Graduate School admission without scholarship: How to manage expenses

I’m back after visiting New York and Boston. It was very busy last week at work. Hopefully I should write regularly.In this article I’m answering one of the questions from my scrapbook. I have answered the same question, but it was spread among several posts.

Question

My GRE score1160 and many consultants are saying that it is difficult to get the TA/RA/Scholarship. I can manage fees for 2 semesters but can I pay the fees by doing job for 3rd and later semesters.

Answer

You are not the only person who is facing this situation. 75% of the students who get admission are without scholarship. Unless you have very good credentials graduate school admission with scholarship difficult. But still some 80,000 student from India came to study in U.S. In total only 25% of student gets admission with some form of scholarship. 1160 is decent enough to get admission in good graduate school.

There are so many graduate schools in U.S. and you have so many options of courses to select from each graduate school. When you don’t have good score in GRE and academic credential, you will get admission from graduate school, but not any form of aid. Reason is simple, Professors have no way of knowing your credential, capacity, research potential unless you have very high GRE score. Every graduate school have their way of evaluating the students who apply for graduate school admission.

Concept is simple:

Would you lend say $20,000 to some stranger who walk to you and asks for money? University when pays you, wants you do do research work for them. They pay you for your work and your potential to create new research ideas. If you are a complete stranger, and if your GRE and academic credential don’t speak about you, they are not going to give scholarship or RA/TA.

After you get come to gradate school, introduce yourself to a professor and work for him. Volunteer to work in his/her lab. Based on your work and research skills, they will give you funding. Hard work always pays. Usually student manage to complete graduate school. There are so many ways to pay for school. If you can afford for 2 semesters, get student loan for 2 semesters, you can pay off the student loan after you get the job. I have written articles on saving on student loans and other articles that talks about ways to reduce your educational expenses.

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.