Guidelines and Criteria
We award grants to students for postgraduate study. To meet our criteria you must:
- Be under 30 years of age on the date your proposed course of study starts
- Be born in Scotland OR be born elsewhere and planning to study in Scotland
- Be able to demonstrate current financial challenge with little or no access to family support; we prioritise supporting students facing socioeconomic challenge
- Be applying for postgraduate study only. Please note that Trustees don’t regularly fund 2nd postgraduate degrees (this includes Law and Medical conversion degrees).
- Applications must be made using our online form (we use Google Forms), fully completed and providing the additional material requested.
A note for any care experienced applicants
The McGlashan Trust actively prioritises supporting students from care experienced backgrounds*. We already work in partnership with a number of Scottish institutions who help us identify eligible individuals (of any age) in need of grants. Applicants from a care-experienced background who are considering applying to the Trust should therefore contact their institution in the first instance and ask them to reach out to us. Alternatively please contact our Administrator, Thea de Joode via email, to discuss any potential application: info@mcglashantrust.org
How and When to Apply
- Applications are currently closed. Our application window for grants towards costs during academic session Sept 25- August 26 will open in January 2025.
- The application deadline is 31 May 2025.
- The online form has 33 questions, many of which are required fields. Unfortunately it’s not possible to save the form as in progress before submission, so we’d recommend that you consider collating all the necessary information needed in a separate document before completing and submitting your application. To help you do this, a copy of the questions you’ll be asked can be downloaded here.
- Applications must be submitted online by the 31 May deadline (late applications will not be considered). Please note the next deadline therefore is 31 May 2025.
- Each applicant is responsible for providing the relevant references, or ensuring that their referees have submitted these to us by the application deadline. We are unable to chase up references on your behalf and won’t process your application without the supplementary evidence requested.
- Applicants will be notified of decisions on grants in early July.
Further information
- Where requisite qualifications, or course offer, are yet to be confirmed, a conditional grant might be offered
- When assessing your application, Trustees will examine your overall budget, paying particular attention to the total income and expenditure information. They will use this to assess the total affordability of the course for you, specifically.
- Successful candidates are required to notify the Trust should the circumstances of the purpose of their grant change significantly. That would not necessarily result in withdrawal of the grant
- The Trustees request a report on progress of study, at the end of the term of a grant
*What do we mean by care experience?
Being care experienced means you will have spent time living with foster carers under local authority care, in residential care (e.g. a children’s home), looked after at home under a supervision order, or in kinship care with relatives or friends, either officially (e.g. a special guardianship order) or informally without local authority support.