I could not apply for a scholarship that I cleared the cutoff for. Can I mention that I was eligible in my graduate applications?

Question

I am a physics undergrad in India thinking of applying for a Ph.D. in the US sometime later in my life. I got 96.6% in my class XII, due to which I was eligible for a scholarship in our country, given to top 1% of the students in pure sciences for research. The problem is that I did not know much about the scholarship (it wasn't particularly popular in my college when I started it) and got to know the full information about it on the very last day of the form submission. So, me along with 5 of my friends, went to the college and and requested the principal to sign it for us. But she shooed us away saying that she would not sign it in any case saying that

we were a disgrace to the punctuality expected from us

and ended up not signing it at all.

Now, I know that it was my mistake too to be notified properly, but that is not the point of my question. The cutoffs came some months later and they were 95.2%.

Now, the main question- Is it possible at all for me in the future to somehow mention that I was eligible for this research scholarship. Because I don't honestly think it was 100% my fault. Perhaps the teacher was being a bit too hard on us.

Answer 1

It doesn't much matter whether you've been eligible for a scholarship. You didn't get it, so by definition you didn't earn it. There are some cases where you may be declared an official "runner-up" and for a sufficiently prestigious award it may be worth reporting, but this does not describe your situation. I know some people might report a scholarship they ultimately turned down - that is, it was offered to them but they chose not to take it for some reason - but even this seems to me like a bit of a reach outside extraordinary circumstances and again does not apply to your situation.

If I'm understanding correctly, your potential eligibility is solely based on some percentile rank you've achieved. You can certainly report your percentile rank and advertise that, but I wouldn't advertise that despite this rank you were unable to obtain an endorsement for this scholarship. "It's not my fault and the teacher was too hard on me" isn't an argument that is likely to play well. Stick to positive things about yourself, not negative treatment by others.