Happy Point Method Continued.

Part 1 ( Questions 1 to 6)

7) Length of Masters Degree Program

This is another important factor you have to consider while deciding the colleges. Some programs are very lengthy. Majority of the masters program in the graduate college will vary from 30 credits to 36 credits. Make sure, have have information about different courses offered in the college you are applying. If you want to major in Database, check if the college has courses offered in database field.

But, if you are transferring to different department, then you will be asked to take pre-requisites courses. For example, if you are moving from Mechanical Department to Computer Science to from Electrical to Computer Science, then for sure you will be asked to take undergraduate courses in Computer Science, before you can take masters course.

Sometimes you will be asked to take up to 7 pre-req courses (7 x 3 = 21 credits). That’s 3 semesters. So, you need 21 + 32 credits to finish Masters. That’s 3.5 years for M.S. If you don’t have aid, then students will have to pay for 3.5 years.

If no pre-requirements then HP = 10

No Pre-requirements and max of 36 credits then HP = 10

1 or 2 pre-requirements then HP = 7

3 or 4 pre-requirements, HP = 5

More than 5 pre-requirements, then HP = 3

8 ) Thesis/Non-Thesis

In Master’s program you will have 2-3 options to take course. In thesis, you will have to solve a problem and present a paper. Personally I don’t like to do research, when I’m not interested to do PhD, so I did Non-Thesis Option, which is just courses and graduate with Masters Degree.

If you are more interested to do thesis, then HP to 10

If you just want a degree to get good job and salary then HP = 10

To find this, read about the program in the department website and find what options you have and give HP to 10 if you are interested to do Thesis and the program has thesis option. If a particular school doesn’t have Non-thesis option and you are not interested to do Thesis, then put HP = 5

9) International Student Population

This has both advantages and disadvantages. You will fell at home with large number of Indian students around, but fewer chances to find part time jobs and scholarship. Some colleges have very less International Students, but I’m sure you will feel very lonely; you might have to stay with students from different county. So, weigh the advantages and dies-advantages and score HP.

I would prefer to stay in school with more International Students than college where there are very less number of students from your country. Anywhere from 100 to 200 students from your country is considered good.

10) Quality of Education

Let’s say you have admission from TAMUK, University of Alabama, Birmingham and NJIT. I would decide to go with UAB. Reason, it’s cheap, much better than TAMUK with more professors and more choice of courses and cheaper then NJIT with courses almost similar to NJIT.

So, weight HP of 10 for UAB, NJIT to 5 and TAMUK to 2

11) Climate/Location

Here, you have to weigh the options according to your preference. Good college vs. Cold Temperature. If you really good college admission in North, and ready to deal with the cold, then HP to 10, if not give less value for HP.

12) Current Student Satisfaction

To answer this, ask the current students to rate their college experience in the scale of 1 to 10 and make sure you ask at least some 5 students and take an average.

Now, you will have total value for all the university that has the maximum value gets the go ahead signal for Visa.

Hope above Happy Point Method helps to decide on the university. Also, I would like to highlight one more thing here. I know information about some schools and I can give that to you through Orkut Scrap or Comments or through email. But, majority of the colleges to which I don’t have information, I will follow the same method described above to get the information for you.

I don’t have enough time to find information for every email and every student. That’s the reason to write such a lengthy article that will help you to decide which school you want to attend. As, I said before

You may have more than one Dream University to attend. But if you take the time now to carefully consider your choices, you’ll be happy wherever you go. You will be comfortable with your decisions because you asked yourself the right questions. Most of the students don’t ask the following questions and method listed in Happy Point Method.

If you enjoyed the post, you can do any of the following things..

1) Help this information get to your friends, by doing a scrap in their Orkut Profile.

2) Email the link to your friends to visit Happy Schools

3) Add link to Happy Schools Blog in your Orkut Profile

4) Set the Messenger Message to Happy Schools Blog.

5) I appreciate your efforts in helping to spread the word.

12 Questions for Happy Point Method to select universities

Long wait is coming to end for many students who are waiting for this post. Happy Point Method outlined in this article will help you to decide which university to attend. If you one among thousands of students confused on which universities in U.S. to attend, keep reading.

You may have more than one Dream University to attend. But if you take the time now to carefully consider your choices, you’ll be happy wherever you go. You will be comfortable with your decisions because you asked yourself the right questions. Most of the students don’t ask the following questions and method listed in Happy Point Method.

Happy Point method takes time to complete. It’s readily now the off the shelf product to give you information to select universities. You have to find answers to questions that will be listed below for each category and fill in the spreadsheet with the values 1 to 10. 1 is the least score and 10 being the highest for satisfaction.

When finding the answer, you need to consider Worst Case Scenario and put the weight’s (1 to 10) and then university that get more value will be the best university you can attend from the list of universities you have admission from.

Download the Spreadsheet from this link

1) Cost of Education in U.S. – Can you afford it?

What is the total expense per year?

Total Expense = Tuition Fee + Insurance + Cost of Living

If you can afford HP = 10

If you have afford at least 70% of the total expense then HP = 5

If you cannot afford then HP = 0

2) Tuition fee per year – In-State

In-state fees varied between University System. For example, in University of Texas System, if you get RA, TA, Scholarship, you are eligible to pay in-state fee. And In-state fee in University of Texas is 1/3rd of Out of state fee.

Example: Out of State Fee = $6000, then in-state will be $2,000

In some colleges, you don’t need to pay anything, maybe less than $1000 for health insurance and other small fees when you get In-State fees.

Example: University of Memphis, Out of state is $5000 then In-state will be less than $1000.

If In-state fee is minimal fee then HP = 10

If In-state fee is 1/3rd of the out-state or less then HP = 5

3) RA/TA/Scholarship

If you have admission with 100% RA/TA/scholarship then HP = 10

If you have you have partial scholarship/RA/TA then HP = 7

If you have like $1000 to $4000 in Aid then HP = 5

No RA/TA/Scholarship then HP = 0

4) Part Time Job

Find from the current students, about availability of the part time jobs.

If almost every students gets the job then HP = 10

If 50% of the students gets job the HP = 5

If No Part time jobs are available then HP = 0

5) Internship

As International student you are eligible to work for 1 year in CPT (Curriculum Practical Training). Students usually get internship in summer, but some schools allow students to work to 2 full semesters like UTA, UTD.

You have to find if the university you have the admission allows students to do internship and how long. Kansas State University will allow students only in Summer in CPT. Were as UTA will allow students to do internship for 2 semesters ( like Summer and Fall or Fall and Spring or Spring and Fall ).

Next you have to ask if the internship is under CPT or under OPT (Optional Practical Training). If the school allows internship under CPT then you are ok. If the school allows internship under your OPT, then it’s NOT ok to attend that school. For example Clemson University, internship is under OPT, which is not good. I will explain in later post on what is OPT and CPT.

So this is how HP has to be filled for this field

Schools also internship for more than 1 semester in CPT = 10

Schools allows internship in Summer ONLY in CPT = 5

If school allows internship in OPT = 0

If school doesn’t allow Internship = 0

6) Jobs after M.S.

But, majority of colleges, students have to look for jobs.

Majority of the colleges have Career Fair, where companies will visit campus and collect resumes. But the number of companies that usually come are very less. Some universities like NCSU have very high profile career fair.

If the college has campus recruitment program, then HP = 10

If you have to look for jobs then HP = 8

If majority of the students find jobs through consultants, then HP = 3

For example I have heard that in NJIT, majority of student don’t search for jobs, they graduate and join some consultancy firm. That’s not a good sign. It’s students responsibility to search for a job, if you are willing to put that efforts and expect the job offer to know on your door, without applying for jobs, then I’m sure student will have tough time. I know I was little harsh on the above statement, but I have seen so many people who after graduation, don’t apply for job proactively and end up joining some consultancy. (How consultancy works, that’s another topic to talk about in detail)

Continued in Next Post…Questions 7 to 12

Happy Points Method to Select Graduate Schools

I’m getting wonderful responses from the posts. I really appreciate your comments and thanks for visiting Happy Schools Blog. If you can spread the word about Happy Schools to your friends, college juniors, it will help them. I know there are so many students looking for information about U.S. Universities, Graduate School Admission and so many other finer details. I have good news to share in this post.

1) New Blog Layout and new .com site for Happy Schools will be launched soon. It will have more features and easy to access contents.

2) I’m creating Happy Point : Method students can use to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different universities and help you decide based on question system. Main advantage of this method is to make you think and decide for yourself, university you need to attend, instead of some consultancy suggesting which university to attend.

Suppose, if you are asking me to short list universities, I will follow the same Happy Point method I’m going to explain later. Everyone who have asked me, like

‘I have admits from SDSU, SJIC, NJIT and not sure which one to select’, this Happy Point method is the way to decide and put an end to your confusion.

It would take some 2 hours to complete the work. I just started creating the spreadsheet with questions and how to weigh each factors. Happy Point Method will work like this.

1) List of all possible factors ( Questions ) student should ask

2) Put weight ( importance to each factor )

3) University that gets the highest point is where student would possibly attend.

Factors will include long list of questions( I would call it as Happy Factors), like part time jobs, climate, cost of living, internships, …

So, hang on and wait is almost over. Just hang tight you will have the Happy Point Method available.

I started working on the Spreadsheet and some of the Happy Factors are

Tuition fee per year – Out-StateTuition fee per year – In-StateRA/TAScholarshipPart Time Job Cost of Living Jobs after M.S. Internship Length of M.S. Program Thesis/Non-Thesis International Student Population Quality of Education Climate/Location Current Student Satisfaction Can you Afford

There are so many questions you need to ask to fill the values for the spreadsheet. I’m creating the questions to that will help you to make informed decision about universities. The article is growing in length than I expected, so I need more time.

For Spring 2008 Students

Exclusively for Spring 2008 students, I have complied the following links for students in different stages of admission process. I will update this list regularly, for new contents, hot deals on Laptops, Visa Experience, Visa Document details, details on bank balance, how to answer tough visa interview questions, how to find cheap air ticket.

If you find these links helpful, please forward the links to your friends, book mark this link and visit regularly for details on Student Loan, Exchange Rates, How much students are paying for air ticket. If you need more details, write comments for this article, I will update

Waiting: Admission Status, I-20 arrival

Different ways to find the admission status ( Online, phone, email,…)
Got college admission from more than 1 schools and deciding on college
Living Expense Calculator
Happy Point Method to Select Universities

Visa Documents, FAQ’s.

F-1 Student Visa Tips, Not Tricks
Student Loan Details
How to use money from Student Loan and save on Interest Payment.

Got student F1 visa and packing up things

How to carry U.S. Dollars for Tuition fee and Living Expenses.
Guide to get Transfer to different University after 1st semester
International Driving Permit: Find out if you need one?
List of Things to Bring to U.S.
Travel and Students Health Insurance
Air Travel : How to avoid Jet Lag
List of documents to carry with you
List of Books to carry with you.

Arrival in U.S. and happily ever after..

Port of Entry procedures
How to open Bank Account in U.S.
Where will be Bank Located ( How far from Campus )
Open Bank account and earn Referral Bonus
Deposit your DD, TC in bank account
Students Laptop Buying Guide
Questions students will have after arrival in U.S.
How to get around college campus and town
Guide to find Part Time jobs

Note: More links will be added frequently. Check back often.

Spring 2008 students : Did you decide on universities?

At this point low GRE score or low TOEFL score doesn’t matter. Admission is given to you and now its time to decide on universities. I’m getting lots of emails about selecting graduate schools from list of universities they got admission from. So, I decided to give a recap from my previous posts on how to shortlist universities. You can consider this post to be continuation of previous post on shortlisting schools and deciding on which graduate college to attend.

By now most of the students should have admission status for Spring 2008 semester. Some who got only one graduate school admission will not have much problem in deciding on which schools to attend. Students with more than one admission from graduate school will have big decision to make, that you will have to live with rest of your life. To help make you that decision, I’ will give some pointers with examples. This would avoid getting transfer to different university after 1 semester.

I had to make the same decision few years back when I applied for 5 universities and got admit from all 5 universities.

Example:

I have admit from SDSU, TAMUK and Fairleigh Dickinson University for Masters in Computer Science. Now, I’m confused on which one to select. I’m sure you must be confused.

Answer from Student perspective who doesn’t have much information will thin about the following questions

1) Which university has more scholarship chances?

2) Which university will have more part time jobs available?

3) Which universities of above 3 will help me to get job after M.S.

4) Then comes how much would it cost to study?

5) SDSU look better then other 2 universities, but its expensive. Shall take risk and go to expensive school or since cannot afford more than 2 semesters fee from parents, I should choose TAMUK?

Spring or Fall : Graduate School Admission

Graduate school admission in Spring semester, you must have read my previous post on different types of questions and ideas among graduate students. If you haven’t read Questions about Spring admission in Graduate School, I strongly suggest to read that before continuing reading this. Previous post will give an overview of what this article is about.

I had so many emails from students applying for Spring semester to post this article ASAP. I still haven’t completed the college shortlisting part. Also, I’m planning to run small quiz in future posts, that will create awareness about Graduate School admission process.

You can find answers to the following questions in this article

• Is it ok to apply for College Admission in Spring
• What about admission chances?
• What are the chances of getting Visa?
• When can I apply for Internships?
• Will I be eligible for Summer Internships?
• Will Spring students considered for Scholarships and Aid?

Is it ok to apply for College Admission in Spring ?

Yes, its absolutely ok to apply for graduate schools in Spring semester.

What are pros and cons in applying for graduate school in Spring

Pros : None

Cons : None

What about universities acceptance rates?

Universities usually have have a limit to maximum number of students they can admit. And that limit is usually based on the resources universities have. Resources in universities mean – number of professors ( to maintain student to professor ratio), physical class room size to accommodate students, lab facilities ( some biotech labs in small schools can accommodate only few number of students). Also, how much profit colleges are willing to make. If they need more profits, some schools can give accept more students. Much more factors comes into play. But, all those above factors doesn’t affect much or play major role in deciding to apply for Spring vs Fall semester for college.

Chances of getting Student Visa?

That’s completely not in our hands. We don’t know how much visa quota they for for each countries or any other information. I would say you stand the same chance to get visa for Fall, Spring or Summer. If you are confident and have capacity, you will get visa.

When can I apply for Internships?

Rules and eligibility for International students to apply for Internships vary between schools. but, majority of schools will allow students to go for internships only after completing 2 semesters of study or some schools after completion of 18 credits. So, if you go in Spring, you will be eligible to go for internship from Spring next year. So, that doesn’t make difference between Fall and Spring admission. Something to note here, you can go for internship even during Fall or Spring semester, not just Summer.

Will Spring students considered for Scholarships and Aid?

I have talked about getting admission with scholarship in several of my posts.

So, the idea behind is simple. If you have High GRE you will get admission and chances are more get admission with scholarship if you contact the professors during the admission process.

So, this rules out the myth, students will never get scholarship for college admission during spring semester.

Now you must be clear and with all doubts explained, those applying for graduate schools during Spring, you have same chance and resources that every student will have who apply for college in Fall semester.

Now, let me answer other ‘interesting’ ideas students had about college admission in Spring semester

Courses are tough in Spring Nope, that’s wrong.

Less Internship and job opportunities Nope, that’s not right, every student stand the same chance to get jobs and internships as Fall semester students.

Less chances to get aid and part time jobs Again that’s not right. Students do graduate and move on and its cycle. None stays in school studying for many years.

Visa’s are first come first served basis If you have right qualification, you will get visa.

Less intake in spring, so not many courses will be offered If not many courses will offered, what about students who are still in school from Fall semester. Number of students enroll in Fall is more than spring, so obviously they have to take classes. Number of students in Spring has got nothing to do with courses in spring semester in graduate school.

Getting internships will be easier Generally more internships will be available in Summer, but considering Technology background, internships will be available round the year.

It will be difficult to find place to stay Students gradate in Spring and finding an apartment to stay is no big issue. Usually college students find place to stay in 1-2 weeks of arrival in U.S.

If you enjoyed the post, submit to social book marking sites like Del.icio.us or Submit to Digg by clicking on the small icons below ‘Share This Post’. Also, forward this to your friends who might be planning to study in U.S.

The secret of getting admission with scholarship

Have you ever wondered, how to get Graduate School Admission with scholarship?Each and every college student applying for graduate school admissions has one big dream i.e. to get admission with scholarship or some form of aid. It’s a very tough question to answer and it applies to specific student profile o individual basis. But, hang on, there is a sure way to get admission with scholarship.

When you are in Graduate School Universities shortlisting phase, take a good look at the minimum GRE, TOEFL and GPA requirements for each school. Some grad schools and colleges will have different requirements from the department requirements. Make sure to check out college admission requirements for both the department you apply and grad school.

Now, having collected the information, I have seen students classify the colleges into Ambitious, Moderate and Safe categories. I would like to relate the word Ambitious to Luck with less probability. Why would someone has to waste few hundred dollars in college application fee and GRE and TOEFL score forwarding, application documents courier fee, when grad school admission is not sure.

Example:

GRE Score : 1210;
Grad School Minimum Requirement : 1400
And other factors are less than minimum requirements

I really wouldn’t waste my time and money in applying to such college.

Instead I would spend more time in searching for universities and college, that suits my profile. Also, it’s better to find decent schools that had research funding and that has minimum requirements less than what your credentials are.

Example:

Your GRE Score : 1310;
Grad School Minimum Requirement : 1100
And other factors are more or equal to the minimum requirements

There are so many grad schools out there with lots of research and scholarship opportunities. But, it takes time to find such schools. ( Happy Point Method to find schools that match your profile )

To answer the question I asked, the secret to get admission is to apply for schools that have minimum requirements below your credentials ( GRE, TOEFL, ..). Don’t select schools that have very low minimum requirements. If your score is 1350, apply for school that has minimum of 1100, don’t go for schools that have 1000 as minimum requirements.

Having short listed such schools, I would suggest to read How to email professors for guaranteed admission. Have this magic worked? Yes, I know many who got admission by following this simple tactic.

How To Search For U.S Universities

I’m sure there are many readers who are waiting for this post for last few days and I did spend sometime to get all the possible information to you guys. This post will be more useful for those you haven’t applied for universities and graduate school and wondering about college admission chances.I n the previous posts I talked about Right way to email professors after applying for college admissions to different graduate schools.

If you happen to follow the idea for short listing U.S. Universities for graduate admissions, you need more time, to read about colleges and universities, department, gathering information needed for making a sound decision. Ultimately, you will benefit from the work and time that has been invested. If you wonder how people from top schools even with less GRE score end up getting college admission with scholarship, its simple, they almost follow the steps I’m going to suggest in this article.

Having clearly said about disadvantages about university ranking system we can use them as the reference to list of universities that are available in U.S. You can also refer to List of Universities by State.

Step 1

Question : How to I select few Universities and schools from so many available schools?

Process of gaining knowledge about Universities and colleges should start as soon as you decide to study in U.S. Browse through the university websites to find about college admission requirements for International students, what courses are offered, cost of college education, scholarship information and many more. Just make a list of requirements they ask for. If not many following information will help

• Minimum GRE
• Minimum TOEFL
• Tuition Fee
• Deadlines ( for Spring, Fall, Summer )

Don’t browse for universities with idea of shortlisting them. This will help to get acquainted with the U.S. Education system, website structure, and college itself.

If you have done your home work, you could very well apply for the same schools to which you forwarded the GRE and TOEFL scores after the GRE and TOEFL exams.

Step 2

Question: I have my GRE and TOEFL score, I don’t have much information about the universities, how to shortlist universities?

That’s when you will start looking for universities ranking to match. But, you cant find any ranking that will match your score and list universities. Then usually, you will ask your friends, apply to same schools if some of your friends had applied, post queries in social media asking for readers to vote or go through college admission counseling looking for college admission tip or college admission assistance.

When you are investing some $20,000 to $50,000 in education, you need to to be aware of all the information about the school when you apply.

Now you don’t have time, when you have less then 6-8 months before semester start date.

So, I suggest you can follow what I said above. Find list of schools (some 20 collegs should do) from your friends, forums, counselors and use that to understand what each schools requires. Once you start browsing through college and universities list, you will get the feel for each school.. Lets call this as List A

Next, use the list of universities by state and select schools. If you have GRE score of 1300, delete universities from your List A if the minimum requirements is 1000. As, you browse through the universities and colleges create List B for new schools that has minimum requirements hat will get you admission. Don’t consider cost of education yet..

Some colleges and universities will list percentile requirements. Based on that strike off the colleges and universities that you don’t qualify for from List A.

Keep making List B and eliminating colleges and universities from List A.

Once you have some 10 schools in both list, then the real work begins.

Step 3

Question : How many schools to select in List B?
Question : How to reduce List A and B to less than 8 to 10 schools

For more in-depth post on selecting universities in List B, keep reading the posts. I should be posting within 2 days time. I know this is time consuming process, but if you ask around the people who applied and into good universities with aid, you will understand the each and every second that will be spent by short listing universities by this way. I hope you will enjoy this post, if so feel free to pass this to your friends and leave a short comment.
I still haven’t posted Taste of Alaska with pictures. I should find some time to upload few pictures and send the link.

Continuation is Happy Point Method to select Universities

Right way to contact Professor’s during admission process

Contacting the Professors at the right time will definitely help you get that one dream I-20 you were waiting for. This post is the continuation of the previous article Guaranteed Admission to Graduate School: One magical idea. There is no magic behind this. But, there are certain ways that you can effectively get their attention. Making Professors respond to you is the key behind getting admission. I will explain the following aspects of sending an email so that your email doesn’t go to Trash right away.1) When to send email?

2) Length of the email

3) Contents of the mail ( What to include and exclude )

4) What to do if there is no reply

Example 1:

Dear Dr.XYZ,

My name is Atul and I have applied for Spring Semester for Masters in Computer Science. I’m very much interested to study in your University. I have very good academic percentage in my Undergraduate Course and good GRE, TOEFL scores. Will I get RA or TA with admission? If so, that will be of great help. I have presented various papers in National Level Conference and My Final year project was about Operating Systems. I was part of team of 4 people to implement the project and we won the best project for out year.

Thanks,
Atul.

So, what do you think of Example 1. It says about the student achievement and interest to study in a school. But, do you think that kind of email will appeal to the Professor. I’m sure it goes straight to Deleted Items.

• Tip 1: Email should not be more than 4 lines
• Tip 2: Do Research and present facts
• Tip 3: Create an association between your interest/experience and Professors/Universities research interests.
• Tip 4: Don’t attach your resume in the first email
• Tip 5: Use Bold while mentioning your projects.
• Tip 6: Don’t send emails on Weekends. Try to send email on weekdays during working hours.

Why the above tips will work?

Professors are extremely busy and they follow strict schedule. They don’t have time to read lengthy emails, that doesn’t have its appeal. They receive 100’s of emails everyday. Remember, your email will be one among the many he receives from his current students and many more.

During the admission decision process, only few Professors or Graduate Advisor’s will be involved in the process. If you happen to contact them and get their attention, you have much better chance of getting admission.

If any of your projects and research work of a Professors matches, or if you worked in any area that a Professor is working on, you can very well contact him. Follow the same 6 tips I said and get his attention.

Usually, if they are interested, they will ask for your resume. Once, they like your profile, he/she will recommend you for admission. If it happens to be one of best funded projects, you might get RA/TA with admission.

Example 2:

Dear Dr.Sharma,

I have applied for Masters in Computer Science for Spring 2008. I read your current research on Distributed Operating System. I have worked on implementing Kernel less OS and presented papers in National Level Conference. I like to know more about the research work and I’m interested in working for your project. My application # is 123456

Thank You,
First name Last Name.

I’m sure an email similar to Example 2 will definitely get an reply mail form the Professors. He might ask for your resume and project description and maybe he might send you few links for white papers to you to study.

So, now you know what to do get admission to graduate school. Instead of applying and waiting for 2-3 months without knowing the results. It doesn’t cost anything to be little proactive and get the admission in the college you always dreamed.

I would really appreciate if you like the post, or if you had any similar experience to write a comment.

Guaranteed Admission to Graduate School : One magical idea

Today, I’m going to write about one of important post, that would help you get admission. that one dream I-20 that many students are waiting to get in their hands. After you get first Graduate School Admission, pressure will be much relieved.I found this great Flow Chart of Graduate School Admission process from Department of Computer Science at San Francisco State University.

During the waiting period after you apply for admission, you will almost always be notified about the status of the application online or through online application status portal.

It always a good option to add some degree of personal touch and personal interest. Maybe, I can say initiative and interest to study in that particular university. Not every student who applies for the university does that.

Especially, students who apply through consultancy, wait for 2 to 3 months and finally, they will get admit from the school which was selected by the consultancy, not from your choice of schools. Reason behind that is a whole new topic.

Idea, that I’m going to propose would defiantly increase your chances of getting admission. Track your application and when it gets to the graduate school, your work starts. Usually, your application status will be updated and they will proved the list of Professors or Graduate advisor’s who will evaluate your application and make decision.

Lets assume that you don’t have those contact details, here are the ways to find them.

1. Browse through the list of Faculty’s in the department, you should be able to located who is the Graduate Advisor form their web page.
2. Send an email to administrative assistant of your department, where you applied for the program ( say Computer Science, Civil engineering, IE, ..). For sure they will respond with to you.
3. If they don’t respond in 1 or 2 days, call them during working hours and they should be able to give you the names.

After you have the contact details, you need to contact them. How to contact the Professors for admission purpose will be in next post. It will include details, like what type of email to write, how big its contents should be, what to include in your email and how to make a professor respond to you email. This magical idea worked for me, my brother and many others.

What happens after Graduate School Application is submitted : Part 2

Yesterday I talked about process, that would take place after the Graduate School is Application submitted. I’m continuing with the discussion.Breakdown of the process:

Step 1: Submit application before deadline

Step 2: Send all documents (hardcopy)

Step 3: Unique application ID

Strep 4: Application fee

Step 5: Scores Verification

Step 6: Forward to Department

Step 7 : Decision Making

Before I continue with Step 6, I left with decision making in the Graduate School. If they see that transcripts were not evaluated properly or find some discrepancies with your application and transcripts, if GRE score is too low then the required base score, they will eliminate the application and send you the status. Most of the university will update the status online, but usually, decision ( Accepted or Rejected admits ) will be sent through postal mail or email.

Step 6: Forwarding the application to the Department

If all the transcripts is evaluated and Scores were matched to your profile, the application packet will be sent to the concerning department ( say Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,..) for further review and decision making.

It’s not like a person will take the application packet in person and give it to the department. All the Universities will have campus mail service. They will send the graduate application packet through the campus mail. Usually, individual application will not be sent. They will wait for some applications and send it in a bundle. Process can be vice verso too. Each application as Graduate School receives will be sent to the department and within the department, they will collect it and review them periodically.

Some schools that offer rolling admission, application will be reviewed as they come. Some schools, will wait till the deadline and review all the application together.

Step 7 : Decision Making

If you really wonder, who makes the decision, its few professors. There will be pool of professors ( called Graduate Advisor’s) who are usually involved in decision making. Not all the professors will will be involved.

You application will be reviewed either by group of Professors together in meeting or on individual basis and they will have a meeting to discuss about the decision and that result will be forwarded to the Graduate School.

If you are accepted into the the program, Graduate School will then forward your bank statement, along with decision to International Office. International Advisor will issue you an SEVIS I 20 after verifying the bank statement is original and you have enough funds to complete your course.

There you go, you guys go the admission and you have to wait till you get the I-20 in mail.

Hope the information was useful and gave clear understanding on how the graduate school application – decision making process works.

What happens after Graduate School Application is submitted

In the last post i was talking about Low GRE score options and your chances of admission if your score is less then 1100. Today, I was planning to writing about 2 different topics

• Job in India or Masters in U.S.
• What would I be doing If I didn’t come to U.S.

But, just before I started writing, I thought, why not write about the application process breakdown, after the Graduate School application packet is submitted. From my experience, in observing the admission process, its almost similar is all the schools. Atleast the flow of application package from the time you submitted Graduate School or Undergraduate School application. Let me see if I can finish this within this post or have to break it down into 2 or more.

Breakdown of the process:

Step 1: Submit application before deadline

Step 2: Send all documents (hardcopy)

Step 3: Unique application ID

Strep 4: Application fee

Step 5: Scores Verification

Step 6: Forward to Department

Step 7 : Decision Making

Step 1: Submit application before deadline

You have to submit application before deadline. Some schools are very specific about that, but some schools accept application after the deadline, but you have to pay the additional fees. Submitting online application will make the process much faster. If you submit paper application, they will have to enter the application into the system. It would delay the decision process atleast by few days.

Step 2: Send all documents (hardcopy)

Now, the application is submitted. One tips that I would say here, when you submit the hard copy, it will make the Graduate School work easier if you can enclose a check list of all the documents you include in the top and arrange Graduate School application documents like Statement of Purpose, Recommendation Letter, Bank Statement, Affidavit of Support, Resume, Certificates, Project Descriptions,… from the sponsor in the exact order.

If you have submitted, online application, and got an unique reference number, make sure you include that number at the top of all the documents. You can pen down on the envelop of Recommendation letter, Statement of Purpose, ..

Track the package all the way through the graduate school. FedEx, DHL, provides very good tracking options. Make of note of the person who signs and receives your package. It’s very important, to note that. You can use that as a reference, if you wan to contact them in future.

Step 3: Unique application ID

Now the application is with the Graduate School. Now the waiting games begins. Patience and strong belief will get you the admit. There are so many things that has to go right, for the application to be approved and sent to Department for review.

There will be one person who will be assigned to process your application. Graduate Schools typically receives so many applications, at times they misplace few documents, then you are in trouble. Hope that doesn’t happens. I will talk about what to do if you application status says, missing documents.

that person will enter all your details in the system. Will create a folder and using their checklist, they will see if all the documents are received. Hang on, not that fast.

Step 4: Application fee

First thing Graduate School checks after they put together all the documents in one place, is if you have sent the application fee. It you have sent DD, then they will wait till the application fee is credit into their account. It time consuming process. It will take some 7 to 10 days for the International Demand Draft to clear in the banks here.

I would strongly recommend to pay fees using Credit Card option. After application fee is received, you will be created an account in their system and unique id will be assigned to identify your Graduate School application.

Sometime, you might get an mail ( not email) saying your application id or student id, that you can use for future to refer your application.

Documents Verification?

Graduate School is not concerned about your Statement of Purpose or Recommendation letter content. They will verify if that are included as part of the application. Even if you have submitted SOP and Recommendation letter online, make sure you include hard copy too.

Graduate School will verify, the validity of the Transcripts and the marks and convert your Percentage marks to GPA. How they they convert percentage to GPA, that’s a whole new topic for a different post.

Graduate School will verify the validity of your Transcripts, compare the name on your application to name on the transcripts. If you have names in the format like ( S.John ), make sure you include that in the application, where it asks, List any other names used in the documents.

After, Graduate School validates your transcript, they wait for the GRE and TOEFL scores.

GRE and TOELF scores will be sent to the University by the ETS and they will validate your scores. Does elimination of application takes place in Graduate School itself?

Its kind of getting too lengthy. This is how I’m used to writing. So, I have to break it down to next post.

I will talk about rest of the process tomorrow. Just to let know know, I’m working in IT field after I graduated in 2005. So, that’s my full time job, but I was helping my brother, cousins, friendss and many people in short listing universities, getting admission, visa tips, and travel arrangements suggestions, and much more to help them adapt to their new life. Basically, I’m sharing my experience in here.

Continued in After Graduate School Application Submitted Part 2

Next Page »