I was doing a little research on my laptop, then there’s an email from the Korean Embassy that I passed the interview round; I was so excited because I passed, no more being on the waiting list, and actually, if you pass this step, your chance to get the scholarship is like 90%.

My Tips for Interview: Dress well, prepare for the expected questions (you can google them), don’t be nervous and stay calm, and answer the questions briefly. Never memorize your answers! Just answer the questions naturally :)

2nd Round

The NIIED Selection

After passing the 1st round, you just need to wait for another announcement, which is the second round result selection from the NIIED. In this period, I was also waiting for my GSEP results. The 2nd round result was announced on the www.studyinkorea.go.kr, they were late to announce the result (it was expected to be announced on November 18, but in reality, the announcement was on November 22), but anyway I passed the 2nd round selection, and it was such a relief.

Passing this round meant that I had to do a medical check-up because we need to send it along with our passport copy to the NIIED. It was a dilemma for me because doing a medical check-up is kind of expensive and on the other hand, I am still waiting for my GSEP results to arrive at my home (you need to read my post about my GSEP application story because everything is connected). But in the end, I did the medical check-up and after that, I got the announcement that I got the scholarship for the GSEP. It was the biggest dilemma in my life so far.

It was November 30, after thinking about what I should choose for about 3 days, I decided to send a confirmation letter to the GSEP admission committee, and send a resignation letter to the NIIED and the Korean Embassy. I did that because I hoped I could save the GKS 20 waiting lists to replace my position. But the dilemma was not over because after that the Embassy called me asking whether I was sure about my decision or not, and they said that I couldn’t save the waiting lists, it was really heartbreaking for me 😭, so in the end, I was still continuing the process of GKS 20 to wait for the university admission results.

3rd Round

University Admission Results

While waiting for the university admission results, I was really stressed because of everything, that’s why I did A LOT of research, consulted with the people I trust to ask about their opinions regarding which path should I choose? Japan or Korea? Major A or Major B? and many more. Trust me, getting two prestigious scholarships is not as exciting as you thought! It was really depressing, at least for an overthinking person like me. And because of this, I also got cyberbullied, I didn’t know how since I never posted anything on my social media, but anyway I didn’t care. Honestly, it takes a lot of consideration for me to start writing this story, because I’d been afraid that there will be a lot of people who will hate and bully me because of my decision, but yeah here I am :’).

Okay, let’s continue to the main topic here haha. I chose KAIST, SNU, and KU in my GKS 20 application. The announcement was scheduled for December 19, 2019, but SNU sent an email before that they would announce the result on December 20. To be honest, I was pretty confident to get into SNU and KU because based on the history, there weren’t Indonesian applicants who got rejected from those universities, BUT for KAIST, I knew it was kind of hard to get into because based on the result of the last couple years, there were just 4-5 people who chose KAIST as their university through the GKS program, means that the acceptance rate to KAIST is pretty low too. But here are my results:

• • KAIST - Accepted

  

• • Seoul National University - Rejected

• Korea University (KU) - Accepted

I was kind of shocked with my results though because KAIST accepted me but SNU rejected me, it’s kind of out of my expectation and made my dilemma more complicated. In the end, I chose KAIST because obviously it was my first choice and the courses at KAIST are taught in English - since I don’t want to study my major in Korean. From that time, the thing that I was always thinking was to choose KAIST or Tokyo Tech, but I’m not going to talk about this, because it’s really devastating 😭.

Final Result

On January 9, 2020, the NIIED posted the final result on www.studyinkorea.go.kr. In this result, there are the names of the GKS 2020 scholars along with their Korean Language Institute (KLI), their degree university, and their college major. Because I don’t know any Korean, I have to learn Korean first at Dongseo University before studying at KAIST, even though the main language at KAIST is English.

Finally, on January 15, 2020, the NIIED sent the Letter of Invitation via email. This letter is not only amazing because you need it to study in Korea for free but it’s also kind of challenging to get. Here’s my Letter of Invitation:

Conclusion

That’s my journey to get the GKS 2020. It was a long and winding road, but I’m grateful for the experience. I hope my story can inspire and motivate you to apply for this scholarship. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I’ll be more than happy to help you. Good luck!!

-written on March 28, 2020-