One thing you need to nail for superb application results

I interviewed Bhavesh Sanghvi, CS grad from Iowa State University who is now working with Amazon in USA. He thinks that everyone works on their SOP, LORs and resume but if you can do this one thing, it might put you at a big advantage. He did it himself and found much success.

GRE and GMATs may become obsolete in the coming years but there is one thing that will not stop mattering for MS/PhD applications. This is also one of those things which if you get right can get you admitted right into your dream school.

And, now is the time to do it.

I bet you are thinking that we mean publishing more papers. But nope, that is not enough.

What we are talking about is emailing the Professors!

I also interviewed Ankit Srivastava, Asst Professor at IIT Chicago and PhD from University of California, San Diego. He said emailing Professors can be tricky but highly rewarding.

Here is why it can be so effective (as Ankit told me) – Professors fund students through grants and the goal of any school is to be able to admit and fund as many good students as possible. So, if a Professor recommends a student and can potentially fund her, the school committee would be more than happy to admit her directly with no fuss. 

It’s funny how simple and logical it is and yet, how many students ignore this step.

I had a client last year whose friend put her in touch with her advisor. As it happened, the advisor was looking for a suitable grad student immediately. Not only did the Professor recommend my client’s admission after a quick review of her resume (yes not even looking at SOP etc) but also gave her full funding. Things moved at lightning speed and it was one of the smoothest admission and visa process as you can imagine.

Also Read: Want to get more emails from Indian students, says award winning Prof in USA

The bottom line is while it is very hard to get positive responses from the Professors, but if you hit it right, it can be more effective than ANY other thing in your application. So you would be a fool to not try it out.

In MS Book, I have covered the topic in detail and provided sample emails and templates on how to contact the Professors because it is an important thing to do. Check it out here – https://scholarstrategy.com/smart-engineer-book/

So, do not leave out on this step when you are working hard to get into those TOP schools anyway. Good luck!

How to utilize your summer to improve your admission chances

Are you planning to apply for MS this year? Then, don’t let your summer go waste!

If you are studying in final year or have just graduated (applies to BE, BPharm etc), then this is last chance to improve your profile. Many students spend summer in enjoying and traveling but if you are serious about your applications, then gear up and make the most of this summer. Here are some ways you can utilize it to get ahead of your competition-

1. Intern somewhere and do effective projects – Interning is the best way to add some meaningful experience in your resume. If you didn’t plan ahead, try to find last minute internships using www.letsintern.com These can give you 3-4 solid lines for your SOP. For e.g.-

While interning as a data analyst at Flipkart this summer, I was exposed to upcoming technologies such as Big Data. One of my projects went live that added the capability to track the duration for which a product was looked at before being added to the cart which in turn helped determine the sales probability of products. This has only piqued my interest in the field of data analytics that I shall focus on during my Masters program.

As you can see, talking about internship projects is a great way to tell the school that you are capable of job hunting on your own (which is always nice to improve placement statistics of any school) and that you have some work experience in the field of your interest. It ALWAYS helps to do internships.

2. Hands-on training – Not able to manage a good internship? No worries, look around for what help you can offer among family and friends businesses. May be you can learn a new software to help manage accounts at your friend’s Dad’s shop? Any kind of real experience will give you something to talk about!

3. Skill development – You can also look at improving some skills that might be helpful in your further studies. You can self-learn or look at some courses online too (check out www.udemy.com) Developing good projects in these classes can be a great way to show you are a pro-active learner! Few skills that are helpful to be learned are web development (helpful in getting assistantships), excel modeling etc.

4. Community projects – Engage in any community help projects to add that human element to your profile. Working with a non-profit, tutoring kids or teach for India kind of organizations can show that you believe in contributing to positive causes. Take leadership roles if possible. Teaching subjects in your fields may be better than teaching generic ones.

5. Miscellaneous – If nothing else, go and meet people in your stream and get insights into what path you are trying to pursue. Meet Profs at IITs with insightful questions and who know you might get some interesting lead for a project. Use your imagination, the only thing that limits you is YOU. So, think what can you do in next few weeks!

Need more ideas or advice? Contact us.