UBC Vancouver campus walkway with cherry blossoms and modern academic buildings in the background.

Canada Runs annually against a 1 March admission deadline. The published band values date from a past award year — confirm the current amounts and the 2027 entry deadline on umanitoba.ca before relying on them

International Undergraduate Student Entrance Scholarship

This is a small award, and it is more useful to say that plainly than to dress it up. The University of Manitoba's International Undergraduate Student Entrance Scholarship is a one-off entrance payment, most recently published in three bands: about CAD 3,000 for an average of 95% or higher, CAD 2,000 for 90% or higher, and CAD 1,000 for 85% or higher. At current rates that is roughly LKR 705,000, LKR 470,000 or LKR 235,000 — a meaningful contribution to your first-semester costs, not a fee waiver, and nothing like the full-ride awards at Toronto or UBC. UM publishes those figures against a past award year, so confirm the current amounts on umanitoba.ca before you plan against them. What makes it worth listing is that it costs you nothing to be considered. Apply for admission to any UM faculty or school by 1 March, be paying international fees, and clear the 85% threshold on your best five senior-level academic subjects, and you are assessed automatically — there is no essay, no referee and no separate form. For a Sri Lankan A/L or Cambridge A-Level student, that is one of the few Canadian awards where the effort cost is genuinely zero. Two limits matter. It cannot be held alongside UM's International Baccalaureate Entrance Scholarship or any other award from UM's entrance scholarship programme, so you will receive the best single award rather than a stack. And it is an entrance award only — it does not renew. If you want continuing support, UM's separate International Undergraduate Student Scholarship is the follow-on route: it requires 24 completed credit hours and a sessional GPA of at least 3.5, is ranked by GPA, and is awarded until the fund runs out, with recipients notified by the end of July. UM also runs International Student Bursaries with an October deadline, applied for through Aurora, though first-year international post-secondary students are not eligible for those.

University of Manitoba

University-funded

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Value

CAD 1,000-3,000 (~LKR 235,000-705,000), one-off

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Threshold

85% / 90% / 95% High School Average

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Application

Automatic on Admission — No Separate Form

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International Fee-Paying Student from an Overseas High School

The award was established to reward academic excellence by international students graduating from high schools outside Canada and entering UM. You must be paying international tuition rates. A Sri Lankan student coming straight from local A/Ls, Cambridge or Edexcel A-Levels is the intended profile.

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Admission Application in by 1 March

You must have applied for admission to a UM faculty or school by the 1 March deadline. Miss that date and you fall out of the entrance-scholarship pool even if your grades qualify — this is the single most common way applicants lose the award.

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Minimum 85% Average on Your Best Five Subjects

The average is calculated on your best five senior-level academic subjects from UM's approved General Entrance Scholarship subject list. Bands step up at 90% and 95%, so the difference between a B and an A on one subject can be worth CAD 1,000.

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Cannot Be Stacked with Other UM Entrance Awards

It cannot be held together with UM's International Baccalaureate Entrance Scholarship or with any other award offered through UM's Entrance Scholarship programme. You will get the best single entrance award you qualify for, not several at once.

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Apply for UM admission by 1 March

Submit your undergraduate application with your A/L or A-Level results and transcripts and your English evidence. This application is what puts you in the entrance-scholarship pool — there is no separate scholarship form to complete.

Make sure your senior-level subjects match UM's approved list

The 85% calculation uses the best five senior-level academic subjects on UM's approved General Entrance Scholarship list. Check your subject combination against that list early, because a strong average in subjects that fall outside it will not help you here.

Maintain your full-time load once enrolled

UM's international entrance and continuing awards expect a full-time load across the fall and winter terms — the continuing International Undergraduate Student Scholarship requires 24 completed credit hours and a sessional GPA of 3.5. Dropping below full-time affects future award eligibility.

Apply for your Canadian study permit from Colombo

With your UM letter of acceptance and provincial attestation letter, apply online to IRCC and submit biometrics at the VFS Global centre in Colombo. You will need proof of funds covering tuition plus living costs for Winnipeg; a CAD 1,000-3,000 award reduces that figure only marginally, so build your funds evidence on the full amount.

Why the University of Manitoba?

UM is Manitoba's largest university and a member of the U15 group of Canadian research universities, based in Winnipeg with a broad range of undergraduate faculties including engineering, agriculture, health sciences, business and computer science. Winnipeg's cost of living is among the lowest of any major Canadian university city, which does more for a Sri Lankan family's total budget than most entrance scholarships do. The honest trade-off is the winter, which is genuinely severe, and a smaller Sri Lankan community than in Toronto or Vancouver.