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.
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.