I have completed my Engineering in CSE with GPA 9.26 from NMIT, Bangalore and joined Dell on july 2nd.
I am very much interested in learning new things and gaining more and more knowledge.
I was interested to pursue my higher studies from my 2nd year itself, hence took up a GRE training from Princeton Review for old format GRE, sadly due to carelessness of few officials I got my passport late, could not write GRE in old format.
But i rescheduled my GRE to new format and prepared from official ETS and Barrons GRE and got 307/340 (160 in quant and 147 in verbal).
My father is a railway employee and cannot afford the fees for MS, I get a monthly salary of 21k in which I can save upto 10k per month (gave info cos i wanted to tell my financial status).
I am bright student from childhood and very good in grasping new concepts and good in aptitude and problem solving and paid the entire Princeton coaching fees from scholarship I got from CBSE, I don’t want to stop my education to BE, I want to do higher studies where I can get very good exposure, facilities, knowledge-gain and return of investment.
Recently few of my friends have gone to do MS in US for Fall2012 and they say I need minimum of 40 lakhs for 2 years of MS.
If that is true then my dream of doing MS is shattered…..
OR is there anyway where I can do MS with an Initial amount of 5 lakhs in hand (can use some illegal way to show 20 lakhs in my account and then taken back).
I can do all sort of small jobs for sustaining day to day life in US(fuel-filling, libaray work,… anything).
In this scenario I’m ready to give 4hours per week for preparation for GRE and willing to take up GRE in July 2013 for fall 2014.
Please guide me and give me some suggestions that i can implement so that I fulfill my DREAM.
Bank Balance and Cost of Education
Lot of students when trying to understand about total expenses for education in USA have to go through this phase.
You are going to run into similar situation where, you will feel shattered and helpless.
But,when you take time to understand the expenses involved and how student sin USA manage their fees, your fear will vanish.
Your father is in Indian Railways. I know its tough to pay for your education.
But, so many poor to lover middle class students have come to USA for education.
Is it true that you might have to spend $40,000 for MS?
Yes, in worst case scenario, you might have to spend $40,000.
When applying for admission, universities will require to show bank balance for first year fees and expenses.
Your first year fees and living expense as per I-20 will be between $20,000 and above.
- Identify required bank balance and make arrangements for the bank balance.
So, you have to get letter from bank with balance higher than first year expenses.
In reality, most students don’t have that kind of money sitting in the bank account.
Some them borrow money from relatives for few days, get the bank statement and return the money.
GRE Score and Admission
Your score of 307 is just above average.
You can prepare for GRE for another 3 to 4 months and retake GRE by December.
Improve your score to 320+.
With good GRE Score, you can try to get admission with financial aid or scholarship.
When you have financial aid, then you don’t have to show bank balance during visa interview.
If you get 100% scholarship that pays for your tuition and stipend for living expense, then you can attend the interview without worrying about bank balance.
Improve Academic Profile
High GRE score combined with great personal and academic profile will improve your chances to get admission with financial aid.
For students and entry-level engineers, often ask how to improve my academic profile?
In India, we don’t have the concept of working as intern or research associate with companies or professors. Only very few students try hard to work as an intern.
But, there is a way to get that experience while in school.
You must have heard about the outsourcing.
But, I’m talking about outsourcing in small-scale.
I have this blog and I need to get some work done, say to design a logo.
It would cost over $500 to hire a designer to design a log here in USA.
So, instead of spending $500, I can hire an designer for $50 in India or other countries get get same quality of work done.
One such site where you get work experience is ODesk.com
You can register for an account and try applying for a job.
You can find several types of job openings – Programming, Web Design, Web Development, Content Writing, SEO, Link Building, PHP, Perl, Internet Research, Sales, virtual Assistant, Data Entry, CAD, CAM, etc
It doesn’t matter what is your education background, you will have jobs at ODesk.com that will match your skills.
Employers will be willing to pay from $6 to $100 and more per hour.
It doesn’t cost you anything.
But, if you can work for 50 to 100 hours, that will add value to your academic profile.
- Go to the site Odesk.com now
- Create a profile
- Apply for a job
For first few jobs, you should quote offer lower hourly rate than the job posting. It will help you build your feedback and work experience.
When you take such extra steps and gain experience with sites like Odesk.com your academic profile will improve.
Good GRE Score with great profile will get admission with scholarship. So, your dreams are not shattered. You are just get started.
Note – Link to Odesk is an Affiliate link. We talked about 22 ways to make money blogging. Affiliate links is one of the way. Odesk will pay a small fee if you sign-up for an account through the above link and apply for a job. I would appreciate if you can sing-up through this affiliate link, of-course it will help you earn some money and gain some work experience.
I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you design this website yourself
or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz respond as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know where u got this from. many thanks
did any one use odesk ?..
is it safe to use odesk ?
is it real ?
people who used or are using odesk plz write down your reviews.
For god’s sake, please don’t do anything illegal, you may get barred for life and by any chance you will be adding to the great name Indians have earned for ourselves.
You should apply for Phd program in US. Here, you can do Phd after BE , most of university give scholarship to phd students but they are reluctant to give it to MS students and after 2 years you can quit phd and take MS degree( yes you can do this here) or you can do phd itself it might take longer but you don’t have to pay fees from your pocket. It might take 4-6 years to do phd after BE. I am doing MS here and I have talked to many professors about funding all of them have told me same thing. Good luck.
Hi..
it is a fact majority of students applying for MS make last minute attempts to show huge bank balances… as hsb told they borrow funds from friends, relatives, etc. it is only a temporary arrangement.. in fact, even rich people will not keep huge balance in savings bank account which yield little interest… try to mobilise funds from your friends and relatives.. there are offices assisting in pursuing MS in USA for fee.. they lend money for short intervals till we get bank statements.. they also guide you in selecting universities that offer scholarship…you will definitely get good admission with funding… try to improve your GRE score which is very very important…
you have a nice profile but you need to improve your gre so that you can schoolarship!
you re ambitious , so dont get discouraged because of money, you look to have all it takes to get at least a partial schoolarship! so go for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i wish good luck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am extremely thankful for your kind reply and suggestions, i am overwhelmed.
I will definitely start working hard and put more efforts than last time to get 320+. this time there will no half measures and full on efforts.
I am thankful for your kind suggestion of Odesk. but according to the company policy i should not offer any services to a person,group or any organisation. But i will try to improve my skills by taking up assignments within the organisation itself.
I can borrow money from relatives just to show the balance for 1st year fees and expenses,but have to return back as soon as visa process is over.So i wanted to know few universities which offer full scholarships for my profile
GPA – 9.26
GRE- 307(hoping for 322 next time)
2 years of work experience
TOEFL – 100-110(yet to take up)
University of Cincinnati gives 80% scholarship to all MS students.
Most (but not all) PhD students get full scholarship and a really good stipend.
Hi hsb
You suggested the guy giving another attempt at gre but wont the previous gre scores matter. And if he worsens in second attempt…What will then happen
I think the GRE score reporting has changed.Please see the link:
http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect/
Universities issue an I-20 based on the bank support documents you provide them.They expect you to pay it as and when required.Private universities can be really expensive without any aid.The tuition alone could be anywhere between $25K-$30k per year.Living expenses should be less than $600 per month for most Indian students.40 lac Indian rupees is not an exaggerated figure, but something that you should be ready to pay.If you are interested in getting any kind of financial aid apply for a doctoral program.
Hi,
My name is gowri shankar. I am planning to apply for ms in cs in fall 2013 and the problem is my dads business went bankrupt last year and we had to sell our old property and buy new property to cover the debt. we still have over 1.25 crore in properties and my dad started his business again fresh 2 months back with loan from bank. now i havent taken my gre yet but i am confident i can get above 300 and also my dads friend is a Professor and Arthur H. Feagin Chair of Civil Engineering in auburn university. Can help me to get admissions in us universitys? i am confident i can secure a loan for my studies in us but i am not sure i can show money for first year expenses for admission.. ur help will be appreciated… thanks in advance…