Every year a small number of scholarships come along that genuinely cover everything, and the Maastricht University NL-High Potential Scholarship is one of them. Tuition, a monthly stipend, health insurance, visa costs, and a room that is already reserved for you before you land. There are 18 of these awards for the 2027-2028 academic year, and around two percent of applicants receive one.
That last number is not here to discourage anyone. It is here because a scholarship this generous deserves an honest picture before you spend two months gathering documents for it. What follows is the full breakdown: what the funding covers, who is eligible, the two deadlines that catch people out, and the parts of the fine print that are easy to skim past.
One detail matters a lot for readers of this site. The entire process happens from your home country. The admission application, the scholarship form, the documents, and the interview are all online.
What the Maastricht NL-High Potential Scholarship covers
The programme is really two funds working together. The High Potential Scholarship comes from the Maastricht University Scholarship Fund, and the NL Scholarship is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science alongside Dutch universities. From the applicant’s side they are handled as one award, through one form.
| What is covered | Amount | How it is paid |
|---|---|---|
| Living expenses | €20,150 (13 months) or €38,750 (25 months) | Paid to you by the UM International Services Desk |
| Health and liability insurance | €700 | Arranged and paid by the university |
| Tuition fees | At cost | Arranged and paid by the university |
| Visa application costs | At cost | Arranged and paid by the university |
| Pre-Academic Training | At cost | Arranged and paid by the university |
| International Student Ambassador Programme | First block only | Arranged and paid by the university |
The distinction in that last column is worth noticing. Only the living allowance reaches your bank account. Everything else is settled directly by the university, which removes a lot of the cash-flow stress that usually comes with a first year abroad.
The living allowance works out at €1,550 per month, and the university publishes what it is meant to stretch across: €960 for housing, €160 for groceries and personal hygiene, €100 for travel, €125 for clothing and going out, €90 for books and study materials, €60 for a phone, and €55 for anything else. Amounts are subject to change for later academic years.
What the scholarship does not cover
- Your flight to the Netherlands
- A cleaning fee of roughly €75, paid to Maastricht Housing before you arrive
- Any handling fee your chosen master’s programme charges as part of its own admissions process
- Housing for the second year, if you are on a two-year programme
How long the funding lasts
Thirteen months for a one-year master’s, and twenty-five months for a two-year master’s. The extra month at the start covers the mandatory Pre-Academic Training, a two-week programme that begins in the first week of August 2027.
Who is eligible
The eligibility rules are strict and checked before anything else, so it is worth reading them slowly.
- You hold nationality from a country outside the EU/EEA, Switzerland or Surinam, and you meet the requirements for a Dutch entry visa and residence permit.
- You do not hold dual nationality from an EU/EEA country or Switzerland.
- You have applied for admission to a participating full-time master’s programme at Maastricht University for 2027-2028, and your application file is complete, before 10 December 2026.
- You meet the specific admission requirements of that master’s programme.
- You have never taken part in a degree programme in the Netherlands. Exchange programmes are fine.
- You are not older than 35 on 1 September 2027.
- Your most recent transcript shows a GPA of 7.5 out of 10 or higher, which is equivalent to 75 percent, or 3 out of 4, depending on your grading system.
- You agree to act as a UM ambassador during and after your studies, which means committing to at least one information session for students or other stakeholders.
Preference goes to candidates who have not already completed a master’s degree. If you hold a residence permit for another Schengen country, it needs to remain valid until at least 2 September 2027, otherwise you would apply from your home country through an MVV visa application.
The two deadlines that catch people out
This is the single most common reason strong candidates fall out of the process, so it deserves its own section.
10 December 2026 is the deadline for your master’s admission application. Not just started, but submitted in full, meeting every admission requirement listed on the programme page. Any handling fee your programme charges also needs to be paid by this date.
1 February 2027, 23:59 is the deadline for the scholarship application form itself. By that date you also need to have met all registration requirements, with the exception of legal residence, tuition payment, and the hard copy of your diploma.
Applications for both open on 1 October 2026. In practice that gives you about ten weeks for the admission file, which is the tighter of the two windows. Most people discover this late and end up rushing transcripts and English test results that could have been arranged months earlier.
How to apply, step by step
- Apply to a participating master’s programme. Only programmes on the official participating list qualify. The application goes through Studielink, and once it is submitted you receive a UM student ID number.
- Complete your admission file. Everything the programme asks for, submitted and complete, by 10 December 2026.
- Log in with your UM account and open the scholarship application form. The student ID from step one is what makes this possible, which is why the order matters.
- Upload your documents. Accepted formats are .doc, .docx and PDF.
- Submit. This can only be done once. Documents cannot be added, swapped or corrected afterwards.
The documents you will need
Curriculum vitae
Up to two A4 pages, covering your education and work experience. Any awards or prizes belong here too, and they carry real weight in a selection process built around academic excellence.
Letter of motivation
Maastricht provides a template, and using it is a requirement rather than a suggestion. The template focuses on your motivation for the scholarship, which is a different question from your motivation for the programme. The letter you wrote for admission will not work here without serious rewriting.
Proof of academic excellence
Two things: your transcript or an official document from your university showing your most recent GPA, and a separate document explaining how your grading system works. That second document is easy to forget and it is what allows the committee to confirm you clear the 7.5 threshold.
Personal statement of financial needs
This is where you explain why the award would make a difference, including circumstances such as financial hardship, sole caretaking responsibilities, a medical condition, a disability, or refugee status. It is assessed, not collected as a formality.
One reference letter
Maastricht publishes reference letter guidelines, and letters that do not follow them are set aside, which makes the whole application incomplete. Forwarding those guidelines to your referee early is probably the highest-value ten minutes in this entire application. The letter must be dated no earlier than February 2026, and it must come from a professor, lecturer or employer. Family members are not accepted. You upload the letter yourself; your referee cannot do it for you.
Contact details for your referee
A work telephone number including the country code, and a work or institutional email address. Applications listing only a personal email address are rejected. The university may contact your referee to verify the reference.
How the selection works
The timeline is unusually transparent, which helps with the waiting.
- February 2027: the International Services Desk checks every application for completeness, then forwards the complete ones to each faculty.
- March 2027: each faculty selects and ranks its top five candidates and sends them back for a final check. Selections are confirmed by the end of March, and shortlisted candidates are invited to an online interview.
- April 2027: interviews take place and candidates are informed of their status.
- Early May 2027: every applicant has a final answer of selected, waitlisted or rejected. Waitlisted statuses are resolved by May.
- August 2027: the two-week Pre-Academic Training begins for awardees.
The faculty-level ranking is the part most applicants underestimate. You are not competing against every applicant to the university. You are competing against the other candidates who applied to programmes within your faculty, and each faculty puts forward only five. That makes programme choice quietly strategic.
The fine print worth reading twice
The room is not optional. A room is allocated to you until 16 July 2028, and accepting the scholarship means accepting the room. Turning it down cancels the award. The accommodation is not suitable for partners, spouses, children or pets, which rules this scholarship out for applicants with families. Preferences relating to religious practice are taken into account. Students on two-year programmes arrange their own housing for the second year, and Maastricht’s rental market is competitive, so that is a cost and a search to plan for.
One application, one scholarship. You may submit once, for one scholarship only. There is no editing after submission and no second attempt in the same cycle.
The ambassador commitment is a condition. It is a light obligation, but it is a real one, and it continues after graduation.
Who this scholarship suits
It suits a candidate with a consistently strong academic record, no prior master’s degree, no family accompanying them, and a genuine reason why funding changes what is possible. It suits someone who can commit to a specific Maastricht programme by early December rather than keeping options open until spring.
It suits you less well if your GPA sits just below 7.5, since that threshold is applied rather than interpreted, or if you need housing suitable for a partner or children.
With eighteen awards and a two percent success rate, this is best treated as one application within a wider set rather than a single plan. Applicants who do well with scholarships like this one usually have four or five serious applications running in parallel, all built from the same core documents.
A few things that tend to make a difference
Having watched a lot of applications in this space, the patterns are fairly consistent.
The motivation letter template is where most applications become forgettable. Because the template asks about motivation for the scholarship, the strongest letters connect the funding to something specific and verifiable, rather than repeating the reasons you chose the programme.
The financial needs statement often gets written defensively, in a way that either overstates hardship or apologises for mentioning it. A plain, factual account of your circumstances reads better than either.
The reference letter is the most common cause of a technically incomplete application, and it is entirely preventable. Sending your referee the guidelines, the deadline, and a short summary of what you are applying for gives them what they need to write something useful.
And the interview in April is a real assessment stage, not a formality. Candidates who reread their own motivation letter and financial statement beforehand tend to sound far more coherent than those who have not looked at them since February.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an admission offer before applying for the scholarship?
You need a submitted and complete admission application, and the student ID number that comes with it. The scholarship form cannot be opened without that number.
Can PhD applicants apply?
No. This programme funds master’s students only. PhD funding at Maastricht runs through paid PhD positions and faculty graduate schools instead.
Is there an English language test requirement?
That depends on the individual master’s programme rather than the scholarship. Each programme page lists its own language requirements under admission requirements, and meeting them is part of having a complete file by 10 December.
Can I apply for more than one scholarship at Maastricht?
No. One application, for one scholarship, per cycle.
What does being waitlisted mean?
It means a decision is still open. Waitlisted candidates are moved to selected or rejected by May 2027 at the latest, so the uncertainty does not stretch beyond that.
Does an exchange semester in the Netherlands disqualify me?
No. Only a previous degree-seeking programme in the Netherlands does. Exchange students are welcome to apply.
Where to check before you apply
Scholarship details change between cycles, and the amounts listed here are already noted as subject to change for 2028-2029. These are the sources worth reading directly:
- The official UM NL-High Potential Scholarship page, which carries the application form, the motivation letter template and the reference letter guidelines
- The list of participating master’s programmes for 2027-2028
- Other Maastricht University scholarships for international students
- The general UM admission and application pages
Questions about the scholarship itself go to the UM International Services Desk at hhp.scholarship@maastrichtuniversity.nl