Inlaks Scholarship 2026: Closed, Worth Up to $120,000

Up to USD 120,000 — if your subject is on the right list

The Inlaks Scholarship, run by the Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, is among the most generous scholarships open to young Indians: it funds study at top-rated universities in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, for courses lasting nine months to four years, with a value of up to USD 120,000 covering tuition fees, living expenses, one-way travel, visa costs and a health allowance. It is designed as a life-changing intervention at a specific moment — the start of a postgraduate career — and the Foundation selects not only on past achievement but, in its own words, on "future potential."

Applications for 2026 are closed, and the Foundation states that everyone shortlisted for the next round has been informed: if you applied and have heard nothing, your application has not moved forward. The selection calendar the Foundation published for 2026 — applications reviewed in April, online preliminary interviews around May, and a final in-person interview in Mumbai on the third or fourth weekend of May — tells next year's applicants exactly how the rhythm runs.

Eligibility, clause by clause

Inlaks eligibility is more specific than most scholarships, and several clauses eliminate strong candidates every year. Read them literally:

• Citizenship and residence. You must be an Indian passport holder, resident in India at the time of application.
• Age. You must be born on or after 1 January 1996 (for the 2026 cycle — in effect, under 30 when the cycle opens).
• First degree. You must hold a degree from a recognised university in India; final-year students awaiting results may apply. If your undergraduate degree is from abroad, you must have resided continuously, been employed, or been studying in India for at least two years after graduation to be eligible.
• Minimum marks, split by stream. For Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, Fine Arts, Architecture and related subjects: at least 65%, CGPA 6.8/10 or GPA 2.6/4. For Mathematics, Sciences, Environment and related subjects: at least 70%, CGPA 7.2/10 or GPA 3/4. These minima apply to both bachelor's and master's degrees, if you hold both.
• Admission first. This is the clause that catches people: you must already hold an admission offer — conditional or unconditional — from your chosen institution when you apply. The Foundation will not consider applicants without evidence of admission. If your offer is conditional, every condition except an English-language requirement must be fulfilled before the final interview; and if an English certification is part of your offer conditions, you must attain it before applying, not after.
• Deferred offers must be valid for the academic year of the scholarship cycle.

The exclusions — read these before anything else

Inlaks does not fund every subject, and two personal-history exclusions apply regardless of field:

• Anyone who already holds a postgraduate qualification from an institution abroad is ineligible.
• Anyone already studying, or who has started, postgraduate education abroad is ineligible.

The following subjects are not eligible: Business and Finance; Computer Science; Engineering; Fashion Design; Film and Film Animation; Hospitality and Tourism; Indian Studies without Contemporary Relevance; Management Studies (MBA); Medicine, Dentistry and related therapies; and Music. Three asterisks matter: Engineering and Natural Sciences at Imperial College, London are considered despite the engineering exclusion; documentary filmmaking is considered despite the film exclusion; and Western Classical singing is considered despite the music exclusion. If your course sits near a boundary — a computational humanities degree, a design-engineering programme — the Foundation's classification, not your university's department name, decides.

How selection works

An independent Inlaks Selection Committee runs three stages: a review of eligible applications (April in the 2026 cycle), online preliminary interviews (around May), and a final in-person interview in Mumbai (late May). Candidates in art and design are assessed primarily on their portfolios. The Foundation is blunt about silence: if you have received no communication by 30 April, assume your application has not succeeded — there is no rejection letter to wait for.

Applying in the next cycle

When the window opens, the application runs through the "Apply Now" link on the Foundation's scholarship page — when the scholarship is closed, the link simply is not visible, which is the fastest status check there is. Build your timeline backwards from the April review: your university offer must be in hand when you apply, which means your university applications belong to the previous autumn, and courses with January offer deadlines work better than courses that decide in March. Assemble degree certificates and transcripts proving the 65%/70% thresholds, your offer letter, and evidence of English certification if your offer demands it.

Common mistakes

Applying without an admission offer — an automatic non-consideration, not a weakness. Assuming an MBA, computer science or general engineering course can squeeze through — it cannot, and the exclusions are applied as written. Holding a foreign master's already and hoping the rule is flexible — it is not. Missing the English-certification-before-applying rule for conditional offers. And planning around a "rejection email" that never comes: the 30 April silence rule is the answer.

For the next cycle, nothing is announced yet. The Foundation's page is the only place the window will open — and given that admission offers must precede the application, the real deadline for an Inlaks aspirant is not the scholarship's closing date but the admissions calendar of the universities on their list.

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