Everything you need to know about applying for the Rector’s scholarship – academic year 2025/2026 [UPDATE 19.12]

Category: 2025/2026, Rector’s scholarship

The post will be updated – updates are located at the top of the post.
Most recent update: 19.12.2025

🗓️ UPDATE – December 19

Decisions are now being made available on your USOSweb accounts!
This process may take some time, so we kindly ask for your patience and not to worry in advance.

📅 Payment of the scholarship, including retroactive payment for October and November, is planned for 22–23 December 2025.

We would like to congratulate all students who have been awarded the scholarship and wish you continued success. We hope that the scholarship will support you in pursuing your ambitious plans.

🗓️ UPDATE – December 18

We have completed the review of applications!
All individuals who submitted their application on time will receive their decisions shortly.

❗ Pursuant to Order No. 11 of the Rector of the University of Warsaw of 18 December 2025 on determining the amount of the Rector’s Scholarship for students in the academic year 2025/2026 (Monitor UW – only in Polish), the amount of the Rector’s Scholarship in the academic year 2025/2026 is 1200 PLN per month.

❗ The number of students eligible to receive the Rector’s Scholarship in the academic year 2025/2026 has been set at 6%.

📅 Payment of the scholarship, including retroactive payment for October and November, is planned for December 2025. Intensive work on processing the payments is currently underway.

Decisions will be available in USOSweb.

Once your decision is ready, you will receive an automatic email to the address associated with your USOSweb account.

❗ What if I disagree with the decision?

Please remember that you always have the right to submit an appeal if the decision does not meet your expectations. Detailed information can be found in the section Rector’s Scholarship – What if I disagree with the decision?

Examples of the most common situations that do not result in a change of the decision

Situation: I received a grade of 5! in courses completed at UW that were used to calculate my scholarship average. Will I receive additional points for this?
Answer: According to the Study Regulations, a 5! grade is counted as 5 in the average. This grade is also not considered an additional achievement under the Regulations on student benefits at UW.

Situation: I have achievements other than those listed in the Regulations.
Answer: The list of achievements is closed, therefore, for example, social activities are not awarded points.

Situation: Comments regarding the assessment of my application were submitted only in the request for reconsideration.
Answer: If comments were not submitted within the designated deadline (as indicated in the comment section of the USOSweb application), they cannot be taken into account.

Situation: I failed to submit documents confirming achievements or my grade average within the deadline and attached them only to the request for reconsideration.
Answer: In accordance with § 4(3) of Annex No. 3 to the Regulations on student benefits at UW, objections or claims submitted after the deadline are not considered.

Situation: My grade average is 4.65, and the scholarship was awarded starting from 4.66 — I was short by just 1 point.
Answer: After preparing the ranking list, it turned out that the application did not fall within the top 6% of students at a given stage of study, calculated in accordance with the applicable rules. Please also note that the final point threshold depends not only on the grade average, but also on other achievements taken into account in the scholarship procedure.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, we encourage you to contact us directly.

🗓️ UPDATE – December 04

The processing of applications for the Rector’s Scholarship is entering its final stage. Most of the applications have already been verified. At this point, work is underway to determine the scholarship amount and the percentage of students who may receive it. Unfortunately, at the same time, nationwide legislative changes are also reaching a decisive stage. These changes affect the regulations governing how scholarship funds are calculated. For this reason, decisions on granting the scholarships will be issued later than originally planned.

We are fully aware of how important timelines and predictability are for you. That is why we are committed to being fully transparent about what is happening. We assure you that we are closely monitoring the situation and doing everything we can to ensure that the decisions can be released as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. We will keep you informed of the next steps on an ongoing basis.

🗓️ UPDATE – November 21

We have some important news! At this time, 90.5% of all submitted applications already have the status “awaiting consideration”. This means that the vast majority have been checked by coordinators and are now waiting for the algorithm that will select this year’s scholarship recipients.

We would like to thank everyone who submits feedback on their application evaluations promptly. Your patience and cooperation are a huge support for our office. For those still waiting for a response, please don’t worry – every comment will be reviewed and answered. This is an important step before the algorithm can be run.

❗ At this moment, we do not yet know the percentage of students who will receive the scholarship or the exact award amount. We will share these details as soon as they are available.

📅 We plan to release the decisions – according to current expectations – by the end of the first week of December.

The next update will be published soon. If you have any questions or concerns, we are here for you – feel free to contact us at bpm@uw.edu.pl

🗓️ UPDATE – October 22

List of coordinators in the units responsible for the Rector’s Scholarship in the 2025/2026 academic year.
If you have any questions regarding your grade point average, please wait for your application to be verified by the coordinator. If you have any doubts, please contact your faculty coordinator and inform BPM.

🗓️ UPDATE – October 16

This year, we received 5,665 applications – that’s about 2.1% more than last year (5,548). We’re glad to see so many students applying for this scholarship! 🎓

At the moment, we’re waiting for data from the academic units so that we can start verifying the applications. We plan to begin this process next week.

📊 If you still don’t see your grade average in the ranking, don’t worry – this is completely normal. Academic units are still finalizing their records, so the averages may appear even in the first half of November.

At this stage, we kindly ask you to be patient and wait for a message from your coordinator. Once your application has been verified, you’ll receive an email with information about your score and other important details regarding the evaluation of your application. Please remember that sending an email before receiving this information will not speed up the process or affect the outcome – so just wait for the coordinator’s message.

🕰️ The exact dates for announcements and payments are not yet confirmed, but we expect that in the first half of December 2025, you will find out the decisions, scholarship amounts, and the percentage of students who qualified. We’ll update this information once about 80% of the applications have been verified.

Thank you for your patience and for all the questions you’ve been sending us!

Starting from 1 October, applications for the Rector’s Scholarship for the 2025/2026 academic year can be submitted!

The percentage of eligible candidates and the amount of the Rector’s Scholarship will be announced between November and December. 

Starting your studies and wondering about the Rector’s Scholarship?

The Rector’s Scholarship is awarded to students admitted to the first year of a first- or long-cycle studies in the year of taking the secondary school leaving exam [matura], provided they meet one of the following criteria: 

👉 they are laureates of an international olympiad or laureates/finalists of a national-level olympiad (in accordance with the education system regulations),
👉 they are medalists in sporting competitions holding the title of Polish Champion in a given sport (in accordance with the sports regulations).

Every student who meets these criteria and submits an application within the deadline shall be awarded the Rector’s Scholarship. In this case, the limitation on the number of scholarships, based on the percentage of eligible students established by the Rector, shall not apply. 

When can the Rector’s Scholarship not be awarded?

First-year students of first- or long-cycle studies shall not be eligible for the Rector’s Scholarship if they:

• did not take the secondary school leaving exam [pl. matura] in the year of admission to the first year of the studies for which they are applying for the scholarship; 
• DO NOT hold the title of:
  • laureate of an international olympiad, or 
  • laureate of a national-level olympiad referred to in the education system regulations, or
  • finalist of a national-level olympiad referred to in the education system regulations;
• ARE NOT medalists of at least a national sporting competition with the title of Polish Champion in a given sport, as referred to in the sports regulations.

Upper-year students shall not be eligible for the Rector’s Scholarship if they:

• hold a Master’s degree or an equivalent one (regardless of when or where it was obtained);
  ● are applying for the scholarship for first-cycle studies after having completed another first-cycle studies earlier;
  ● have been studying for more than 12 semesters – applies to scholarship applications for any year of any field of studies;
  ● have been studying for more than 9 semesters in first-cycle studies – applies to scholarship applications for first-cycle studies;
  ● have been studying for more than 7 semesters in second-cycle studies – applies to scholarship applications for second-cycle studies;
  ● did not enrol for the next academic year in 2025/2026 in the case of:
   ○ repeating a year;
   ○ returning from leave;
   ○ resuming studies after being removed from the student list due to failure to obtain all credits for the year;
   ○ extending studies in order to defend a thesis;
  ● did not begin the second-cycle studies on which they are applying for the Rector’s Scholarship within 12 months of completing their first-cycle studies – applies to first-year applications for second-cycle studies.

When can I submit my application?

Where and how can I submit my application?

Average Grade. See how your average grade translates into points.

If you are applying for the Rector’s Scholarship, you can calculate your points based on your average grade using the following formula:

You can also obtain your calculated average grade at the secretary’s office of your teaching unit.

⚠️When calculating the average grade for the third year of your first-cycle studies, the grade for the thesis and its defence shall not be included.
⚠️A grade of 5! shall be counted as 5 in the average grade calculation.
⚠️If the average grade appears in your application before it has been verified by the coordinator, and you disagree with it or have doubts, please wait for the coordinator’s verification. You will then receive a comment explaining how to submit any objections or remarks regarding your average grade and any achievements attached to the application. 

Do you have academic, sporting, or artistic achievements? See how many points you can earn for them.

Detailed information on points for additional achievements (Criteria II–IV) can be found in Appendix no. 3 of the Rules and Regulations of Students’ Benefits at the University of Warsaw. The document is available at the following link: ANNOUNCEMENT NO. 18 OF THE RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW. 

§6 – 10 of Appendix 3 provide all information regarding the scoring of additional achievements, including detailed criteria and requirements. 

Assessment Criteria

Guide for the Upcoming Period

We understand that starting a new academic year can be stressful and raise many questions. For this reason, we aim to simplify the application process for the Rector’s Scholarship and regularly update our website with helpful guidance. 

Stay calm and remember that during the verification stage of your application, we will contact you with information on how to submit any objections regarding your average grade or achievement scores. To help us work efficiently, please wait until we reach out to you. Contacting us beforehand will not speed up the verification process. 

Keep a balanced view of the rankings. Remember that they are only a reference and do not include points for additional achievements beyond your average grade, so they may not fully reflect the actual situation.

Q: Does this mean that the USOSweb ranking does not show my actual chances of receiving the scholarship?

A: The USOSweb rankings take into account only the average grade. They do not consider all of the relevant factors, such as additional academic, sports or artistic achievements. Therefore, while the rankings can be useful, they do not provide a complete picture of a student’s situation.