Supreeth featured in news for his Robotics research

One of the reasons we started Scholar Strategy was to help students find happy careers and then help other students. In this regard, we are extremely proud of our first student – Supreeth Rao. He has not only cracked first semester with a GPA of 4.0 (wow!) but his research was recently covered in news. So, anyone interested in Robotics, you have something to look forward to! Let us know if you have any doubts and we’ll help you get some advice from Supreeth.

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WPI Robotics Engineering doctoral candidate Velin Dimitrov, left, and graduate student Supreeth Rao walk with the school’s Autonomous Exploration Rover

Supreeth stuck to his passion even though he had to re-apply to get into a program of his choice. You can read his success-story here. His relentless work and dedication was bound to produce results sooner or later and we can only be proud for what he is building 🙂

P.S. we have more exciting announcements to make soon, stay tuned!

Case Study – MS in MIS (AG)

Presenting the case study of AG’s successful MIS application journey.

AG graduated from NIT Allahabad with a great GPA of 8.55 and incredible GRE score of 332 (170, 162, 5). He had a Toefl score of 112 and will be finishing 3 years of work experience at Oracle before moving for his MIS program. His professional and academic projects gave him enough credibility for the IS stream. His goal was clear from the beginning to go for MIS and not normal MS in CS. This helped focus on exactly the programs he wanted. Sometimes, students are trying to apply for both and their efforts eventually get diluted. Since his profile was above average, he selectively applied to only the top programs – CMU, TAMU, University of Arizona and IU Kelley. His first interview happened for Kelley but the group case study didn’t go as well as he wanted, turning into a reject. However, he aced all apps after that getting into CMU, TAMU and Arizona.

Some lessons-

  1. Stay focused, understand your goals and apply selectively
  2. Do proper school research, talk to current students and reflect that in your essays

MEM admit from Duke

Couldn’t be more excited as Duke is right at the top when it comes to MEM programs. And this admit comes to a reapplicant. Case study soon.

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Case Study – MS in CS (Surya)

Presenting the case study of Surya Sumukh’s successful application journey for MS in Computer Science for Fall 2014.

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Surya graduated from BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore with a stupendous GPA of 9.36 and joined a big bank as a developer. His significant achievements in music and 2 years of good work experience made a strong profile for him until he found out that he had scored 301 in GRE. The battle to get into a worthwhile school began when he joined Scholar Strategy for Fall 2014 apps.

Profile:

Undergraduation – BE Computer Science and Engineering from BMS Bangalore
GPA – 9.36
GRE – 301
Experience – 2 years of software engineering experience at a global bank and research internship at CDAC Bangalore
Area of Interest – Network Security and general CS
LORs – 1 academic, 2 professional ones from internship and full-time work

QnA:

Q: What do you think were your strong points before applying?

GPA and project work at CDAC, I believe were my strong points. I also think fulltime work experience at a well-known bank was important.

Q: What do you think were your weak points before applying?

Low GRE score, I had no proper plan and I do lack the ability of expressing myself clearly in the SOP.

Q: What do you think you did right?

I am happy I joined Scholar Strategy!!

Q: What could you have done better?

I would have devoted more time to my SOP to make it more enthusiastic. I should have planned and prepared myself better for the applications and GRE.

Q: What should applicants be more careful about (based on your experience)?

Definitely spend more time in planning for the full application process to be able to see the bigger picture.

Q: Where did Scholar Strategy help you?

Specifically in helping writing the SOP in a very short period. More importantly, suggesting universities more suited to my profile and overall profile evaluation.

Results

Surya has admits from Cornell (where he is heading to), Syracuse (30% scholarship), UIUC MCS program and University of Texas, Arlington and no rejects so far.

Read Surya’s testimonial here.

MCS admit from UIUC

Reporting a fantabulous MCS admit at UIUC which is the Professional MS program for Computer Science. Go Illini!

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More admits going to be announced soon!

Success story for MS Robotics

We are very happy to start reporting our success stories and case studies.

wpiSupreeth is one of our earliest and favorite students. He joined SS when he was already working with another counselor. He had a fantastic research profile but not so ideal GPA and GRE. He had applied very ambitiously the first time and received rejects from all. And, now he is studying at one of the TOP programs for Robotics. We helped focusing on stronger schools in his area of interest (Robotics) suited for his profile. Sometimes, we are too blinded by general rankings but when our area of interest is very specific, we need to spend time focusing on finding best programs for our specialization (not necessarily the top ranked in general rankings). Also, we need to decide when to reapply to a program that rejected us and when to not. It isn’t wise to be just obstinate and keep applying to same programs. But most importantly, we should NEVER give up.

This is his profile-
Undergraduation – BE Electrical Engineering from BMS Bangalore
GPA – 7.76 (first class distinction)
GRE – 311
Toefl – 108
Experience – Good internship and 1.5 years solid research experience from IISc and RRI (2 International journal research publications with him being the 1st author)
Area of Interest – Computer Vision and Robotics

And, we are happy to report that he is now a proud student at WPI, one of the top 10 schools highly regarded in the field of Robotics.

WPI is probably the first university in the country that has a major in robotics, and so that’s kind of excitingColin Angle, CEO of Roomba maker iRobot

He joined WPI in Spring 2014 session and sent us this update that we are happy to share here 🙂 –

I am doing good 🙂
Stayed at NY for a week at my friends’ .. Roamed around the city that never sleeps!-NY.. It was real fun.. NYSE, Subway, Ferry to Staten Island, NY Skyline, Streets of Manhattan, Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge at 11.30 PM, Times Square, Central Park, Rockefeller center, Windows of 5th avenue show, Temples of Flushing Meadows and what not !! 🙂 Really enjoyed it :DThen went to NJ for 2 days to my Brother’s.. Had good food, shopped a lot and then came to Worcester on 5th Jan..Since I was the 1st Robotics student to report at the front office, I was given a liberty to choose my grad advisor- Picked Prof. Taskin Padir (whom I had always wanted to work with !).. Then met him- By god’s grace, he liked my research at RRI.. Now I have been given an opportunity to work at the RiVER lab for the NASA Sample Return Rover challenge-2014 !! 🙂 Prof. Padir said he would give me 3 credits for the work – (called Directed Research) , which would add to my MS degree..It has been a great start Nistha 🙂 Thank you for all the help you gave me…. and Do let me know if something is required of me for Scholar Strategy ! 🙂

Read his full testimonial here.