How To Prepare Financially for Fall 2011 Semester in USA

If you are planning to come to US for Fall 2011 semester, you have to prepare yourself with lot of things, with good information, you can make informed decision. Read more

You Cannot Get Financial Aid – Do You Know Why?

US Education for international students is expensive. Unless you have lot of money to spend. So, every student applying for US Universities, College want to get aid to study in U.S. Read more

‘I Scored 1490 in GRE, but I’m Confused’ – Anand

nand is one of the frequent visitor of Happy Schools Blog. He had left a comment to the article Universities for GRE Score 1340. Here’s what he had to say about his GRE Score, University Selection and College Admission. Read more

Writing Email to professor – Think Again!

Sending email to professor during Graduate School admission process will increase the chances of getting admission with scholarship. Dr. Vivek Pai Associate Professor have written a page(Q&A format ) explaining about students sending email and graduate school application process and chances of students getting scholarship or admission by sending email. He has some strong words for students applying for Graduate School.

If you are processing of applying to schools in US, you better read his graduate school application guide.

(Updated)Letter of Recommendation that gets Graduate School Admission

Have your ever wondered what should be the contents of Reference letters?

In on the of previous articles Letter of Recommendation : Do’ and Don’t I gave an overview about how to write a reference letters for U.S. University graduate school admission. In this article I’m going into details of what should the contents of the reference letters should look like. Graduate School Admission committee is looking to find specific information about the student.

There are two different way to write a reference letters. Some, universities have their own letter of recommendation form to be used, while other universities accepts in written A4 size sheet. In the previous article about letter of recommendation, I have given a link to Good Sample reference letters. If you look deep into it contents, you will understand, what different area it projects the students capabilities.

1) Research Potential

2) Ranking of student among peers

3) Analytical Skills

4) Communication Skills – Oral and Written

5) Team work – Get along well with others

6) Potential for higher education

7) Creativity/Imagination

Intellectual Achievement

9) Emotional Maturity

10) Leadership Skills

11) Volunteer Activities

Some of the professor who’s giving students reference letters for U.S. University admission might not be aware of the what to write about the students or he might fail to highlight few areas. So, you can use the above 11 areas as reference and ask the professor to write about you. Sample reference letters can be given by you professor, lecturer, manager at work,..

Some of students have asked me the following question:

Does the degree, recognition of the person you get reference letters for graduate school admission matters. Does the reference letters from someone with PhD and someone with just the Bachelor’s degree matter? Keep checking the articles, I will talk about that in next post.

If you enjoyed this article, you may subscribe to email updates from this blog for getting notified about similar articles in future. Also, you can pass the information about this blog to you friends. Also, you can talk about Happy Schools Blog to your friend who are looking for details about U.S. Universities.

Coming Soon : Sample, Original reference letters used by students for Master’s admission.

You might be also looking for information about Statement of Purpose and tips to write high impact SOP.

Letter of Recommendation : Do and Dont’s

College admission requires atleast 2 Letter of Recommendation (LOR ). Graduate Schools Admission committee evaluates the candidates credentials and reference letter plays an important role in that about what recommendation providers have said about you.

Some college requires LOR to be submitted online and I have seen graduate schools, requiring LOR to be sent via email directly to the graduate school or to specific department. Some graduate school have their own form (template) that has to be completed, instead of traditional LOR in letter form. Here what to include in LOR, and the right way to get the LOR for graduate school admission application.

The process is very simple, but it might be time consuming.

1. Identify the person who is going to give recommendation letter
2. Ask them to include details on your research skills, problem solving skills, team work, communication ( written and oral ), analytical ability, leadership, social skills, ..
3. Get the LOR in the Referring Personal letter head, make sure you get it signed and if possible seal ( or Stamp )
4. Put the LOR inside a cover ( envelop ) paste it and get sign on the Envelop joint. So, it will ensure, its not tampered.

Now, your recommendation letter is ready, here list of top 8 skills to include in reference letters. I have collected sample recommendaition letter from current students in U.S. I will be posting in few days time. If you like to be notified by email, subscribe to email updates.

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?

5 Tips to make your Graduate School application Stand Out

After lots of time spend browsing for universities, talking to current students, friends from college, Orkut community friends, you will have shortlisted some schools that you strongly believe and of that some schools, might be little tough to get admission considering the academic credentials, GRE, TOEFL score and other credentials.

Did you ever imagine every student will be almost doing the same process and some of the schools get large number of applications. So, there must be certainly something you can do to make your application stand out.

Have you ever though about what additional information that can be sent along with application packet that will make your application stand out. There are so many creative ways to send the documents, resume, project report and other things. But. before talking about the creative ways, I’m going to talk about 5 import things that you can do to make your application stand out.

Usually, students will send Transcripts, SOP, Recommendation Letter, Application, Application Fee, Bank Statement and few other mandatory things universities ask for.

Additional documents and idea I’m going to say are not hard to get. All it takes is few extra days of work, time and effort. That might be what graduate school admission committee will be looking to give admission. If you have 50/50 chances, maybe idea I’m going to propose will increase your chances to 60/40. So, here are those 5 most important tips that you can include within graduate school application to make your application packet stand out.

• Additional Documents
• Be original in College Essay
• Extra Curricular Activities
• Contact professors
• Include project reports

There is nothing in the above 5 things that you cannot have access to while applying for graduate school and colleges in America. Let’s dig deeper into each topics.

Additional Documents:

If you have the question in you, what additional documents that I can send other than what Universities asks for. You can send certificates, even if its small achievements. Something like participation in Essay writing, debate, stamp collection, computer training courses, and so on.

Be original in College Essay:

Its very tempting and easy to copy someone essay and send it. But, its very easy for the graduate school admission committee to identify that. They receive so many number of applications and each application have statement of purpose. If college has database of all the SOP all it takes to hit the search button and it will spit out the results. And, if you copy the college admission essay, its very easy to figure out, by comparing your AWA, TOEFL writing score. If you have 5 backlogs and say I was in top 2% in class, its very obvious its an copied essay.

So, make sure you write in own words, 30% copying is tolerated to get nice quoted and catchy sentences. But, the way the essay should be framed must be your own idea expressing your background and need to apply for graduate school admission.

Extra Curricular Activities:

If you good at sports, arranging functions, to other events where you have proved your leadership skills, make sure you include some kind of proof as part of your college admission packet. That will make your application stand out from other who have similar profile, but no leadership skills.

Contact professors

I have written a very detailed article on how to contact professor, with email format and what type of contents to include. Makes sure you contact the professors. It doesn’t matter if you have already applied to colleges for admission. If you applying for PhD makes sure you contact Professors before applying for schools.

Include project reports

Including projects done in soft copy format will definitely prove the you have worked on the project. you can include, readme file on how to run the project. If you own a website, make sure you send the link to the site. If you have presented paper’s, make sure you include paper’s abstract. Not more than 2 pages for each paper.

If you do the above, I’m 100% sure it will make your graduate school application stand out and increasing your admission chance by more than 100%.

GPA Converter : Percentage to GPA

How to convert academic percentage (1 – 100) and CGPA(0 – 10) score to GPA (0 – 4.0)?

Every student when filling out the graduate school application try to find GPA Calculator. I was in the same situation and few years back searching for different ways to use the GPA Calculator.

I sent emails and posted messages in the groups, asking about methods used to how to calculate GPA ( Grade Point Average). I was not able to find the procedure to do the calculate gpa, but today I know the answer.

GPA 4.0 Scale

I got one email asking for profile evaluation and he said GPA of 4.0. So, I wrote back and asked him how did you calculate GPA. His reply was, he just assumed GPA of 4.0, since he didn’t know how to convert gpa. Universities convert academic percentage to GPA in order to calculate the academic capability of the student and reject those applications that doesn’t satisfy minimum GPA.

There is no universal way to convert Academic percentage to GPA. So, how universities convert academic percentage to GPA. Answer is subjective and varies between universities. But before explaining some formulas used by colleges, let me explain how Grades are calculated in U.S. Colleges and University.

What is Grade Point Average (GPA)

Percentage system( 1 to 100) is used to grade a students performance in some countries, similarly, in U.S. Universities use GPA for grades.

GPA and Percentage – Are they related or equivalent

Even though both the system evaluates the students performance, they are not the same or its not possible to equate both the grading systems. So, can we calculate gpa from percentage?

How to Calculate GPA

Like percentage, Grades will be assigned to student for each course. Grades are A = 4.0; B = 3.0; C = 2.0 ; D = 1.0; F = 0; And for each course based on difficulty level weights will be assigned. Its called Credit Hours.

Usually Graduate courses in Masters program will have 3 Credit Hours. For our example lets assume all 3 courses have 3 credits each. Lets say at end of the semester, professor assign you following grades

• Grade B to Course X
• Grade A to Course Y
• Grade A to course Z

GPA is calculated as follows

Total Grades = Sum of (Grade * Credit Hours) = B*3 + A*3 + A*3 = 3*3+4*3+4*3 =33

Total Credit Hours = 3+3+3 = 9

GPA = Total Grades/Total Credit Hours = 23/9 = 3.66

And the way in which Grades are assigned is another whole topic of discussion. Students performance will be evaluated throughout the semester which includes Home work, Programming Assignments, Pop Quiz, Exams, Presentations, … Now, you will have an understanding of the Grading System in U.S. and its very clear to say – Percentage will not exactly correlate with GPA calculation. But, Universities will have some general mechanism to convert percentage to GPA and that varies with each University. They have their own GPA calculator. 

If you are still not satisfied with explanation, Percentage to GPA Converter formulas will give an idea about various methods available to convert to GPA

So, you really can’t convert academic percentage or CPGA to GPA. Best way to to say is mention your current academic percentage and Colleges will know what to do with your percentage score.

Application Process

Next step is select the right University that matches your profile, instead of randomly selecting university based on the input you heard from your friend’s friend. You can follow 12- Step University Selection process.

While filling out online application, make sure you dont make these common 11 graduate school application mistakes that will potentially delay the admission processing.

Bank Statement – For Graduate School Application

Bank statement for graduate schools application is one of the mandatory documents. Without that, you cannot get admission in majority of the graduate schools.

Happy Schools had record breaking number of visitors few last days and hope the trend continues. Students are talking and creating the Buzz about Happy Schools. I’m happy to see the positive response and lots of emails with questions they want to be answered in here.

Today the topic of out interest is Bank Statements. Under this topic you can find information about

• Why colleges and universities ask for Bank Statement?

U.S. Education is expensive. It considered expensive even for the domestic students. So, universities want to make sure students apply for admission have enough financial resources to cover the cost of the education.

• How much bank balance to show while applying for graduate school?

For International students, universities ask for bank statement showing proof for atleast for 1st year of college expenses. That typically includes Tuition Fee, Living Expenses, Books, Health Insurance. Tuition fee might be for 9 month period or for 12 month period. If its 9 month period, universities will calculate tuition fee for 9 credits. For 12 month study tuition fee for college will be calculated for 24 credits ( 18 credits + 6 credits in Summer ).

Check out tuition fee estimator for 12 month study. You can find that information from International Students Admission link or some schools will ask for Financial Affidavit along with Bank Statement.

• How long that balance should be in account for Graduate School admission?

As long as you need to get enough number of bank statement ( on original letter head with bank managers seal and signature). Some of them would have accounts in different bank and in different forms of money. In that case, you can move money from different banks to one bank to get bank statement.

• What if I have part of money in form of Fixed Deposit/CD and part as cash?

It’s necessary that you need to have required bank balance in Cash in bank account. If 50% is in terms of Savings Account and 50% as CD or Fixed Deposits, you can get statement to say you have cash in 2 different forms and total is equal to 100% in one single statement.

• What should be the contents of the bank statement

I will try to upload a sample pdf file.

Name of your sponsor

Relationship to Sponsor

Type of Account(s)

Current Balance ( in local currency Rupees, Euro, Yen,…)

Equivalent in U.S. Dollars

Conversion Rate used for calculation ( Say 1USD = INR 39 )

• Does universities accept photocopies of the Bank Statement?

You need to get bank statement in original letter head from the Bank with Signature and Seal from the Bank Manager. Universities usually don’t accept photocopies of bank statement.

• Do colleges accept attested copies of Bank Statement?

Even if its attested by the same bank manager. Why take the risk or sending photocopy and universities asking you to send a original copy at the very end before issuing I-20. Majority of the schools don’t accept the attested copies too.

• When to send Bank Statement – Along with graduate school application packet or after getting the acceptance letter?

It’s based on graduate school policy, for instance NCSU will first issue Acceptance Letter and then ask the student to send Bank Statement. Unless otherwise mentioned specifically to send bank statement after issuing Acceptance, its always better to send the Bank Statement for graduate school admission along with other application documents to Graduate School.

• Can we get admission to graduate school without sending Bank Statement?

Refer to previous answer. If you couldn’t send bank statement along with application package, send a note along with graduate school application, saying you will send bank statement in specific period of time. Some schools will consider your application to be incomplete unless they receive the bank statement.

• How long is the Bank Statement valid?

Universities in U.S. consider Bank Statement to be valid for 6 months from the date when Bank Statement is issued. So, you would need to take 2 bank statements. One for admission and one for during visa interview. Even though if both admission and visa comes within 6 months, I would try to get a recent bank statement while appearing for visa interview.

• At what stage of graduate school application process, bank statement is used?

Bank Statement is used to check if students have enough financial resources to afford the cost of education in U.S. And International office need the financial proof to issue I-20.

• Does the location of the bank matters ( City or Village)?

Nope, not at all. Unless its written in English, location of the bank doesn’t matter.

Do you make these 11 Common Graduate School Application mistakes?

Almost every graduate school have online application along with paper application format. Sometimes it takes long time to fill out online application and some terms and convention followed in U.S. will look different and you it will take some time to get used to it. As, you apply for more schools, you will understand, they will all follow almost similar style, format and arrangement.

I have listed some of the common mistake students make while filling out online or paper format graduate school application.

Always the first application you fill, submit and send documents will be good learning experience. I have seen some people ask so many questions for each field, before they type or write. And that’s agreeable, because we can see our future career in front of us while filling the application. Hope the following list of mistake will give you general overview on what to expect while submitting graduate school application.

Student ID or SSN

If you are an International Student, and you haven’t submitted online graduate school application, you will not have Student ID. Social Security Number will be issued only after you come to U.S. ( Find how to get SSN ). If you have submitted online application, some form of ID will be assigned to you. Make sure you include the ID number in all pages while sending hard copy of the documents.

For example your Reference number or Student ID after you submit online application is : 444-023-5555. Make sure you include that ID at the top of the page in SOP, Recommendation Letter cover, Resume, and other documents you send with the application package.

Type Name or Print Name

Most of the students have hard time to understand what do here when they come across Print Name or Type Name in paper based application. Those 2 are equivalent to ‘Write your name here’. If its online application, type your name in the space provided.

Missing Last Name

I have seen 2student so far asking me what shall I do, If I don’t have Last Name in the passport. It’s simple, universities will not give admission. They might give admission, but cannot issue I-20. You cannot survive here without having Last Name. So, I strongly suggest to get your name changed in the Passport to include Last name even before booking dates for GRE and TOEFL exam.

Last Name is also said as Family Name.

Given Name is your First Name.

I read about a student who applied for a graduate school in Oregon and he was not given admission since he didn’t have Last Name.

Date Of Birth

You have to write in the following format MONTH/DAY/YEAR. Different places in the world follow different formats. but in U.S. Make sure you fill in Month/day/Year format.

Transcript (Name)

You will be asked what other different names used in the documents that will be submitted. In India we use Initials before our First Name. Your name could be as per in passport.

• Given Name: John
• Last Name : Young

But, documents in India will have Y.John If that’s the case, make sure you write that name under the field asking for Alternate Names that would appear in the documents ( Transcripts, Recommendation Letter, SOP, Resume,..)

How to attach Resume

When attaching the Resume, it would be always better to upload the well formatted ASCII format resume ( *.txt file ). If you attach the resume in word document, it will look distorted when schools downloads the resume. Here’s a link on how to convert word file to ASCII file.

Wrong Email Address

I have few student ask me, saying they gave wrong email address while submitting the application. Make sure, you give the right email address. Try to use professional looking email address.

Examples

• sweetberry@abc.com ( Not its doesn’t look good for applying for college of jobs )
• john1234@abc.com ( It’s ok, but I would try to avoid using such id’s too)
• john.young@abc.com ( it looks perfect )

How to Paste Documents while Submitting Online application

Some online applications will ask you to paste SOP, Resume into free form fill text box, as I said in How to Attach Resume, don’t past the content from Word document file directly into the form fill. Instead convert into Ascii file or atleast copy DOC -> TXT File -> Past into Application.

Recommendation Letter : Email and Hard copy

Even though you have submitted SOP, Recommendation letters online, its always better to send the hard copy of all the documents you had submitted online. So,that they will have formatted copy of your documents. If you had some certifications images in the resume, those will not go through very well when submitting the document online. Again, I strongly suggest to send all the hard copy of the documents.

Student Signature

If you have to sign any of the documents, make sure you use blue color ball pen. So, if in case the paper gets wet, your signature will stay on put. Reason for blue color is, if you make photocopy of the documents, its hard to find if the documents is original copy or copy of original document. So, using blue pen will eliminate that difference.

Statement of Purpose (College Essays) : Be Original

College Essay ( Statement of Purpose ) and Recommendation letters for graduate schools play very important role in getting your application noticed and that leads to acceptance into college. Today I had few emails from students who are applying for Fall semester, asking for Sample copies of recommendation letter and college essay, statement of purpose.

Most of students college essay and recommendation letters are replica of their friends or from online resources. Sometimes essays are written by combining different sample essays obtained from various online sources.

College essays play an important role in getting you accepted into the graduate school you desired to study. Usually, students who apply for top schools write essays tailored to specific college degree program and also specific to graduate school.

It’s usually not that difficult to find the college essays that were not originally written. Some essays will not have the continuation and it doesn’t take long time to figure out if its copied from online resources.

If the essays submitted can be searched online and within seconds it will say the percentage and occurrence of the contents. So, It’s generally not recommended to copy the exact copy and send to the universities.

I’m not saying you cannot look ate sample college essays. There are so many college essay writing services and there you can find sample templates and essays. Those sample college essays can be used for reference.

But, explaining the inner self reason every student have to select specific college and course will not look like copied essay. Even if you pen down the outline of your contents and then get some professional help to develop the contents will be much better then copying entire college essay for graduate school admission.

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