Ensuing things are required for making an application to US Universities -
- Statement of Purpose (SOP)
- Letters of recommendation (LOR). Minimum three are required.
- One or two copies of official transcript issued by your University.
- Your Resume
- Financial Certificates - Proof of funds availability
- University specific Application
- Official GRE and TOEFL scores
Usually all Universities have online application process. You fill and submit your application as well as supporting materials like SOP, resume and LORs online. Its just the transcripts and financial certificates, which you send in by post. However Universities provides options for LORs i.e. they accept paper-based as well as online LORs. So in case you opt for paper-based LOR you send in those LORs by postal mail as well. Anyways purpose of this blog is not to explain the application process but the things, which you can take care of in order to make your profile competent to stand better chances of good admits.
The mantra is simple - just make the different components of your application attractive and so your application. Below I try to explain a step-by-step process to make your profile eye catching. Hope you will find it helpful and informative.
Step 1: Write your GRE/TOEFL either in your third year or latest in final year. Target 1450+ in GRE and 110+ (with individual section 25+) in TOEFL-iBT. GRE quantitative scores must be 760+, better if it is 800.
Trust me, getting 1450+ in GRE not at all tough. I am sure it is way easy provided you eye it properly. TOEFL-iBT is even easier but again you need practice and your attitude is every thing you know very well. By getting high scores the GRE/TOEFL scores part of your application is done. GRE score will help you even in getting good recommendations from your profs.
I am writing a separate blog on how to prepare for GRE and TOEFL. Soon I will publish that.
Step 2: If you were a professor in Operating Systems, doing research in process scheduling and I had asked you to hire me for your research work, what would have been your first question to me? Ask yourself first and then read on.
Yes you are right. What is my research profile? What have I done in my areas of interest?
If I have zero research exp in area I want to pursue my MS in, how can you hire me. Can you? You will have to teach me lots of things first and then I will start off. Surely you don't have time to do all this what you are looking for is a candidate, who can be assigned some work/module and he can do it for you in a timely fashion.
So in addition to things like scores, LORs your research profile also carries a lot of weight. Since you usually list your research activities/projects in your resume I will explain here the qualities of an attractive resume, which admission committee looks for -
Here are the good qualities of an eye catching profile are:
Good %, GPA etc.
Enough Research work
Paper Publications
Extra Curricular Activities
Let us deal with them one by one in order to put some pearls into your profile.
Good %, GPA
I pursued my engieering degree at a state engineering college, and I have seen the state of affairs there. You will find lot of morons there who will suggest you that just maintain 70% so that you can sit in campus interview and rest are your communication skills. If you just want to get through in campus interview then I would say that figure out the minimum required % to appear in campus interview of different companies who visit your campus and maintain maximum among them. Got it? Rest are surely your communication skills and your capabilities of making fool of your interviewers. But be ready to do testing all the time in your job or probably just keep sitting and warming their benches. If you are interested in that please stop reading this text here itself and go to improve your communication skills and tactics to befool people. Example question, where you need to befool the interviewers is - why do you have backlog in subject X?
Guys who are interested in becoming a real stud by pursuing Masters at Universities like Stanford, UCB etc. read on.
So the first step is to maintain a very good %, GPA etc. Especially in the courses which are related to your fields of interest. Class rank, University rank plays an important role in admission procedure. % and GPA matter but it is your relative performance which plays major role that's why I said _rank_. Try to be at least among top 5 performers of your college, better if you are among top 5 performers of your University. % or GPA plays an important role in getting good recommendations as well. I am sure that your recommender will ask you your marks you scored in his subject. Thus good % will indirectly improve your LORs as well.
Enough Research Work
The most important and I would say difficult task for students is to figure out their field of interests. When I was pursuing my undergrad I really dint know my area of interest however I was very much impressed by Linux Operating System and developed it as my area of interest. The admission committee looks for a candidate who is really interested and motivated for research and bonous if he has already done some research in his area of interest.
So decide what is your area of interest? Let me put some example areas of interest for Computer Science students -
- Operating Systems
- Compilers and languages
- File Systems and Storage Systems
- Network Systems
- Design and implementation of Algortihm
- Data Base Management Systems
- Data Mining
- Artificial Intelligence
- Embedded Systems
- Computer Security and Cryptography
... and list goes on.
Sit and think, which area interests you the most. Its difficult to judge at the end of 1st year because area of interest is developed and not decided. But I am sure that after taking enough courses by mid of 3rd year of your engineering, you should be able to decide what area interests you most. Once you are done with the decision of your area of interest, the next step is to do something in that particular area.
Go ahead and use Internet and find out what is happening in that area. Use google, read Computer Magazines, know more, learn more about it. Open Source is the best thing for students. Utilize it, learn what projects are going on in your area of interest. Open Source projects are usually hosted on www.sourceforge.net. Browse this website, search for projects giving your area of interest as search string. I am sure you will find something happening in Open Source in your area of interest. Figure out how can you participate in any of those projects. Or if you have an idea you may start altogether a separate project on sourceforge and ask others to work with you as your team members if any one is interested. Don't think that I am in state engineering college and I cannot do any thing.
DO NOT LET THE PLACE DECIDE YOUR CAPABILITIES!!!
Ideally, you should start all this after your 5th semester and it would be doubly beneficial if you get done with your GRE as well by 5th semester. Note that GRE score is valid for 5 years from the date you write GRE.
Now in remaining 1.5 years if you work hard you can easily do 3 to 4 small (not hello world program) and good projects in your areas of interest and you can even make one of them as your final year project. Try to write some paper on the work you have done, get in touch with your prof and see if he can help you in getting your paper published. Students usually opt for projects like DBMS, front end VB and back end MS Access. I would highly suggest you to please try to do something new and for that you will need to know what is already existing and thus you will have to read lots of papers in that particular area so be ready, it is not going to be an easy go but surely it will be fun. Its up to you whether to rest during B Tech and repent later or work hard during B Tech and feel high later. Hope you got my point. Putting 3-4 good research oriented projects in your resume will surely make it different.
Paper Publications
This something, which is very difficult at undergrad level but not impossible. Even a single paper publication can make the chances of admit very high. It carries a lot of weight-age. Getting a paper published is not very easy and very difficult when you have not any research because you will not have any thing to write in your paper. Usually, people do research and write paper on their findings and get it published. So it starts again with research. It is fairly aligned with 'enough research' section mentioned above. If you have really done something good, substantial and novel you can surely go ahead and write a paper on that. Even if it doesn't get published you can always mention it in your resume and it carries weight note that as well as you can submit your paper along with other application materials to the University. I would say that after your 3rd year, try to get an internship at some IIT instead of doing fake industrial training in some XYZ company. By doing an internship you can make good relationship with prof at IIT and if he is impressed with your work, he can give you recommendation as well.
I would suggest you to prepare and do your home work in your 5th semester and start trying for internship as soon as applications open at IITs. By home work here I mean, learn about your area of interest and the areas prof (under whom you are looking an internship) is working in. What problem he is working on? Any solution comes to your mind for that problem? At an early stage it may sound senseless to think about a solution to the problem an IIT prof is working on, but once you do some home work and learn about that area, problem, you might get some idea or solution. So if you are lucky chances are that you might get some paper published while working with prof during your internship. One more thing I would suggest, if you get a chance of being intern at IIT under some prof, dont lose contact with that prof even after your internship. I would say keep working in that area, do more research and show it to the prof. If you do well he will get more confidence in you and might help you in publishing some paper later as well and in case you request him to write LOR on your behalf he will write better. But don't disturb him by just sending him hi/hello emails. Contact him only after doing something substantial.
Extra Curricular Activities
In addition to the intelligence, admission committee looks for students who are equally involved in extra curricular activities. Usually every engineering college organizes some cultural festival, which is the best place to capture this strength. Try to win the competition, just participating is not suffice. Take part in various activities e.g. drama, group discussion events, debates, programming competitions, mathematics Olympiad, paper presentations etc. You might think that it takes time for doing all this and it is better to study instead of all this. I would say that it will not take more than a week's time but it will add up lot of value to your profile. Apart from adding value to your profile it will imbue you with confidence. When you come in your senior years, try to organize the events that will show to the admission committee that you are also armed with leadership skills and can organize the things successfully, which is pretty much required while doing research. One thing I forgot to mention is that there are programming contests like ACM IOPC (not sure about acronym), Google code jam, projects contests e.g. Google Summer of Code, Lord of the Code by Redhat in collaboration with IIT-B. You must participate in these international contests and try to win them. Again just participation doesn't count.
I think if you execute all the points I mentioned above, I am sure your profile will start looking terrific.
Step 3: Now when you have made your profile marvelous, it is the time when you are required to make a list of Universities where you want to apply. Since the targeted audiences of this blog are students who are eying for Universities like Stanford, UCB, etc. certainly there list is going to be small. The selection of Universities actually depends on your area of interest. Go to the website of your department of the University and see if enough research is happening in your area of interest. A typical selection might look like this -
Stanford, UCB, MIT, UIUC, UCLA, UWisc-Madison, Columbia University.
Apply to 6-8 Universities of your choice. Note that early application also matters so please don't delay. I am sure you will get an admit.
Guys I think I am done with my preach. I hope you would find it helpful.
Your comments are valuable for me in order to deliver more relevent information to you so please express your comments. If you have any questions on any thing I mentioned above or on admission procedure for MS or any issues, which you think I can help in please do not hesitate to post your questions as comments. I would be happy to help you.
All the best for all your endeavours!!!
