UBC Major Entrance Scholarships and the Personal Profile
UBC’s biggest entrance awards do not have an essay of their own. The Presidential Scholars Award, renewable up to $80,000 at Vancouver, is decided from your academic record and the Personal Profile you already write for admission, which makes the profile your scholarship essay whether you meant it as one or not. Other UBC awards need a separate application on top, with its own document and reference, and all of them for Canadian students close on December 1, 2026. This guide sorts the awards into profile-only and separate-application, gives the dates for the 2027 entry year, says what the profile has to show for a scholarship reader rather than an admissions reader, and works through six practice prompts and a sample answer.
Which awards need what, for September 2027 entry
UBC’s scholarships page for Canadian students lists six routes; sort them by what you must submit beyond the admission application. Everything below is from UBC’s award and dates pages, checked September 2026.
- Presidential Scholars Award: profile only. For Canadian citizens and permanent residents finishing high school or CEGEP who “excel across the board” with “academic and leadership achievements in the arts, community, athletics, and school.” Values are a one-time award of approximately $5,000, or renewable awards of up to $40,000 at Okanagan and $80,000 at Vancouver, payable over four years. To be considered you answer “Yes” in the Awards section of the online application; there is no separate form. UBC evaluates “academic profile and personal profile,” and only your first-choice degree is considered. Notification is at end of day on April 27, and only successful applicants are contacted.
- Centennial Scholars Entrance Award: separate application. Need-based, for strong students who are Canadian citizens, permanent residents or protected persons entering a direct-entry program. You must “demonstrate financial need” through the Entrance Award application, which adds a Description of Circumstance, a reference form and, where applicable, a parent or guardian form. Most recipients are contacted by May 15.
- Beyond Tomorrow Scholars Award: separate application. For students who self-identify as Black, with financial need, through the same Entrance Award application; the Description of Circumstance is capped at 1,000 words and asks about “your involvement and contribution to your school, community, or family” and how the award would affect your goals at UBC. Contacted by May 15.
- Loran and Schulich Leader: external. UBC lists both but does not run them. Loran is a direct application to the foundation; Schulich is nomination-only. The Loran and Schulich guide has their dates.
- Awards for Indigenous students have their own page on the same hub; confirm the process on the official page.
- International students. The International Major Entrance Scholarship ($10,000 to $25,000 a year for 2026/27) and the Outstanding International Student Award ($10,000 to $25,000 for 2025/26) are automatic on the admission application. The International Scholars Program awards (Karen McKellin, Donald A. Wehrung, International Impact, Vantage One) need a school nomination, a separate application by November 15, 2026, documents by January 31, 2027, and a possible video interview between January and March.
What December 1 means in practice
UBC’s general deadline is January 15, 2027, but scholarship consideration for Canadian students closes six weeks earlier, and the Presidential page says every section, including the fee, must be complete by then. The profile you submit on December 1 is the one the scholarship committee reads; there is no later round. The summer drafting plan and the early-versus-regular guide explain why the December round is the one that counts for awards. The Centennial and Beyond Tomorrow applications are separate forms with a reference, so the referee needs asking in November, not on the last night.
What the profile has to show a scholarship reader
The profile review guide explains how UBC trains readers and how little time each profile gets, and the questions guide goes through every published question. What changes when the profile is also a scholarship file is emphasis.
- “Across the board” is a real phrase. UBC’s Presidential description names arts, community, athletics and school. A profile with one extraordinary activity and nothing else is an admissions profile. A scholarship profile shows range in the five-activity list and depth in the one or two you expand on.
- Leadership is one of the four criteria, so name what people did because of you. The activities table asks for your role; the follow-up question asks what you learned. The scholarship reader wants the sentence between those two: what changed for other people.
- Substance means a checkable specific in every answer. A number, a name, a date, a thing that still exists. Readers score substance separately from voice, and a fluent answer with no facts in it scores on voice alone.
- Voice means it sounds like a seventeen-year-old who was there. The references question exists because UBC may check; write nothing a referee could not confirm.
Six practice prompts
UBC publishes its profile questions, and you should write to them. These are AcceptMe’s practice prompts, written to the four published criteria and to the Presidential description, for deciding which activities and stories carry a scholarship profile. Write each within 2,100 characters, the profile’s long-answer limit, so nothing you draft is the wrong length.
- Of the five activities you would list, which one would you keep if you could only keep one, and what has it made you do that you would not otherwise have done?
- Describe a role in which other people relied on you to show up. Who noticed when you did, and what happened once when you could not?
- Tell us about something you made, organized or fixed for your school or community that a stranger could go and see today.
- What is important to you, in one sentence, and what is the most recent thing you did because of it?
- Tell us about a time you were the least experienced person in a room and still changed what the room decided.
- What would you do in first year at UBC with the time a renewable award gives back to you, and what would you do without it?
A worked answer
UBC’s fourth question asks you to tell them more about one or two activities that are most important to you, the role you played and what you learned. Here is an answer at about 1,900 characters from a student whose main activity was a job, written so that all four criteria are visible.
The activity is a Saturday job at a bike shop in Kelowna, which I have had since March of Grade 10. I list it first because it is where I have done the most leading, even though I have never had a title there. In my first summer I noticed we turned away about a dozen people a month who wanted a flat fixed while they waited, because our two mechanics were booked on full services. I asked the owner if I could do flats and brake adjustments at the front counter. He said yes if I could do a tube in under ten minutes, so I practiced at home on my own bike until I could do it in six.
By that August the walk-in repairs were mine, and the owner put a second teenager on with me the following spring and asked me to train her. That was the harder part. I was good at flats and bad at explaining them, and the first two weeks she mostly watched me. What fixed it was a rule I made for myself: my hands stay in my pockets until she asks. She was faster than me by June. Last year the shop did about 900 walk-in repairs, which the owner told me was a category that did not exist before I asked.
What I learned is that the useful version of leadership was not being the person who could do the thing, it was noticing the dozen people we were turning away and then being willing to be slow while someone else learned. I want to study mechanical engineering at UBC, and the part of this job I will take with me is the habit of counting who is being turned away.
Engagement and accomplishment: three years, a category of work that did not exist, a number. Leadership: a person trained, with a specific rule and a measurable result. Substance: a city, a month, a ten-minute test, a hands-in-pockets rule. Voice: it sounds like a person who has fixed a lot of flats. And it never uses the word scholarship, because the award reader is looking for the same four things the admissions reader is, only with more money at stake.
Mistakes that cost scholarship consideration
- Forgetting the checkbox. The Presidential Scholars Award requires a “Yes” in the Awards section. UBC does not consider you by default.
- Submitting after December 1, 2026. Admission stays open to January 15, 2027; scholarship consideration for Canadian students does not.
- Putting the best material on a second-choice degree. Only your first-choice degree is evaluated for the Presidential award.
- One activity, deeply. The award is for students who excel across the board. Range in the table, depth in the expansion.
- Assuming Centennial is the profile. It is a separate Entrance Award application with a Description of Circumstance and a reference form, also due December 1.
- A profile with nothing checkable. UBC asks for referees for a reason. Every claim should have a person behind it.
Where to go from here
Start with the Personal Profile questions guide for every published question and a worked example, then the profile review guide for how readers are trained and who can read yours before you submit. The activities section guide is where the “across the board” range gets built, five rows at a time. If you are running Loran or Beedie Luminaries alongside, the Luminaries guide covers the BC award that does interview. And when a draft answer is ready, AcceptMe’s essay coach will read it against the question and pin a note to every sentence, tagged works, tighten or fix, without writing a word of it for you; two reviews are free, and the full coach is C$49 a month, cancel any time.
Keep reading
- UBC Personal Profile Questions: How to Answer Each One UBC's Personal Profile questions as published, the four things UBC says it reads for, how to answer within 2,100 characters, and a worked example.
- UBC Personal Profile Review: How Readers Score It, Who Can Help How UBC trains its readers and the four criteria they score, what six minutes per profile means for your draft, and who can review yours in BC.
- Scholarship Essays and Interviews: Loran, Schulich, More How Canada's big entrance awards actually judge applicants, the questions they ask, and how to prepare essays and interview answers.