GKS Embassy Track & University Track

If you make a wrong choice of GKS track, you can easily fail. If you make the right choice, you increase your chances to succeed.

 In this article, I am going to explain the difference between embassy and university track. So, I will answer to these questions:

1)    What is embassy and university track?

2)    What are the benefits of each?

3)    What are the drawbacks of each?

4)    Which track is better to choose?

5)    Can I apply through both tracks?

6)    What are the application deadlines?

Quick entrance, Global Korea Scholarship aka GKS is a Korean Government program that offers international students an opportunity to study in Korea absolutely for free + $1000 monthly scholarship along with other benefits. 

If you want to apply for GKS, first of all you should decide whether to apply directly to university which is called a university track or through the embassy of Korea in your country which is known as an embassy track.

So, what are these tracks?

Let’s start with university track.

If you choose university track, you have to prepare 1 set of documents. If you don’t know which documents you need to prepare, I talk about this in my other GKS video about application process. I’ll post the link in the description box. When you prepared the documents, you will send them by post to the university of your choice in Korea. The main point here is that you can only choose 1 university. In case you apply to more than 1 university, your application will be cancelled automatically. Next step is document screening. The university that you applied for will review your documents and decide to accept you or to reject you. If you get rejected, I am sorry but your GKS journey will stop, and you can try again the following year. If you get accepted university will conduct an interview with you online by video call or phone call. After the interview university will announce the list of successful applicants. Even if university accepts you, it does not mean that you have the scholarship, because there is the third step – NIIED screening. There are many students that choose university track and pass the first round. However, during the second round, NIIED will reject many applicants according to the university track quota. Basically if 50 people applied, 35 of them passed the first round, and the quota is only 10 people, then, NIIED will reject 25 applicants. Those who get acceptance from NIIED eventually become GKS scholars. Now let’s talk about Embassy track. For embassy track, you have to prepare not 1 set of documents but 4 sets of documents. This is because, unlike university track, you have the opportunity to choose three universities, so you prepare one original set of documents for the embassy track and 3 copies for three universities of your choice. Note that there are type A and type B universities. Type A is universities in Seoul, type B – universities outside of Seoul. And at least one of the three universities that you choose should be a type B university. So, when you have all 4 sets of documents you just have to go to the embassy of the Republic of Korea in your country and submit your documents. Embassy will do a document screening and choose applicants who qualify for interview. If you pass the screening process, embassy will invite you to the interview where Korean interviewers will ask you some questions, and it will take about 10-15 minutes. (remind of my interview videos). If you successfully pass the interview, embassy will send your documents to NIIED for the second round of sele

NIIED eventually become GKS scholars.

Now let’s talk about Embassy track. For embassy track, you have to prepare not 1 set of documents but 4 sets of documents. This is because, unlike university track, you have the opportunity to choose three universities, so you prepare one original set of documents for the embassy track and 3 copies for three universities of your choice. Note that there are type A and type B universities. Type A is universities in Seoul, type B – universities outside of Seoul. And at least one of the three universities that you choose should be a type B university.

So, when you have all 4 sets of documents you just have to go to the embassy of the Republic of Korea in your country and submit your documents. Embassy will do a document screening and choose applicants who qualify for interview. If you pass the screening process, embassy will invite you to the interview where Korean interviewers will ask you some questions, and it will take about 10-15 minutes. (remind of my interview videos). If you successfully pass the interview, embassy will send your documents to NIIED for the second round of selection. Now here, embassy will probably choose all applicants without failing anyone. This is because 1) embassy will already choose the applicants according to the quota number, so there is no need to further shorten the list 2) unlike universities, embassies are much stricter in evaluation process, and they pick applicants very meticulously, so NIIED fully trusts embassy’s decisions.