ELIGIBILITY:

Nationality/citizenship: You must be a citizen of one of the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Senegal, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Principe and Togo.

Residency: You must have been a resident in one or more of the countries listed above for at least five of the last ten years.

Age: You must meet either of the below criteria:
You must be aged 18-24 on 1st October 2026 (i.e. you must have been born after 1 October 2001 and before 2 October 2008). OR for medical, dental, pharmaceutical, law and engineering students, to allow you to complete your professional internship

You must be aged 18-25 on 1st October 2026 (i.e., you must have been born after 1 October 2000 and before 2 October 2008) OR be older candidates who completed their first undergraduate degree later than usual.

You must be under the age of 27 on 1st October 2026 (i.e., have been born after 1 October 1999), AND you must also have completed your first undergraduate degree on or after 1 October 2025. They would normally consider the date on your degree certificate as your graduation date.

Academic achievement: You must have completed an undergraduate degree (usually a Bachelor’s) by the application deadline, and you must have an academic background and grade that is a First Class Honours Degree or equivalent. In the case of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy courses, the highest classification your University awards, e.g. a Distinction would be considered equivalent to a First Class
Honours Degree. In addition, candidates must also have achieved a distinction in at least two out of five main subject areas such as:
Medicine & surgery
Pathology
Pharmacology
Gynaecology
Paediatrics
Candidates will have a greater chance of successful admission to Oxford if they have:
An Honours degree (or have taken an Honours year) from a University outside of your country or if you have studied to the master’s level within your country (with the exception of those studying in Nigeria and Ghana, and, for some countries, those studying medicine).

Candidates may wish to consider applying to the Rhodes Trust’s sister Foundation, The Mandela Rhodes Foundation to pursue an Honour’s year or a Master’s degree prior to making an application for the Rhodes Scholarship.
Please contact the National Secretary at westafrica.secretary@rhodestrust.com if you require further advice about the academic requirements of the scholarship.

English Language proficiency: You must meet the University of Oxford’s English language requirements. This means that unless you qualify for a test waiver, you must provide English test results with scores that meet the University’s higher-level requirement. Please check the University of Oxford’s webpage to see which tests are accepted, the scores required, and the full conditions for a language test waiver.

To apply for the Rhodes Scholarship, you must complete and submit our online application form before 23:59 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), 27 August 2026.

BENEFIT:

The Rhodes Scholarship covers University of Oxford course fees as well as providing an annual stipend. For the 2025-26 academic year, the stipend is £20,400 per annum (£1,700 per month), from which scholars pay all living expenses, including accommodation. Please note: this is not sufficient to cover partners or dependents. 

The detailed Conditions of Tenure document outlines permitted combinations of degrees and how many years of study are covered by the scholarship, as the latter depends on course choice—for example, up to three years of fees and stipend are available to scholars who choose to undertake a DPhil (PhD) at Oxford. 

Following selection for the scholarship, the Rhodes Trust will also cover: 

The fee required to apply to study at the University of Oxford 

Fees for a student visa and associated International Health Surcharge (IHS), which enables international students to access the UK’s National Health Service. 

Two economy class flights to and from the UK, for the beginning and end of studies in Oxford. 

On arrival in Oxford, scholars receive a settling-in allowance, and scholars who transition to a second course of study in Oxford will receive assistance to cover the fees for visa renewal and further application for IHS.