High time I finally start writing about my experience of applying for my graduate studies to the US. By doing this, I hope to share with you about the thoughts behind my decisions, the application process itself, and to highlight any places which I feel I should have paid more attention to. The applications for most of the universities are quite similar to each other- even the application portals are the same, except for the individual college branding and colors.
The Application Portal
I would suggest your first ever step should be to visit the portal of any one of the colleges and get a feel as to how uncomplicated the actual portal is. Everything is well-laid out, the information asked is quite brief, and will generally contain the following sections:
- Log in information along with the intended program to attend
- Personal information: Name, DOB, contact information, blah blah
- Education information: College name, address, degrees, CPI, transcript pdf copy, etc
- English proficiency scores: Check whether GRE is required. Most places accept TOEFL/IELTS, either one. Will need marks as well as marksheet
- Work experience information: Where, what, pay, job description, resume etc
- Statement of purpose: A brief problem statement given with what the particular college is looking for in their candidates. You might want to make changes to your SOP to include this information as subtly as possible
- Information of recommenders: Name, contact, relation, etc
- Weird questions- have you ever been convicted, are you a terorrist, blah blah
- Review and Signature
Thats it.
Prepare Documents
We now know the documents that we need to prepare for the applications:
- College transcripts + degree (sometimes, they need to be in a combined pdf)
- Resume/CV (Before you Google for it: Resume is a 2-page doc while CV can be longer but the information needs to be in a chronological order)
- GRE & TOEFL/IELTS marksheets
- Statement of Purpose: You will not be satisfied with yours even till the end
- Passport pdf
GRE TOEFL IELTS
This is perhaps the first step in any grad application: people paying shitloads of money into these exams and then being too committed to exit. GRE preparation material is widely available these days, and thus its quite easy to be overwhelmed and confused. I myself had started off with the famous Magoosh flashcards but soon realised that its not a sustainable model for me- I would remember new words and would then forget them before the next session. I tried the Barron’s 800 list, the Princeton Review felt overkill, and Word Power Made Easy seemed too complicated.
Greg Mat
I came across this Youtube channel Greg Mat. For me, this seemes like a one-stop shop. Greg has made tools for dealing with the essays (argumentative as well as issue), comprehension (there are many types of comprehensions as well) as well as attempting vocabulary questions. Each of his tools is very very effective and could be blindly used as formulae. He even has videos in which he chooses essay topics at random and uses his essay tools to write powerful essays within the time limit. Similarly, he has videos in which he uses his comprehension tools to analyse the text and answer subsequent questions effectively. I would use his tools to solve comprehension problems from other GRE material. There were hardly any mistakes. So yeah, quite effective.
We had formed a small group among ourselves to solve 5 argumentative essays and 5 issue essays each and get them reviewed by other members of the group. Quite helpful. For the vocabulary, Greg has a unique way- he conducts tests with 30 fill-in-the-blank type questions and would flash the answers after the timer. Then, he would go through each question, explain how other options do not qualify and additional information about the correct answer. I would then make a note of all the words I got wrong and keep practicing them, approx 10 per test. So that would mean, 30+ words in 28-30mins. There are 30 such videos. So you get to learn 900+ GRE words pretty easily and now also have a list of words that are new to you:
A part of the GRE words list I maintained
I gave the GRE at the venue- in case there is any technical issue, it will be on them and not me. But I noticed that there was a lot of disturbance at the centre. So I opted for the TOEFL to be at-home
For TOEFL again, I followed the Youtube channel TST prep TOEFL. TOEFL did not require as much attention. In general, 325+ GRE score is considered good. 100+ TOEFL score is considered good. But nobody actually cares for the actual score I guess.
This takes care of your examinations.
Resume/CV
This is pretty straightforward. Keep your points neat. Keep your resume/CV uncluttered. Put only relevant information. Highlight important stuff as per your field of application. Mention any publication or thesis at the top. Attaching reports to the projects is a plus if you are using the same resume/CV to apply to some profs as well. This brings me to my next point:
Research
RESEARCH. YOUR. SHIT
Go out of your comfort zone and study your field properly. Find out what universities are good in your field, which professors are good, do they have research groups, do the university give out TA/RAships, are there any scholarships, what about courses, is there any flexibility in taking up courses, do you know anyone at the university already, can you get in touch with any on LinkedIn, where do people go after graduating (LinkedIn), whats the living situation, what are the expected costs, what about social life, are the students good, is the housing easily available and accessible, blah blah.
RESEARCH. YOUR. SHIT
Statement of Purpose
Probably the most exhaustive part of the entire process. It will ask you to answer all the difficult questions not even your girlfriends would ask you (maybe your therapist):
- Who are you?
- Why are you applying to this university?
- What makes you qualified?
- What have you done in the past? So what? How is it related to me?
- Do you even know what you want to do? And why?
- Have you thought of someone to work with? What do they do? How does it correlate to your past?
If you answers to all these questions, and more, and know how to tie them all together in a logical fashion, that is what is called a SOP. There are many formats available online. You can try them out. After your first draft, show it to me or other people. You will get a ton of relevant feedback. Thats how you build up your SOP. One of the MIT resource that I followed. Another MIT SoP. One SOP feedback by a professor (really helpful). Make a list of 3-4 good professors at each institute, go through their research, and try to align all of this with your past work. Start working on your SoP as soon as possible.
Conclusion
Grad application process is quite simple. Its only the SoP thats the pain in the ass.