Khazanah Global Scholarship

To introduce myself, I am an Alumni from the first batch of Kolej GENIUS Insan (aka PERMATA Insan) and graduated in 2019! I accepted an offer to become a Khazanah Scholar and will be continuing my studies in Kolej Yayasan UEM, and Insyallah to the States in late 2021!

As a short background check, I am NOT a straight A+ student and have a couple of As here and there (Bahasa Arab is tough...) but still managed to be offered scholarship offer from Yayasan Khazanah, Petronas, Yayasan Sime Darby, and TalentLab Digital Fund! Based on my estimations, I had undergone through 17 stages in total- about 11 interviews and 6 assessments. Bear in mind that academic qualifications are important only to get you to pass the early stages of the application! The next phases are all dependent on your ability to perform in assesment and manage your interview sessions well! Here is a complete breakdown for my Yayasan Khazanah scholarship process.

The application process for Khazanah was quite a long process compared to the likes of PETRONAS and Sime Darby. It is the only one that requires you to submit essays – 3 of them to be exact.

But DON’T worry! The essays are about 100-200 words each and have a quite a big scope to work on!

1st essay, they asked me to write about my field and its importance. A way to do it is to start with a fact or a simple statistics and present the need of the field that you are planning to take in the span of 5-10 years from now. Make it professional but make it as light as you can!

2nd essay was about my contributions to the society! I shortly wrote about my experiences in joining 2 social welfare programmes and relate them with my realization that these so called underprivileged group of the society is also important to be considered when developing the nation.

3rd essay is quite flexible and I was required to write about myself! My tips for this part is to present a story or a period in your life that is beneath all your achievements and glories, and instead present a time when you experiences a ‘failure’ or anything that affected your motivations! I mainly wrote my interest in Mathematics and my journey in participating in competitibe Olympiad programmes.

A pro tip of mine is to make sure the essays you wrote is ‘worthwhile’ to be read! People need to have a key takeaway when they finished reading your essay, either additional knowledge (hence putting a little statistics at the start) or gain a new perspective on certain topics! If a person checking your essay and their response is “oh, it is a good essay..”, then there is something wrong there.


First Stage

The first stage consists of 2 tests; Logiks Verbal (advanced) and Logiks Numerical (Advanced).I would say that the Verbal section is harder - because I like maths.

For Verbal section, the trick is to understand the parts of a paragraph, its like imagining a paragraph not as a mix of sentences, but more like a building! You can search TEELs MUET on Google.

Basically, the first sentence is the thesis statement, that’s the main idea of the paragraph. Everything else is either an explanation, elaboration and/or examples. If there is question asking about the main idea or arguments, look at the first sentence! But still, it’s up to your creativity!

For Numerical Section, it is more on graph reading and calculations based on data, there is no formulas, but do refresh up on averages and ratios! Be very proficient in reading bar graph, line graph and tables, and I mean tables with an unconventional rows and columns...

Oh and be quick. Time is a luxury here. Good luck.


Second Stage

The second stage is actually the easiest one! This stage will not need academic knowledge. They will have a couple of questions regarding your personalities and values, but IT IS IMPORTANT. Be true to yourself and show that you are competitive and have a good moral compass while not being too heartless.

Third Stage

At this stage, normally candidates are required to go to an assessment centre like a hotel in KL or others. But as the year 2020 is a little bit special (with COVID-19 pandemic issues) everything is conducted through online platforms! It is much easier in my opinion.There is 2 part to this stage, a Graphite Assessment and a first individual interview!

Honestly, Graphite assessment is kind of hard. Period.

There are 5 sections, which took about an hour to complete. Time is the most challenging part in this stage. The sections are;

1.Pattern Identification section. These are like the IQ test you would normally seen before – and if you are from KGI, yup this is similar to UKM-1!

2.Critical Thinking and Reasoning section. Here, I found Mathematics problem solving, Biology formulas (catch, mark and release formula...) and also Chemistry experiments. Be sure to refresh several parts of the SPM syllabus, and focus.

3.Personality and Stress Management section. Easy!

4.Code Section. IT DOES RELATE WITH CODING! It's just a simple matching codes with the keywords presented and it tests your ability to answer correctly and swiftly.

5.Decision Making section. Prepare to be in a moral dilemma in this section!


Interview Stage

The online interview is through Skype! Several of the questions are about describing an event where you are handling stress, and event where you received criticism for your actions and others. Basically refresh up on stories of your high school life, and use those to answer the questions! I even got to use my form 1 experience in talking about handling stress.

ATTENTION. A very important tip in an online interview is to use points in talking about anything! You can also use your fingers to denote your key events, this is vital so that the interview panels can understand your story and ask in depth about them! Do not be afraid, they are humans too.


Fourth Stage

At this stage, I was quite surprised that I managed to get through, it's all 'rezeki'!

This stage is also an online interview but this time with the management of YK! It will be a 15-20 minutes of casual chatting! They just wanted to see your ability to converse effectively and get to know you better, more than just your academic merits! I was mainly questioned about KGI (I had to explain about KGI about 100000x times in my life, thus it was easy for me~) and about my family backgrounds.

My tips are to be friendly and do not be late for the session!


Fifth Stage

If you managed to get to this stage, the chances are 95% in your favor – as long as you do not crash this interview. One of the candidates that was in my group did not managed to secure the scholarship offer...

But rest assured! This stage is a little more fun and you will be interviewed by the Director of Yayasan Khazanah for about 1 hour! My group was actually 4 person, but only 3 came as one of us accepted an offer from Shell, and rejected Khazanah.

At this stage, you do not need to mention your academic grades or merits, because everyone is exceptional in that already. However, do talk about your passion and things you did that was different from others! For me, I mentioned about my research articles and papers that had been published while I was studying in KGI. Find your advantage and do use that to the fullest!

This interview is more like a discussion. We talked and discussed about 2 topics, (1) if you are a scholarship provider, should you prioritize giving scholarships to underprivileged students or not, and (2) if you are the Malaysian Government, how do you plan to help small businesses in surviving the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the discussion, the director would try to refute your decision and show the flaw in your arguments. Be calm, keep a cool head and maintain a logical reasoning behind your decisions.


Conclusion

It is truly a privilege for me to be a Khazanah Scholar and it is in my aspiration to fully utilize this chance that I got to further design more success and attain new experience in the never-ending realm of the future.

For all of you who are applying, or are going to take the SPM exams soon, I wish you the best of luck, and know that anything the future holds, is always planned to be the best for you.