No single deadline, which is why this entry carries no date
There is no single Gates Cambridge deadline, which is why this entry carries no date. If you are not a US citizen living in the USA, your deadline is whatever the University Course Directory lists as the Course Funding Deadline for your specific course, and it will be either 8 December 2026 or 6 January 2027. Look it up in the right-hand column of your course page. Getting this wrong by one month is the most common way to lose the award before anyone reads your application.
Your department ranks you before the Trust ever sees your application
There is no separate Gates Cambridge form to send off on its own. You apply through the University’s postgraduate application and tick the Gates Cambridge funding option, which means your academic department ranks you first and the Trust only sees applications that survive that stage. A strong department fit matters more than it looks from the outside. The Trust’s stated criteria are academic ability, reasons for choice of course, commitment to improving the lives of others, and leadership potential. If you’re weighing UK-wide options rather than a Cambridge-specific one, the Chevening Scholarships run on a similar leadership-focused premise but are open to any UK university.
What happens if you already have other funding
On money, the maintenance allowance figure of £22,050 is the 2025-26 rate and will be reviewed. If you already hold a salary from an employer or another substantial scholarship, the Trust may reduce or withhold the maintenance allowance, so tell them early. If you win a fee award from a body such as UKRI, you are expected to take it and the Trust will not duplicate the fee payment.
Built on a single, major gift in 2000
The Trust itself was established in 2000 with a gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and it frames the whole programme around five stated values: Community, Learning, Internationality, Compassion and Change, rather than academic merit alone. That values framing is part of why leadership potential and “commitment to improving the lives of others” sit alongside academic ability as core selection criteria rather than as a soft add-on to a purely academic assessment.