Gates Scholarship - Eligibility and Criteria

Eligibility and Criteria

Applicants from any country other than the United Kingdom are eligible for the scholarships. In the first 11 years of the program (2001-2011), 1070 individuals from 94 different countries have been awarded scholarships. By statute, approximately 40% of scholars are intended to come from the USA (in practice, the figure has been 43.6%). Other major sources of scholars have been India (6.0%), Germany (5.9%), Canada (3.9%), Australia (3.9%), and China (3.0%).

The Cambridge Gates Trust aims to maintain about 200 Scholars in residence at any time, and 90 Gates Scholars are elected each year from a pool of over 4500 applicants. The Trustees are required to award scholarships on the basis of a person's intellectual ability, leadership capacity and desire to use their knowledge to contribute to society throughout the world by providing service to their communities and applying their talents and knowledge to improve the lives of others. Although the Trust does not set a minimum GPA, the average GPA of Gates Scholars as of 2011 is 3.93, with a range of GPAs from 3.7 to 4.0.