I know most of the Undergraduates(B.E./B.Tech) from India wish to pursue their Graduation(MS/M.Sc) or Post Graduation(Ph.D) abroad in Top Universities. I have few simple points for those aspirants on what they should concentrate on and what they should actually be doing to chase their dreams. There are few important points I wish to convey here and boy, all those are extremely important. Please note that since I am a Computer Science student, I can advice only for the same stream, but I believe other streams don't differ much.
P.S: The Universities in Canada and few other countries refer B.E/BTech as UG and M.E. and M.Sc as Graduation and Doctrate as Post Graduation, unlike what we usually call in India. This article goes by the nomenclature used in Canada and other such countries.(thanks Vishal, for highlighting this)
Step 1. Plan what you want to be after your Graduation.
Guys and Girls, there is hell a lot of difference between a M.Sc / MS in Computer Science and M.E/M.Tech in Computer Science, as top universities offer both titles. What is the difference? Simple.
If you are into research and development or Teaching and research, you choose MS/M.Sc.
If you want to work in industry after your studies , you should go for M.E.
Let me explain this. Most students who choose Graduation in US/UK/Canada or any other country wants to graduate from Top/Cool/Reputed university so that they stand a good chance to get into top Companies like Google/Microsoft/Samsung and the likes. But they choose wrong paths mostly because of the alluring nature of the Graduation Title and the fact that they never truly know their limitations. The top companies choose students from both ME and MSc but the type of work they are assigned is whole lot different. Every Software giant has a R&D department where it goes after the M.Sc students because, in essence they would have "Researched and have the capability to research and develop new products". But M.E? They effectively do not expect a M.E or M.Tech student to research on new product but work on given assignments and projects.It may not be the same always and sometimes M.E.students do get into research and vice-versa, but it is not always(thanks to Vishal for sending this). Get the difference?
So let me put the nail in the coffin - if you feel you can research and develop new products or feel that you have the capability to research and that is what you have been destined for, go for M.Sc. Else if you feel that you are an excellent coder or a problem solver or generic software engineer, go for M.E. This decision to choose what you want decides your future, so you should be very,very careful in calculating your abilities and realistic in taking the decision since a wrong decision here could spoil your entire career.
Step 2: Prepare for your Graduation.
The preparation should effectively start from your 2nd year or at the least your 3rd year of under graduation, because let me list out what you need to do minimum, to get into good colleges.
1. Marks.
Yes. You need good marks to get into good colleges. As simple as that. Getting 75% is simply NOT ENOUGH if you aspire for top universities, unless you are from IITs , NITs or BITs. For the sake of this post, let us consider that you are not from any of the Top universities I mentioned above. This makes this topic much simpler. Get anything below 85% and forget the dream of Top universities (unless you have excellent resume which offers the other following criteria )
2. Research Experience
If you wish to get into M.Sc, it is necessary that you have atleast minimal experience in research as the university needs only top crop, who has SHOWN INTEREST IN RESEARCH PREVIOUSLY. Get it? The best way to do this is , get an intern while you do your Under graduation in reseacrh companies/posts or stuff. That will help you a lot more than your marks. Alternately, if you could not get or did not get, you have few other options to show that you are indeed a research material by showcasing these : a) National/International Publications or b) Patents(yes, patents).
Still here? Great. If you had worked with a professor on any research topic, and have your name in either national or International publications(Papers, journals, books) - BINGO , you are nearly qualified. The more the better. Have already a patent? Why do you worry?
3. GRE
Perhaps the bitter part of admission procedure is this(to me , at least). GRE is widely accepted as the measure to measure the student's capacity in admitting him/her in the university. This is really straightforward - The higher you score, the better colleges you get and this applies mainly for M.E. Students, rather than M.Sc. I will come to this in moment though. Cracking GRE is tough, but with enough practice, you can get a 300+ easily and thats a great score. Preparation for GRE must be started as early as possible, that's why I mentioned a 2nd year or 3rd year student as he will have enough time to devote to preparation and once cleared, the scores are valid for 5 years. So, GRE is absolutely necessary(except few Canadian top universities) if you need to get into top leagues.
Right, I said this is important to M.E aspirants rather than M.Sc because you can measure the capability of a Research aspirant through his past research records. But how do you measure a Engineer's capability? GRE helps here, though I am not fully supportive of such exams. But this is how it works. Get a good GRE score,increase your chance to get into top universities. Also, RESEARCH STUDENTS attention here - if you have no past research record or even the slightest idea of whatever I have written in previous step, you MUST score handsome marks to get into MS/M.Sc too. So this section should be given even more attention. And if you actually want to nail your place in top universities, go for the "Subjective GRE" in addition ti General GRE. All the best.
4. SOP and LOR
Feeling alienated? Nothing to worry, actually. SOP means Statement of Purpose and LOR means Letter of Recommendation. Every university asks the applicants for this. A SOP must be short , sweet and bang on target. It should talk about your past experience in the field, how good you are and your purpose for choosing the graduate title with solid backups. Utmost 2 pages. A LOR should be from the professors/Assitant Professors of your last studies university or your colleagues if it is not possible to get from the Professors. Colleagues must be your co-workers or preferably higher ranked persons in your office/company, like your boss. A LOR is very critical and extremely important as it should say about how good you are, in a practical and believable way. If you get it from your favourite professor who says that you are absolutely best in everything, you are not going to get into any college. But back it up with proof, like real incidents, you stand a chance. Never lie or over hype about you in the LOR. Just ask the professor to be reasonable and provide a positive remark about you in the LOR. There are certain cases where Zero experience and terrible GRE scored students have got in due to good SOP and LORs, so I need not stress how important this is. So, good luck.
5. Documents
You need to provide a set of Transcripts and Marksheets (Online or Physical, depends) while you apply for the college. You can get them from your present university's Administration block easily. The transcripts have to be sent either directly from the university or by you, without opening the sealed corners. A signed photo copy of your marksheet from Registrar/Controller of your university will do for the Marksheet and Transcripts will be provided by the college/university on request.
6. TOEFL/IELTS
The final hurdle. You need to pass either of these English tests to study abroad. I personally prefer IELTS as it is much easier. You need at least 6.5 out of 9 in IELTS.
Step 3: Prepare a good Resume
A good resume gets you an admission and bad one kills your chances. Don't overload it. Just two pages of your topmost achievements will do. Highlight your projects, research experiences and educational achievements. Add few extra curricular and full-stop. Nobody cares whether you got first prize in a chess competition in your 6th standard or not. Remove all silly stuff and make a professional looking , yet simple.
Step 4: Hunt down colleges
It is very essential to weigh-in the colleges before you apply to them. There are two important stiff you need to keep in mind.
1. How good is the college to you?
2. How good you are to get into the college?
Having a 7.5 CGPA and low GRE scores plus low/nil research experience is not good enough to get into a Berkeley or such. Choose few colleges where you feel you genuinely stand a chance to get into. Apply only to those hand-picked universities. Else it is a waste of time and money and you could lose your confidence if you get rejected from those. So be clever and choose wisely. I cannot stress more on its importance!!!.
Step 5: Apply well before the deadline
Yes. Early application gives you more chance than applying at the death. Make sure you have all the documents ready, apply through the University's website and make sure you have a Credit card/Debit card to pay the Application fee(around 50 - 100 USD normally). Take your time and apply without any errors, well before the end date. It is possible to take IELTS/GRE exams even after applying for the university , provided you take them earlier and send the scores before the deadline, which is usually a month after your application deadline.
Keep in mind - Top marks alone will not get you into top colleges. There are variety of factors which decide on your admission. For example, a good research background will take you into good colleges even if you have an average score in UG or GRE. It all depends on what you apply for and what you offer as an overall package to the university.
I hope this article is of some use to aspirants. Please put in your valuable comments below. Cheers
A good chunk of contributions from Vishal Gupta. You can check him out @ www.aasthik.com.
P.S: The Universities in Canada and few other countries refer B.E/BTech as UG and M.E. and M.Sc as Graduation and Doctrate as Post Graduation, unlike what we usually call in India. This article goes by the nomenclature used in Canada and other such countries.(thanks Vishal, for highlighting this)
Step 1. Plan what you want to be after your Graduation.
Guys and Girls, there is hell a lot of difference between a M.Sc / MS in Computer Science and M.E/M.Tech in Computer Science, as top universities offer both titles. What is the difference? Simple.
If you are into research and development or Teaching and research, you choose MS/M.Sc.
If you want to work in industry after your studies , you should go for M.E.
Let me explain this. Most students who choose Graduation in US/UK/Canada or any other country wants to graduate from Top/Cool/Reputed university so that they stand a good chance to get into top Companies like Google/Microsoft/Samsung and the likes. But they choose wrong paths mostly because of the alluring nature of the Graduation Title and the fact that they never truly know their limitations. The top companies choose students from both ME and MSc but the type of work they are assigned is whole lot different. Every Software giant has a R&D department where it goes after the M.Sc students because, in essence they would have "Researched and have the capability to research and develop new products". But M.E? They effectively do not expect a M.E or M.Tech student to research on new product but work on given assignments and projects.It may not be the same always and sometimes M.E.students do get into research and vice-versa, but it is not always(thanks to Vishal for sending this). Get the difference?
So let me put the nail in the coffin - if you feel you can research and develop new products or feel that you have the capability to research and that is what you have been destined for, go for M.Sc. Else if you feel that you are an excellent coder or a problem solver or generic software engineer, go for M.E. This decision to choose what you want decides your future, so you should be very,very careful in calculating your abilities and realistic in taking the decision since a wrong decision here could spoil your entire career.
Step 2: Prepare for your Graduation.
The preparation should effectively start from your 2nd year or at the least your 3rd year of under graduation, because let me list out what you need to do minimum, to get into good colleges.
1. Marks.
Yes. You need good marks to get into good colleges. As simple as that. Getting 75% is simply NOT ENOUGH if you aspire for top universities, unless you are from IITs , NITs or BITs. For the sake of this post, let us consider that you are not from any of the Top universities I mentioned above. This makes this topic much simpler. Get anything below 85% and forget the dream of Top universities (unless you have excellent resume which offers the other following criteria )
2. Research Experience
If you wish to get into M.Sc, it is necessary that you have atleast minimal experience in research as the university needs only top crop, who has SHOWN INTEREST IN RESEARCH PREVIOUSLY. Get it? The best way to do this is , get an intern while you do your Under graduation in reseacrh companies/posts or stuff. That will help you a lot more than your marks. Alternately, if you could not get or did not get, you have few other options to show that you are indeed a research material by showcasing these : a) National/International Publications or b) Patents(yes, patents).
Still here? Great. If you had worked with a professor on any research topic, and have your name in either national or International publications(Papers, journals, books) - BINGO , you are nearly qualified. The more the better. Have already a patent? Why do you worry?
3. GRE
Perhaps the bitter part of admission procedure is this(to me , at least). GRE is widely accepted as the measure to measure the student's capacity in admitting him/her in the university. This is really straightforward - The higher you score, the better colleges you get and this applies mainly for M.E. Students, rather than M.Sc. I will come to this in moment though. Cracking GRE is tough, but with enough practice, you can get a 300+ easily and thats a great score. Preparation for GRE must be started as early as possible, that's why I mentioned a 2nd year or 3rd year student as he will have enough time to devote to preparation and once cleared, the scores are valid for 5 years. So, GRE is absolutely necessary(except few Canadian top universities) if you need to get into top leagues.
Right, I said this is important to M.E aspirants rather than M.Sc because you can measure the capability of a Research aspirant through his past research records. But how do you measure a Engineer's capability? GRE helps here, though I am not fully supportive of such exams. But this is how it works. Get a good GRE score,increase your chance to get into top universities. Also, RESEARCH STUDENTS attention here - if you have no past research record or even the slightest idea of whatever I have written in previous step, you MUST score handsome marks to get into MS/M.Sc too. So this section should be given even more attention. And if you actually want to nail your place in top universities, go for the "Subjective GRE" in addition ti General GRE. All the best.
4. SOP and LOR
Feeling alienated? Nothing to worry, actually. SOP means Statement of Purpose and LOR means Letter of Recommendation. Every university asks the applicants for this. A SOP must be short , sweet and bang on target. It should talk about your past experience in the field, how good you are and your purpose for choosing the graduate title with solid backups. Utmost 2 pages. A LOR should be from the professors/Assitant Professors of your last studies university or your colleagues if it is not possible to get from the Professors. Colleagues must be your co-workers or preferably higher ranked persons in your office/company, like your boss. A LOR is very critical and extremely important as it should say about how good you are, in a practical and believable way. If you get it from your favourite professor who says that you are absolutely best in everything, you are not going to get into any college. But back it up with proof, like real incidents, you stand a chance. Never lie or over hype about you in the LOR. Just ask the professor to be reasonable and provide a positive remark about you in the LOR. There are certain cases where Zero experience and terrible GRE scored students have got in due to good SOP and LORs, so I need not stress how important this is. So, good luck.
5. Documents
You need to provide a set of Transcripts and Marksheets (Online or Physical, depends) while you apply for the college. You can get them from your present university's Administration block easily. The transcripts have to be sent either directly from the university or by you, without opening the sealed corners. A signed photo copy of your marksheet from Registrar/Controller of your university will do for the Marksheet and Transcripts will be provided by the college/university on request.
6. TOEFL/IELTS
The final hurdle. You need to pass either of these English tests to study abroad. I personally prefer IELTS as it is much easier. You need at least 6.5 out of 9 in IELTS.
Step 3: Prepare a good Resume
A good resume gets you an admission and bad one kills your chances. Don't overload it. Just two pages of your topmost achievements will do. Highlight your projects, research experiences and educational achievements. Add few extra curricular and full-stop. Nobody cares whether you got first prize in a chess competition in your 6th standard or not. Remove all silly stuff and make a professional looking , yet simple.
Step 4: Hunt down colleges
It is very essential to weigh-in the colleges before you apply to them. There are two important stiff you need to keep in mind.
1. How good is the college to you?
2. How good you are to get into the college?
Having a 7.5 CGPA and low GRE scores plus low/nil research experience is not good enough to get into a Berkeley or such. Choose few colleges where you feel you genuinely stand a chance to get into. Apply only to those hand-picked universities. Else it is a waste of time and money and you could lose your confidence if you get rejected from those. So be clever and choose wisely. I cannot stress more on its importance!!!.
Step 5: Apply well before the deadline
Yes. Early application gives you more chance than applying at the death. Make sure you have all the documents ready, apply through the University's website and make sure you have a Credit card/Debit card to pay the Application fee(around 50 - 100 USD normally). Take your time and apply without any errors, well before the end date. It is possible to take IELTS/GRE exams even after applying for the university , provided you take them earlier and send the scores before the deadline, which is usually a month after your application deadline.
Keep in mind - Top marks alone will not get you into top colleges. There are variety of factors which decide on your admission. For example, a good research background will take you into good colleges even if you have an average score in UG or GRE. It all depends on what you apply for and what you offer as an overall package to the university.
I hope this article is of some use to aspirants. Please put in your valuable comments below. Cheers
A good chunk of contributions from Vishal Gupta. You can check him out @ www.aasthik.com.
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