Who the Dr. Youssef Abdelsattar scholarship is for

Youssef Mohammed Abdelsattar was a medical student at Kasr Al-Ainy, Class of 2027. He died in 2024. Before medical school he was at STEM Ismailia High School, where in his senior year he ranked among the top twenty STEM students in Egypt. At Kasr Al-Ainy he kept working in computer science, research and entrepreneurship, and held an outstanding academic record while he did it.

The scholarship that carries his name is one of two memorial programmes among the six scholarships on this site. A memorial award is written differently from a general bursary. A bursary describes a situation. A memorial award describes a person, and its criteria are an attempt to recognise that person in somebody else.

Honouring a legacy of excellence, innovation and passion.

Why the criteria read the way they do

The published criteria are these:

• Graduate of a STEM Egypt high school.
• Currently enrolled at an accredited medical university.
• Academic excellence in medical education.
• Passion for interdisciplinary learning — medicine alongside research, computer science or entrepreneurship.
• Leadership and a commitment to innovation.
• Financial need, or a proven record of academic distinction.
• A personal statement.

The first one is the one people ask about. The STEM schools are a specific system and Youssef came through it, so graduating from one is part of what this award commemorates rather than a judgement about the students who did not. It is also the only scholarship here that carries such a rule. If it rules you out, it rules you out of this award and of nothing else.

The fourth criterion does most of the work. Interdisciplinary is a soft word in most applications, and here it has a concrete referent: a student who was doing medicine and computer science and research at the same time, and whose marks did not slide while he did. The criterion is asking whether your second subject is real, not whether you can name one.

Need or merit, and why you are not asked to choose

The financial criterion is written with an or in it: financial need for need-based consideration, or a proven record of academic distinction for merit-based consideration. Both routes lead to the same award, and one applicant can qualify on both. Say in your statement which applies to you, and if both do, say both.

What the award covers is not a fixed package. It is granted at MeducateED's discretion on need-based or merit-based grounds, and the scope of a particular award is stated in the decision email rather than published in advance. Knowing that before you apply saves you looking for a figure that is not on the page.

What the application asks for

The form is short, and nothing in it is a trick. It asks for your name, email address and mobile number; which STEM Egypt high school you graduated from; your university and year of study; your academic transcript; an account of your work in medicine, research, computer science or entrepreneurship; the personal statement; and any supporting documents you want to attach, which are optional.

The application is tied to your MeducateED account, so you sign in before you fill it in. The programme is reviewed on a rolling basis rather than against a closing date. Applying is free. Every application receives a decision by email, including the ones that are turned down.

Of everything on that list, the transcript is the only item you cannot produce yourself on the evening you decide to apply. Request it first, then write while you wait for it.

The statement is the part you control

There is no template and no word limit. Most statements that work run to about a page; length is not what is being read for. Two things belong in it. The first is how the curiosity named in the criteria actually shows up in your own work — the project, the paper, the piece of software, the thing you built and what happened to it. The second is what the scholarship would let you carry on doing.

Write it as yourself. A named project with an outcome, even a small or a failed one, says more than a paragraph of adjectives, because it can be checked and adjectives cannot. If your second subject is early and unimpressive, describe it accurately rather than inflating it. The criteria ask for evidence of a habit, not for a finished career.

What to do this week

If you graduated from a STEM Egypt school and you are in medical school now, open the scholarship page, read the criteria in full, and request your transcript from your faculty office. An award with no deadline is an easy thing to keep meaning to apply for, and the transcript is the part that depends on someone else's calendar.

If the STEM criterion is not yours, the same page lists five other programmes. One is the other memorial award, for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, head of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who stood by his patients under siege; it is open to students of Palestinian descent and to those with a proven commitment to Palestinian humanitarian causes. The Financial Aid and Merit-Based scholarships carry no school requirement at all.