The University of Sydney is standing by a new $27,000 vet science scholarship that favours men after students protested that it constitutes unacceptable sexism.

Some vet science students were infuriated when they received notification last week of the Professor Marsh Edwards AO Scholarship, offered to postgraduate veterinary medicine students for the first time in 2017.

The scholarship information says that "preference will be given to applicants who are: from rural or regional areas, male, interested in large animal practice ... [and] an Australian citizen".

The women's officer on the Students' Representative Council at the university, Imogen Grant, said female vet students were "horrified".