You apply for admission, not for the scholarship
There is no separate scholarship application with its own deadline. The CMU-Africa scholarship page says students must first be admitted to one of its degree programmes before they can be considered. The admissions FAQ adds a second step that is easy to miss: applicants are considered for financial aid only if they submit the financial aid assessment form, which is separate from the admission application, is completed after you submit it, and appears as an item on your application status page. If you skip the form, you are not considered for funding, however strong your admission file is.
Why 15 December matters more than 15 January
Applications for all three degrees opened on 1 October. CMU-Africa gives 15 December as the early admission deadline and 15 January as the final one. The early date has a practical benefit: applicants who submit by 15 December have their competency test fees covered by CMU-Africa. After that date an application is only considered if it already includes a valid Duolingo English Test, IELTS or TOEFL score, so if you do not have an English score yet, December is the date to aim for. Applications are reviewed from January to April and decisions are shared in April and May. CMU-Africa admits students for the fall semester only, so if you miss this round the next chance is a year away.
What the application asks for
The application has two steps. The first is an online application, for which you need an unofficial transcript with a document explaining the grading scale, a CV as a PDF, and contact details for three recommenders. Applicants to the MS in Information Technology and the MS in Engineering Artificial Intelligence answer three short essay questions of up to 300 words each, plus an optional fourth. Applicants to the MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering write a statement of purpose with no word limit. Everyone also records a video essay: you get 30 seconds to read a randomly selected question and up to three minutes to answer, and you cannot re-record. The video has to be in English, and the page lists Chrome and Firefox as the supported browsers. The second step is the competency tests: an English score report (IELTS, TOEFL or Duolingo) and an online technical test of analytical and quantitative skills and programming logic, taken under video monitoring with a high-bandwidth connection. The FAQ says there is no application fee.
What the support covers, and what is not published
The scholarship page lists tuition and fees, health insurance, travel and basic living expenses, orientation and application preparation support, and project and entrepreneurship support, plus career coaching, leadership development and well-being resources. It gives no monthly stipend amount, so treat any figure quoted elsewhere with caution. CMU-Africa’s tuition page lists 2026-2027 tuition of US$16,000 for African students and US$61,510 for international students, and an estimated monthly cost of living of US$345 to US$580 in Kigali, which gives you a sense of what the award replaces. The same page says all CMU-Africa students can apply for need-based financial aid, supported by the Government of Rwanda, the Mastercard Foundation and other partners, but the FAQ limits financial aid to admitted applicants of African nationality.
How this differs from other Mastercard Foundation routes
The Foundation delivers its scholarships through partner institutions, each with its own rules. Our entry on the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program explains how the wider programme works, and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at the University of Cape Town is a broader route that takes honours and other master’s students. The CMU-Africa route is narrower. It funds only master’s study, in three technical fields, taught in Kigali. The MS in Information Technology and the MS in Engineering Artificial Intelligence are 16 to 20 months, and the MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering is 10 to 16 months. CMU-Africa says its Class of 2026 includes 57 Mastercard Foundation Scholars.
Who should apply
CMU-Africa says plainly that its programmes are tailored for candidates with a strong background in computer science or engineering, and that without one you are unlikely to succeed. A strong graduate in another field is not the intended applicant. The scholarship also looks for service-oriented young people who face high social and economic barriers and show potential to lead. Your essays and your video answer are where you can show that, so give concrete examples rather than general statements.