Student's Journey to Study USA Part - 3

Person

Sureshbala

Student's Journey to Study USA Part - 3

Author: Sureshbala

Ask The Experts

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Procedure for requesting Application Materials

Normally most of the Schools have different application materials for international students and it is because of this reason, labeling yourself as an international student when you contact the admissions office of the school is of cardinal significance.Generally most of the universities will have an option of requesting the material online. In case if such facility is not available you can follow the below mentioned procedure to request the material.

Please come out of the surmise that the information requested by you will be on your lap in a span of one week. The application materials and other information requested by you will take four to six weeks to arrive as this is dictated by the International Postal System Procedures. So I suggest you to grant plenty of time for this activity to nullify those last minute bottlenecks that will have serious impacts on your so called Journey to America. Remember that almost every University will have it's official website from which you can get a lot of information regarding that University. The information that you get depends upon the time that you can afford to go through the website of that University.

I am applying to this School..How about you?

You should begin the process at least a year and a half in advance of the application deadline, and no later than August of the year before the academic year in which you plan to enroll.

So keeping this in mind, one has to finish the required entrance exam depending upon his course requirements not later than the end of July of the year before the academic year in which you plan to enroll. Of course one can always request application material before taking the test but at least shuld be able to communicate the date on which he is planning to take the admission tests.

Friends, I come across lot of Educational Consultancies which can process your application even if you take the required exam in the month of December. The major problem that one faces with most of these consultancies is, besides being too expensive, you may not have have the freedom of choosing Universities, instead they own it.

Apart from all these, this article is exclusively for gladiators, who wants to act on their own and know completely what it means by Studying in America.

Ok,let's get back to our task.

You must address your initial inquiry to the Director of Undergraduate Admissions for undergraduate applications, to Dean of the Graduate School or Director of Graduate Admissions for graduate applications. Remember that you have to send all inquiries by airmail and request an airmail reply. Despite the fact that you can communicate with the Admissions Department by email, the actual application and accompanying documents will need to be sent by airmail. Your initial inquiry should include the following information:

Your name: Mention clearly which of your names is your personal or given name and which of your names is your family name. You can do this by writing the family name in all capital letters. Remember that your name must be exactly what it appears on your passport.
Your date of birth: In writing your date of birth write the month first, followed by the day then the year.(Gregorian calendar system). I suggest you to spell out the name of the month instead of using numbers as this would avoid the confusion caused by different date conventions. For example, 5/7/83 is May 7, 1983 in the United States, whereas in India it is July 5 1983. So write the name of the month to avoid these confusions
Your mailing address: So you know how important it is and see that you are providing the complete details. Remember that you are dealing with International Postal System
Education Details:Your past and present education, listed in chronological order, including all secondary schools, colleges, and universities you have attended. Include examination results, grades, and class rank if available.
Here is a sample format of this

Course	Academic Year	School/Univ	Percentage/CGPA
K-11	2003-2004	Board of Secondary Education	80%
K-12	2004-2005	Board of Secondary Education	82%
B.Tech	2005-2009	IIT-Delhi	6.5/8.0

Personal Information: Provide your personal details that includes your citizenship, name of the country issuing your passport, your marital status,the number of dependents etc;
Program of Study: Mention clearly the name of the program that you intend to study. You should also mention the month and the year in which you are planning to get enrolled in the program. Ensure that this information is simple and lucid.
Admission Tests Information: Provide the complete information regarding the scores of your admission tests that includes one of SAT, GRE or GMAT and TOEFL. When I said complete information about scores, I want you to give the section-wise break up of the scores instead of just mentioning the overall score. Those of you who did not take the tests by the time of requesting application material, you must list the dates on which you are registered (or planning to register) to take the tests. One must also remember that it is very important to mention the details of your study of English like where you studied English and the number of years of study.
Financial Status Information: Despite the fact that F1-students can undertake part-time jobs both on campus and off campus adhering to the U.S goveronment rules, an international student will be given admission into the U.S Schools only if he can submit the complete details of how he is going to finance not only his education expenses but also his living expenses during his stay in the United States. You have to give as many details as possible, such as the total amount of funds, sources of these funds (property, bank balance, earnings of your parents) etc; Please go through the website of the respective University for information regarding the total expenses that you will incur during your study.

"You should never mention that you are going to finance yourself by working part-time once you reach United States. Bear in mind that you are going to the U.S to study, just study"

So folks, for those of you who wants to apply to the U.S Schools I strictly recommend to follow this format failing which the Universities may simply respond to your query with a preliminary application form. Instead,if you follow the above discussed format and furnish them with all these details mentioned, the admission committee will be able to decide whether you have met their preliminary criteria or not, based upon which they will send you a full formal application with complete instructions on how to proceed further.

Most of the Universities will have Online Application system but remember that you have to send hard copies of certain documents to the university by post. In fact we will find out more about this in our next episode.

Here we come to the end of this episode. This seems to be a bit illustrious. Isn't it? But remember…Our journey is to the great United States of America, the dream land for education.

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