The Educational Advising Center announces the contest Merit Scholarships 2015 that is organized under the aegis of the Council of Rectors of Moldova. The best 50 students of the country will receive scholarships of 12,000 lei each, IPN reports.

The contest is open to citizens and residents of Moldova younger than 30, including last-year students, students studying for their master’s degree the first year at all the specialties at one of the universities of Moldova and students involved in integrated studies programs in medicine, public health, pharmacy, stomatology and veterinary medicine the last and last but one years of study and in architecture the fourth and fifth years of study. All the candidates must have an average grade for all the years of study of minimum 9 for humanities, of 8.5 for exact, technical and medical-biological sciences and of 8 in the case of students with disabilities and/or orphans and be actively involved in curriculum and extra-curriculum activities.

The contest consists of two stages – examination of applicants’ files and a general culture test. The files will be examined by a Council of Independent Experts. The sponsors of the Merit Scholarships contest are BC Moldova Agroindbank and Orange Moldova, while its partners are the National Association of Young Historians of Moldova and the advertising agency Kim Art. The media partners are the journal “Saptamana”, the daily “Timpul”, the newspaper “Ziarul de Garda” and the News Agency IPN.

The Merit Scholarships program was launched in 1996 on the initiative of Soros Foundation Moldova to encourage the academic, scientific and extra-curriculum performance of the Moldovan students. Since 2001, this initiative has been supported by BC Moldova Agroindbank, while since 2004 – also by the company Voxtel, now Orange Moldova. Since 2003, the Merit Scholarships contest has been staged by the Educational Advising Center under the aegis of the Council of Rectors of Moldova.

More than 4,500 students applied for a Merit Scholarship during the 19 contests held so far. Of these, 1,230 students benefitted from such scholarships. The ceremony to award Merit Scholarships became a remarkable event in the university life in Moldova.