Guten tag! Konnichiwa! Bienvenido! That's just three ways to welcome someone, but there are hundreds out there. The world is truly massive and contains billions of people in thousands of unique and distinct cultures. How are you supposed to learn about all of these people? Sadly, you'll never have enough time to experience them all, but with a study abroad program, you can have the chance to learn with and about a unique culture by diving in and getting hands-on.
Study abroad is the term given to a program, usually run through a university, which allows a student to live in a foreign country and attend a foreign university. In most cases, two universities have an arrangement which allows them to exchange students (hence the term 'exchange student') so that these students can learn about a foreign culture and broaden their horizons. The program usually grants credit for courses taken at the foreign institution and some also arrange for a work-study or internship agreement.
Study abroad programs come many shapes and sizes. The typical program one thinks of allows a student to spend a semester studying abroad, but some programs run for multiple semesters or up to a year. Some are geared solely around studying and attending a foreign university, while others emphasize internships or volunteer experiences. Programs also vary in how the student is supported, with some having a 'host family' situation, whereby the two students who are exchanged live at the other's respective house. Other programs simply provide a dorm or apartment for the student.
There are also study abroad programs for high school students and college graduates. High school students, due to their age, are often required to live with a host family or in a supervised living situation. A recent trend among college graduates has been the opportunity to teach abroad, frequently as part of a master's degree program to become a teacher in their home country. Others participate in research endeavors at foreign universities while pursuing graduate education.
Appication Process
The application process for studying abroad is time consuming and requires applicants to start preparing well in advance of their anticipated start date. It is very important to begin the admission process early because in many cases application deadlines are far in advance of the start of the semester (sometimes as many as ten months). You also need to allow time for scheduling any standardized tests needed for admission and then having the results of these tests sent to schools. There is no uniform world-wide application system. Each college or university establishes its own unique policies.
The 6 basic steps for applying abroad are:
- Identifying country, universities and the course of your interest
- Request universities for Application forms
- Taking various required tests
- Arranging and preparing Essays and recommendation letters
- Completing and Sending Application forms along with required documents
- Reporting various test scores to the universities
Selecting universities is a very time consuming and important process not only from the admission point of view but also because applying to universities is very expensive by Indian standards. Hence it has to be restricted to around 6 or 8 universities which are best matched for your requirements.
The best university for you may not be the famous ones, but those that offer you your field of study as well as meet the other criteria important to you. The range of academic options as well as available universities are so wide that it is not possible to select the best in one go and it may take some time.
Requesting application forms
This is the first stage of your application process. At this stage, you can write to the selected 25-30 universities. You can directly request application materials from the universities.
There are two ways to get application forms:
1. Requesting Application Forms via email : You can request application forms from the universities website. Most universities have a form on their website which can be completed online to request application material.
2. Downloading from the university website : Many universities have a downloadable and ready to print versions of their application forms on the net. These can be used for applying just as regular forms.
Application requirements
Application Requirements Top
Once you start receiving application forms and material, go through the material in detail and check the application deadline, minimum scores required in the standardized tests, recommendation letters needed and other such information.Tabulate all these requirements and compare them with your objectives and group the universities under three categories :
1. Schools that seem to match your requirements
2. Schools that are not suited to your needs
3. Schools that do not completely fit in any of the above two categories
Eliminate schools in Group 2 and check out in detail again the universities in Group 3. You can try and focus on departments that you would most like to attend and the school rankings in that field. And any special facilities that the school may offer you in that field. Try and make a list of schools on basis of fresh and more specific criteria like :
- Objectives of the program and kind of methodology as well as approach
- Admission / Entrance requirements
- Availability of assistantships and funds in the field of your choice
- Research facilities
- Location Profile of students enrolled
Narrow down your list to about 6-8 universities to whom you intend to apply.
Infozee can help you select universities that are best suited for your requirements. Click here to find out more Once you have decided on the universities to apply to, you have to start filling up the application forms. The forms will ask for your personal details, academic record, official transcripts, various essays, personal achievements, extra curricular activities and recommendation letters. We discuss here the three most important criteria for admissions - Essays, Academic School Records / Transcripts and Recommendation Letters
Recommendation Letters
Letter of reference or recommendation letter plays a very important role in the admission process especially for Master's and Doctoral courses. A recommendation letter is a signed statement from a person who knows you well professionally or has taught you in a subject that is related to the course you are applying to. It should list your positive and negative qualities, strengths and weaknesses, your character and integrity and other such information.
The author or teacher must indicate his position, how long he/she has known the applicant and in what capacity. He/she should briefly discuss the need, importance and usefulness of the study the applicant proposes to undertake. Authors are usually asked to rank applicants in their letters of recommendation, which helps admission officers to interpret the academic credentials of foreign students. Students should obtain letters of recommendation (often on the prescribed forms sent by the institutions) from teachers who know them as a person as well as a student. You may like to request your author to give concrete examples that may show your qualities and help your case.
School Records/Academic Transcripts
The transcripts of your academic record are absolutely essential to the evaluation of your academic abilities. Your official transcript or academic record is the objective part of your application. Academic records greatly vary from one education system to the other. Systems of evaluation or grading and the formats used to present this information also differ widely.
Undergraduate: Students who are applying for a Bachelor program or any other undergraduate course would be required to submit a secondary school report and transcripts (report cards) of the final exams. The report form should be filled out by a school official like the principal, counselor or headmaster. This form should introduce you in the context of your whole school experience in relationship to the other students in your class. Admission committees will be interested in learning how you have performed in your own educational system. The school report should talk about your accomplishments and provide a statement of your chances for success in university-level studies.
Since there is a variation between the styles of scoring used abroad and the ones used in India, ask your school to include a guide to the grading standards used in your educational system and your school. If your school ranks students by their level of academic achievement, make certain that the ranking is included with the other details. Also send the school / junior college leaving certificate as and when it is available.
Graduate: Students applying for Graduate courses (MBA, MS etc) are required to submit an official transcript from each college or university that they have attended after secondary school with complete details of the subjects, credits involved and other details like correspondence courses, diplomas etc. Most universities ask for the transcript to be sealed in an envelope and signed and attested across the seal by the registrar. This procedure is to be done for each and every college that you have attended. Some universities may ask for more than one transcripts but most require only one.
If the transcripts are in a language other than English, then it must be translated into English only by the issuing authority or university otherwise it may not be acceptable.
Essays/Statement of purpose
The personal essays, and/or statement of purpose, also play a very important role in the process of evaluating your application for both admission as well as financial aid because it gives the faculty assessing your application their most significant impression of you as an individual.
For MBA candidates this is probably the most important criteria. Check our special section on MBA applicants
In the statement of purpose, which must be concise, the student must define his or her academic goals, and/or research plans, It should include justification for choosing the academic program and specialization, and for selecting the particular college as well as the advantages and benefit of studying that particular course.
Admission Stage
Universities usually inform students of their admission decisions well in advance of the beginning term. If you have received admission in more than one university, you will have to decide which one you want to attend. At this stage, you should compare a few objective and mostly more subjective criteria. The points you should focus on :
Objective Criteria
- Best program curriculum, length of program, choice of courses
- Best funding offer or best program with respect to costs
- Cost of living
- Strength of related departments/program
Subjective Criteria
- Overall reputation of university/department/program
- Location-region, safety of neighborhood
- Climate
- Social life
- Facilities available
- Accommodation & housing
Basically the decision factors at this stage would be mainly three points :
- Best program
- Best funding offer
- Best for your personal goals and needs
It is essential to do a lot of research on the universities and their offerings. Colleges and universities offer varied educational packages. You will have to find out which of these are likely to meet your goals by spending time in the reference library. The more time and effort you put in and the better you utilize your researching skills, the greater are your chances of achieving your goals.
What to do once you have been accepted :
Each college will tell you exactly what steps to follow to confirm your acceptance of their offer of admission and how to prepare for your first term. This information will be included with the letter of admission or in materials that will be sent to you shortly thereafter. You must respond with a "yes" or "No" for each offer of admission. You may also be required to submit a financial deposit to the institution that you plan to attend. This is to guarantee your place in the class. Make sure you do not miss any deadlines.
If you are in the waiting list :
You may receive a letter that informs you that you are on a ‘waiting list’. This generally means that the admission office determined that you were qualified for admission but there was not enough room to admit all qualified applicants. If you are placed in the waiting list of a college you wish to attend, you will be asked whether you are interested or not. If you say yes, you may be offered admission if space becomes available.
If you are placed in the waiting list of your first choice college and confirmed in the second choice college, you may do the following steps to remain on the safer side :
• Accept the offer of the second choice school and pay the deposit
• Accept the offer of remaining in the waiting list of the first choice school
If you get admission later in your first choice school, you can join that but you will have to forfeit your deposit (usually around US $50-$500) otherwise you can decide to study in the second choice school.
Applying for student visa
Each country has its own procedure for visas.
Tests- GMAT, GRE, SAT, TOEFL, IELTS
The various tests that one requires for applying abroad are given here. For test preparation tips, dates, test centers and other details of any particular test, click on its name in the given table below. You would be required to take at least one of the following English proficiency tests along with the standardized tests for admission to any program.
English Proficiency Tests
TOEFL Required for almost all programs in US.
Acceptable along with TWE, in place of IELTS in universities of Canada, Australia, Europe, New Zealand.
IELTS Required for most Universities in U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
TSE Recommended for people who plan to apply for a teaching assistantship in U.S.
Other Standardized Tests
Undergraduate Level (Bachelor degree programs)
SAT - I Required for almost all Undergraduate Programs in US
Graduate Level (Masters & PhD level programs)
SAT - II Required by a few Universities in US for specific courses
Graduate Level (Masters & PhD level programs)
GRE Required for Humanities, Sciences, Engineering fields in US
GRE Subject Required along with GRE, for a few Universities and Programs in US
GMAT Required for Business/Management Programs all over the world
LSAT Law Programs in US
USMLE Medicine Programs in US
GGFNS Required for Graduate Programs in Nursing in US
Recommendation Letter
Your recommendations are important because they verify your claims and provide the admissions committee an opportunity to learn more about you from people you have worked closely with. Hence, good recommendations can serve as a powerful tool to ‘sell’ yourself to the committee. We list here the common issues:
Why are Recommendation Letters important?
Every part of your application, builds an image of your personality in the minds of the admissions committee. The recommendation letters provide a third person’s perspective on the kind of person you are. What a recommendation letter writes about you should add or supplement what you claim to be through your essays/SOP and work experience details. It certainly would create doubts about you as a person if the image that your recommendation letter creates completely inverts the image that you’ve been trying to create through your essays/SOPs and work experience details.
The one simple way to make recommendation letters contribute to your admission process is to keep your application straight and honest. Present the facts as they actually are - be truthful about every claim you make in every aspect of your application.
There is one thing that you certainly can do and that is to choose the people who can recommend you judiciously. Choose a person who knows you well and likes you as a person and then ask him/her to give a fair assessment of you as a person in the recommendation letter.
Your application form will give you details about the recommendation letters you are required to submit. The number of recommendations and from whom - whether from your work or from your school or both.
Choosing Your Recommenders
Business Schools:
Most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters. Choosing the appropriate mix of recommenders largely depends on the program you are applying for. For an MBA program, two recommendations from work and one from school is generally a good balance. If the school asks for only two recommendations, it would be advisable to get both work related. As far as possible, it is advisable to get one recommendation letter from your immediate supervisor. However, if it is not possible, then a former supervisor would be a good choice. As a last alternative, you could use a colleague who has worked closely with you. It is not advised to apply without a recommendation from your current job place. For more details, check out the recommendation letter section on the MBA channel. Graduate Programs: For an MS or Doctoral program, you should get atleast two recommendations from your professors. If you have performed research or worked on thesis, it is highly recommended that you get the reference letter from your Advisor. If you worked for a company either full time or as a summer intern, you could take one letter from your immediate supervisor.
Undergraduate Programs:
For candidates applying for an undergraduate program, very few schools ask for a recommendation letter. If asked, you should get it from one of your favorite teachers in school.
Some other points to keep in mind while choosing your recommender:
- Choose people who know you well. Rather than choosing a famous person who has no intimate knowledge of your skills and abilities, it is much more powerful to use a person who can illustrate your strengths and show you at your best.
- Choose people who really like you. It is important that a recommender invests time in writing your recommendation. A person who likes you will take out the time as well as put a positive spin on your qualities.
- Choose people who can address more than one key criterion: your business and managerial skills, intellectual ability, leadership potential, maturity, work ethics etc.
- Give your recommender an outline of the assignments you have handled at work. Include in the outline some suggestions on how he/she might address specific issues such as analytical ability, integrity, intellectual curiosity etc.
Abroad, Overseas studies, Videshi padhai, international studies
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