The Amsterdam Merit Scholarship Motivation Letter and Recommendations

Faculty selection panels read hundreds of files for one, two or twelve awards. Your grades get you into the pile. The motivation letter and, where asked, the academic recommendation decide who stays at the top.

Word limits by faculty

From the faculty pages on the AMS hub, checked 6 October 2026.

What the pages actually ask you to explain

Law is the clearest: the letter explains why you chose the programme and why the scholarship matters. Communication Science asks the same two things. Science asks you to show “academic excellence and promise” in the proposed field. Read those words as your outline.

1. 1
   Why this programme at UvA

   Name specific courses, research groups or tracks. “Amsterdam is a vibrant international city” tells the panel nothing. “The Computational Science track lets me continue the agent-based modelling I started in my thesis” does.

2. 2
   Evidence of excellence

   Your transcript already shows grades. Use one or two lines for what grades miss: a thesis result, a prize, a publication, a competition, a research assistantship.

3. 3
   Where it leads

   A concrete next step after the master’s — a PhD direction, a role, a problem in your home country — makes “promise” believable.

4. 4
   Why the scholarship matters

   Be honest and specific. Several faculties ask for a budget or financial plan, so the panel will see your numbers. Say what you can fund and what you cannot.

Writing to 300 words

The Economics and Business limit is tight: roughly four short paragraphs. Cut the opening anecdote. Start with the programme and your fit. Give one strong piece of evidence, one sentence on your goal and two on need. Every sentence should carry a fact the panel cannot find elsewhere in your file.

Writing to 500 words

Science and Law give you more room, not more licence. Use the extra 200 words for depth in one area — usually your academic project — rather than adding more topics. A 500-word limit means 500: going over is the easiest way to signal you did not read the instructions.

Economics and Business requires a recommendation letter “by a dean, teacher, or academic supervisor that also confirms that you belong to the top 10% of your class or year”. Medicine asks for the same confirmation. Even where it is optional, a letter that states your rank is valuable, because the “top 10%” bar is otherwise hard to verify across grading systems.

• Choose an academic who knows your work — a thesis supervisor beats a famous professor who taught you in a lecture of 300.
• Ask for the ranking sentence explicitly. “Among the 140 students in her graduating year, she ranked in the top 5%.” Numbers beat adjectives.
• Send your referee the programme name, deadline and the faculty’s wording so the letter answers what UvA asks.
• Institutional letterhead and signature. A generic email is weaker evidence.

The financial plan

Social Sciences asks for a financial plan inside your PDF; Child Development and Education asks for a budget plan. Because most AMS awards do not cover everything, the panel wants to see that you can actually come. List tuition, living costs, housing and visa fees, then show the AMS, savings, family support or other awards against them. UvA’s tuition fee page gives the 2026–27 institutional fees to start from.