Merit Scholarships are granted each year by the Directorate General for Higher Education (DGES) to higher education institutions in order to reward students that have had an exceptional performance in the academic year in which the scholarship is granted.

According to the 5th point of the Order number 13531/2009 of the 9th of june and number 7761/2017 of the 4th of september, the criteria of ranking stands as it follows:

a) In the academic year in which the student claims the scholarship, he/she must be actively enrolled in an undergraduate or master’s degree;

b) In the academic year in which the scholarship is to be granted, the student must have obtained all the credits for the attainment of the degree (60 ECTS), namely of those curricular modules that were part of the degree’s curriculum;

c) The average grade for the curricular modules specified above cannot be below 16 on a scale of 0 to 20;

The following criteria is used for the purposes of selection and tie:

1) In the academic year correspondent to the discharge of scholarships, curricular modules enrolled for accreditation will not be considered, or any ECTS beyond the regular 60 credits. In case the student has undertaken more than 60 ECTS, the courses with lower grades will be ruled out;

2) For measuring the average classification foreseen by the point c), the selection will be correspondent to the best average of grades obtained to courses that are parte of the degree’s curriculum. Grades obtained that academic year in improvement exams will also be accounted for.

3) In case there is a tie in the event of awarding the last grant, the average of grades shall be recalculated without considering the grades of improvement exams;

4) If the tie still persists, the average grade of courses done in the year before the one that is being analyzed, shall be taken into consideration. In this regard, imporvement exams taken in the year in which the grant is being provided, shall be accounted in this equation;

5) If the tie still persists the average specified in the 4th point shall be recalculated without accounting improvement exams;

6) For the specific case of master’s students, if the tie still persists after the implementation of points 3), 4) and 5), the final grade of the undergraduate degree shall be taken into consideration.

Find here the definitive list of students selected for Merit Scholarships.