Begin the Conversation

Apply.

There is one application door at Sikhiyas, and it opens with an email. No portal. No fee at enquiry. No essay industry to navigate. Find the entry point that matches you and write to the office named below — a Diaspora Coordinator will respond within seven working days.

I. The Working Principle

Sikhiyas does not run a high-volume admissions funnel. Cohorts are deliberately small (roughly sixty places per year across all tracks), the conversation that precedes admission is unhurried, and the relationship matters more than the form. We have held more first conversations than admissions, by a significant margin. We are not in a hurry, and we hope you are not either.

Every applicant moves through the same seven stages, in the same order, regardless of cohort. The pace varies — four to six months from enquiry to arrival for adults, six to nine months for the Under-18 cohort — but the stages do not.

II. Choose Your Entry Point

Different cohorts begin with different first conversations. Find the one that matches you. If you are unsure which fits, write to the general enquiry address and we will route you.

III. What To Write In The First Email

The first email does not need to be polished. We are not assessing your prose. Five lines is enough. We suggest including:

• Your name, age, and country of residence;
• Which cohort track you are exploring (Summer Reconnect / Seva Semester / Full Seva Year / Under-18 / Solidarity);
• One or two sentences on why you are writing — in your own words, not a parent's or a consultant's;
• Two or three time windows when you could take a half-hour video call in the next fortnight;
• Any practical constraint we should know early (school terms, professional commitments, family circumstances).

That is the entire first-stage application. There is no form to download, no portal to register on, no document to upload. The Diaspora Coordinator will reply with three things: a confirmation of receipt, a proposed time for the first call, and a short list of questions to think about before we speak — not to answer in writing, just to hold quietly.

IV. The Seven Stages In Brief

Each stage is described in fuller detail on the Scholarship Details page. The summary version:

• 1 · EnquiryYou write the first email. We respond within seven working days.
• 2 · First ConversationHalf-hour to forty-five-minute video call. Exploratory. No commitment. Parent or guardian invited for under-25 applicants.
• 3 · Written ApplicationFive questions in your own voice. Two references. No essay coaching required.
• 4 · Selection InterviewSecond call with the Cohort Director. Under-18 applicants have a third call with the Safeguarding Lead and family.
• 5 · Written OfferOffer letter with full fee schedule, scholarship band, placement allocation, accommodation. Two-week decision window.
• 6 · Pre-DepartureVisa support, insurance enrolment, pre-departure orientation, kit list. Eight to twelve weeks before arrival.
• 7 · ArrivalCohort begins on a defined Monday. Family welcomed for the first 48 hours on campus.

V. What Happens If You Pause

Many applicants — perhaps a third in any cycle — pause somewhere between the first conversation and the written application. This is not a failure of the process; it is often the process working as intended.

If you pause, you stay in the cohort pipeline at no cost and no pressure. The Diaspora Coordinator will check in lightly, twice a year, around each new admissions cycle, and you can resume from where you stopped or step away formally. There is no application that "expires." There is no penalty for taking the cycle after next. Several of our most committed applicants took eighteen months from first email to first day, and we treat that as a sign of seriousness, not of indecision.

VI. What We Look For

Selection is competitive, but not in the way a university admissions office is competitive. We are not optimising for academic record, English fluency, or prior leadership experience. We are looking for four things, in this order: sincerity of intent, capacity for service, cohort fit, and family alignment. Each is described in detail on the Scholarship Details page.

For Seva Placement applicants specifically, the selection conversation also explores four placement-specific properties — respect for Sikhi principles and the work of Seva, capacity for restraint, steadiness, and recognition of the entrusting that the contracted role represents. These are not additional gates; they are the orientation we listen for in the same conversation, and they are described in full in The Role Is Contracted section of the Seva Placements page. Applicants are encouraged to read that section before the selection conversation, so the conversation can begin where the page ends.

Things we do not consider: how much your family can pay (the scholarship band system handles that separately), whether you have travelled to India before, whether you speak fluent Punjabi, whether you have ever taken Amrit, or whether you currently keep kesh. Sikhiyas does not gatekeep on observance. We ask, in the application, what your relationship to the tradition currently looks like — not as a test, but so that the cohort can be designed for the people actually in it.

VII. Practical Notes

• TimingCohorts begin in March, June, and September. Apply roughly four to six months before your preferred start (six to nine for Under-18).
• ReferencesTwo references at written-application stage. One from someone who has seen you serve (Gurdwara, school, workplace, voluntary setting); one from someone who has known you for at least three years. Family members do not count.
• VisaOCI cardholders enter under existing OCI provisions. NRI applicants enter on appropriate Indian e-visa or tourist visa instruments depending on cohort length. Pre-departure visa support is part of the programme.
• Costs at applicationZero. No application fee, no deposit, no document-translation charges. Costs begin only after a written offer is accepted.
• LanguagesApplications and conversations conducted in English. Working knowledge of Punjabi or Hindi is helpful but not required at intake.
• ConfidentialityEvery enquiry is held in confidence by the Diaspora Coordinator. We do not share applicant information with implementing partners until the written-offer stage, and never with third parties.

VIII. If You Are Not Sure Yet

If you are reading this page and not certain whether to write — write anyway. The first email costs nothing. The first conversation costs nothing. Both are routinely held with applicants who decide, in the end, that this is not the right programme for them at this stage of their life, and we are glad to have helped them work that out.

Sikhiyas is not in the business of recruitment. It is in the business of careful matches between cohorts and the young people they will hold. The first conversation is part of how we — and you — work out whether this is one of those careful matches.