From
sujay6ue@ccs.iitb.ernet.in Wed Jul 9
Date:
From: Sujay Rajendra Sanghavi <sujay6ue@ccs.iitb.ernet.in>
To:
7ue@ccs.iitb.ernet.in
Subject: apping
dear app nabdus,
here is an article i wrote for iitian.com on apping.
since u may not want
to go there and see (and
forwarding it to u.
sujay
*****************************************************************
The Art of Apping
In this article
I present all I know about the fine art of Apping -
applying for graduate education (MS, and
PhD) in US universities. It is a
long, meticulous and often painful
process, but is definitely worth it if
you want a good graduate education
in the engineering sciences. I will
now detail the steps to be
followed, in chronological order.
1. Academics:
Fact of life -
universities award scholarships based on academic
performance as measured by the GRADES
obtained in your undergraduate
education (so if you think you are one of
those people who have low grades
but high fundaes
wake up). So for IIT it is your CPI, and for other
universities it is your aggregate percentage
or whatever. People with
lower grades getting schols in better universities are the exception, not
the norm. Note that it is only the
CPI of the first 3 years that is
usually taken into account, since the
application forms for the univs have
to be sent by the second/third week of
December, by which time the results
of the fourth year/seventh semester will not
have come out (or can be
conveniently neglected). Universities know
this and do not expect you to
let them know your final year
performance - they base their decisions on
the first 3 years. So basically if
you want a good graduate education at
a well-known university, start mugging.
This said,
universities do see other things besides grades while awarding
scholarships - it is just that they do not
give them as much importance.
Notable among
these "other things" are:
1.
Participation and/or winning of science/math competitions like the
International
Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), Indian National Mathematics
Olympiad
(INMO), Regional Mathematics Olympiad (RMO), Indian Physics
Teachers Olympiad etc. If you have
participated/won prizes in any of the
above-mentioned or similar competitions,
make sure you let the
universities know when the time comes. It
would even help if you mentioned
your IIT-JEE rank if it is
relatively good (ie say you are in the top 6-7
in your department in terms of JEE rank or if
you are in the top 100
overall).
2. Projects you
have done - this includes your main final-year project,
your seminar (in IIT) as well as any
vacation project or summer internship
(including, in IIT, your PT) you may have done. In fact, it
is a good idea
to have a few good projects under your belt
anyway - they serve the dual
purpose of giving you some fundaes in the field you are doing the project
in and giving you something that will look
good on your resume. Be careful
in choosing the kind of project you are doing
and where you are doing it
- it should be an enjoyable experience and not just something
you are
doing for resume or recommendation.
Places I now that give interesting
research-based projects are:
a. IIT itself
b. IISc - the Indian
c. CAIR - Center for Artificial Intelligence
and Robotics, Banglore
d TIFR - Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Mumbai, Pune and Banglore
e. BARC - Bhabha
Atomic
f. JNCASR -
g. ISI - Indian
Statistical Institute, Banglore
h. Many of the
MNC tech companies - e.g. (in the field of CS and EE)
Instruments, Sun Microsystems, IBM.
I recommend
doing projects outside IIT/your present institution
(especially if you plan to do so in the summer after your
first or second
years) as it will give you a
different perspective on research from what
IIT manages to
give you. Many of the above-m entioned places have
summer
student scholarships, which will defer
any expenses you may have while
doing your projects. These projects
are also usually sources for
recommendation letters ("recos") on which I will elaborate later.
3. In the
course of your projects/BTP you may be doing something that you
think is novel and not looked into
before. In this case you may want to
consider publishing a technical paper on
your work. There are many places
where your paper can be published,
and not all of them are worthy of
mention - there are many shady
publications in the scientific arena as
well. A publication in reputed
international journals (eg the IEEE for
electrical engineering or ASME for
mechanical) is the best you can get,
and if you do make sure you let the
univ you are applying to now of it -
send official reprints if necessary.
Usually you will have to make do with
publishing in a conference - it is easier,
and some of the conferences are
pretty good too. This is a topic you
will have to discuss with your
guide/advisor.
So much for the
run-up to apping - my guess is that by the time you
read
this all the above advice will have
come too late. So let us get down to
the relevant information - the
process itself.
2. Standardized
Exams - GRE and TOEFL
To apply for
engineering education in the
the GRE (Graduate Record
Examination) and TOEFL (Test Of English as a
Foreign Language). Both of these are
conducted by the Educational Testing
Service (ETS).
The GRE has
three sections - Analytical, Verbal and Quantitative. The
verbal section is the only one that
requires real preparation - it tests
your English language skills and is
usually found to be rather tough among
desi public.
The other two sections are just practice. A score above 2200
is usually considered good - above 2300 is a
bonus. Univs do not attach
much importance to GRE scores, but a
bad score (say below 2100) may
seriously affect your chances.
The TOEFL is a
very easy exam, and requires almost no preparation.
More
information for both these exams will surely be available to you from
other sources. Just make sure you
give them in time - it will avoid pain
later.
4. Choosing
Field of Interest:
Hopefully by
the time the apping process starts you will have
decided
which sub-field of your department
interests you enough for you to pursue
your graduate education in it. It
need not be too narrow, but there should
be some choice made. Second fact of life -
people working in some fields
get scholarships easier than people
in others. But it should not be the
only factor in deciding which field
you are going to work/apply in -
otherwise you may end up doing an MS in
something you do not like.
Applying in the
field in which you did your final-year project will
improve your chances, but that does not
mean that your MS should be
constrained by what you did in your
BTP/Final year project.
5. Pre-apping
This is
basically asking the univs to send you their forms.
Applying
online is a good idea, but you may
prefer sending the whole packet in one
piece in paper form. If you apply
online you may usually not need a form
from the univ
(or you may be able to download the relevant pages), but see
their website properly and see that
you have everything they require.
Requesting
forms is also done through the website. Again, keep your mind
open or you may not pre-app properly
and not be sent a form. Ask for the
forms of all univs
you think you hve even a remote possibility of
applying
to - make sure you are not constrained by the
availability of forms. Many
univs have GPA
(grade) cutoffs, and if yours is below that they may refuse
to send you the form at all. Dont panic or give up - they usually dont
stick to their own cutoffs. Just preapply with some fictitious name and
GPA and GRE
score and whatever else.
6. Sucking
This is what we
affectionately call contacting faculty in the
admission and financial aid. It is a long
and painful process and will eat
up your time and concentration, but it is
known to yeild often spectacular
results. So here is a step-by-step
guide
1. TIMING: Start
around the beginning of september
at the earliest.
Earlier is no
point - the profs usually dont reply till around 2nd
week of
october. But in
case you are dying of nabad, you can go to the
homepages
of all the faculty in all the univs you are likely to apply to and see who
are suitable for you - as in who do
the kind of stuff you want to pursue
your MS in. Save their contact
addresses, in fact their entire homepages
for later reference - you will
definitely need it later, and going to the
univ page every
time will be painful. Having a well organised app
directory may make you less
"cool" but it will save you a lot of bother.
2. RESUME:
After you have decided on a tentative list of universities and
profs in those univs
you have to make your resume. Make sure you include
all the studgiri
you have done/think you are going to do. In IIT people
include their seminars, btps, any course/lab projects worth mentioning,
their summer training projects, their
GRE and TOEFL scores, their
department rank ... Ask some suitable
senior to give you his resume for
guidance and after you have made a draft
show it to seniors for pointers
and stuff. Make sure your resume
does not sound bombastic - do not claim
to have done more than you actually have - IITians apparently do enough
work at the undergraduate level
anyway. Also, limit it to at max 3-4 pages
- no one wants to go through an encyclopedia detailing your
greatness.
Make sure you
mention the professors (in IIT) you are working with - US
profs you send your resume to may
know them and effective matchmaking may
take place. Also, it may be possible
that you are apping in slightly
differing fields in different univs - in this case reorder your resume and
emphasise-deemphasise appropriately. If you have a good department rank
flsh it
prominently. And DO NOT make your resume in MS Word or other such
editors - plain text is the way. It may
restrict its looks, but the prof
there may not even bother to open an
MS word document. Avoid long
paragraphs - use points. I could go on and
on, so I won't - just keep your
mind open when writing your resume
and make sure you get it propetly
reviewed by kindly souls willing to
undergo the torture.
3. SUCKING - So
time has come to start sucking - what do you do? Make a
"Suck
Letter" - a covering letter of sorts that briefly details the field
you are interested in, and why you
would like to work with the particular
prof you are
sending the mail to. Include things like your rank (if good)
and GRE and TOEFL scores, but dont make it a second resume. Limit it to
one screenful
AT MAX - profis there get pained by hajaar mails from all
over the world and do not REALLY
care about you. Send to one prof from
each univ
and wait for a few days - say 4-5. Avoid sending around weekends
- they pile up in the prof's inbox and chances are he will
just delete it
in the rush to clear his inbox. Profs who do
reply usually do so in 2-3
days max. In the event of no reply or
unfavourable reply, suck someone
else. Sending 20 mails a week and
not even getting one reply is often the
case - keep at it.
7. Sending the
packet
1. RECOS - This
is probably the most important part about filling out
forms - each university requires 3
"Letters of Recommendation" from
"people who have known your work". So basically you have
to get three
letters of praise from profs who have
seen you work (say your BTP guide,
seminar guide, summer training guide,
etc etc). Profs here will
all know
about this - if you think a prof is happy with you, just go and ask him
(or her) to give you a reco. Each univ has a Recommendation Form (usually
downloadable) which the profs have to fill.
Take your recos well in time -
profs often do it at their own
leisure and you do not want to miss univ
deadlines. Some people send more than
three recos - dont know if
that
helps, but if all are reasonably good
it will definitely not do any harm.
2. STATEMENT OF
PURPOSE - For some strange reason univs want you to
tell
them why you are interested in
pursuing a graduate education, what you
hope to achieve from the same, your
career plans and your qualifications
(in brief - this is NOT another resume). Sample SoPs can be found at the
website of the Electrical Engineering
Students Association (EESA) at the
EE department of IIT Bombay. Ask seniors
for their SoPs. And again get
SoPs reviewed by seniors. Apping legend has it that a bad SoP
is a BAD
idea and a good SoP
is often the deciding criterion between otherwise
similar candidates. Again make it pointwise as far as possible, and avoid
writing vague generalities and
unsubstantiated statements.
3. Filling the
Forms - Fill them, of course.
4. Include any
certificates, reprints of publications or any other such
studgiri you have
referred to in your resume. Make sure you send your
resume too.
5. SENDING THE
FORMS - Courier them - dont be penny wise and pound
foolish
and send them by post or something.
Put your email ID on the cover.
Two/three
people sending to the same univ often send their
packets
together - do this if you want, no harm.
Also, univs ask for things to be
sent seperately
to the Graduate Office and the Department. Send them both
in seperate
envelopes in the same packet if required, with a covering
letter stating clearly what is what
and whose.
8. Relax
For sometime at least.
9. Post-app
Sucking
After you have
sent your app packets, send emails to profs who
replied
positively to you before apping informing them that you have sent your app
packet and that they should see it.
Also send mails to profs who have NOT
replied to you earlier, telling them
that you have applied and that could
they please look at your
application? Make sure to include your resume in
such new contacts, and mention
important things like department rank and
stuff in the main mail itself. Be
careful to not suck more than one prof
at a time in the same univ
- wait for 4-5 days for each fellow to reply.
This process
can start in say late Jan. It can be prety painful -
just go
about it bravely.
10. Wait
There is
nothing more to do. Just wait for the schols, admits
etc to pour
in, hopefully. If you get admit to a
particular univ but the financial aid
decisions are not yet made, dont lie back to smell the roses - start
sucking profs there ASAP - profis often prefer admitted candidates.
This is the end
My gentle
friend
The end.
______________________
After putting all this info
for you, you might want to thank me also, but “what the heck!”, after
all is all about giving and taking... so enjoy your
life while it lasts…
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