An eligible applicant will need to receive 6H1s in the first sitting of the leaving certificate and complete an online application. They will also have to upload a photo of their results once released to verify this.
If you are getting a subject rechecked you can still apply for the Academic Scholarship. However you must apply before the closing date.
Unfortunately not. The closing date is strictly adhered to and no exceptions are allowed.
Problems accessing your online application? When logging in to an existing account, enter the UCD Unique ID that was sent to the email account you registered with (it begins with 'A') in the 'Email Address, ID Number or Connect Username' section, followed by your password.
Unsure if you have a UCD unique ID? To access the applications section, you would have had to either log in or created a profile. Search your email account (incl spam) for the address 'noreply@ucd.ie' to find your username details.
Forgotten your password? Click on a link that says 'Retrieve your Password', as shown below and it will ask if you would like the password sent to your email account or you can retrieve it via the security question you made when creating the account.
Each year, the academy awards up to 18 scholarships across the University for Stage 2 students based on a combination of their overall Stage 1 results and an application process.
The individual programme areas will nominate a small number of their top performing students who have a minimum GPA of 3.68 and inform the Ad Astra Academy Academic Programme. These students will then be invited to apply to the Academic Programme. Those who already hold a degree in any jurisdiction will not be eligible for the award of an Ad Astra Academic Scholarship.
Please note, you cannot apply directly to the Academy for an academic scholarship as a current student of UCD. You must receive an invite from the Academy to apply. It is your programme area that nominates students who are eligible to apply.
No. The Academic scholarship is only available for people who have no prior degree.
No. The terms and conditions of the Academy stipulate that the Academic Scholarship is only available to students completing an undergraduate programme.
For different reasons, a student may wish to take a leave of absence during their studies. If their programme supports this, then the Academy will also support this option and the student can rejoin the Academy after their leave, provided they have reached the required annual renewal criteria.
Unfortunately not. The year that you are offered a place, you must accept it to become part of the Academy. If you do decide to defer for the year, you can reapply the following year to the Academy.
The GPA requirements are set to ensure students strive to aspire, achieve and excel. If a student is feeling concerned about their GPA during the year, we would encourage them to contact their Programme Office, Academic Mentor and ourselves to see if supports can be put in place.
We are looking for students who achieve outside the classroom with leadership potential, so include any documentation that would support this. Remember this is our chance to get to see your personality! For ideas and examples, check out our Applications page to see what some of our scholars have included in their applications. The different areas you might like to focus on include: Achievement in national competitions such as Science, Maths, Politics, Economics, Debating; International Achievement; Evidence of active citizenship or volunteering; Evidence of innovation or entrepreneurship; Evidence of leadership in a school, club or sporting context and achievement in cultural, musical or artistic pursuits.
There is no average length of an application! However we would remind you to read the questions carefully and to really consider what you would like your response to say about you before answering.
Absolutely. As soon as you have a concern, call into your programme office, contact your academic mentor and / or call into us.
We offer a large number of benefits to our scholars such as academic mentoring; access to the Scholars Room; team building events; workshops and seminars that will develop their leadership and soft skills; a social group that arrange a number of events each year and more. By becoming actively involved in the Ad Astra Community, scholars will get the most out of the scholarship!
For those who join in stage one, they will get the opportunity to be put into multi-disciplinary groups with other scholars in the same stage to focus on a group project in the Autumn Trimester. This will allow the new scholars to meet each other and to start engaging with the Academy. For those joining in stage two, they will have the option of undertaking our elective module Ad Astra Professional & Personal Development which will help foster and develop their leadership and soft skills.
A huge aspect of the Academy is getting involved with everything we have to offer! The Ad Astra Academy has a strong community and we strive to continue to build this area which in turn, will build the scholars connections during and after their time in UCD. We strongly encourage the fostering of building relationships across our three programmes.
There are currently up to sixteen Ad Astra Academic Scholarships awarded to students entering the Academy each year.