Day 13- Refueled and ready
to rock the speedometer needle
Before I start with any of my details over the past few days, let me start by sharing the roadmap right now:
Road-Map
- GRE (done)
- University Selections (brainstorming at edulix and with peers
and professors on…still to make a final selection of 10 universities where
I would like to apply)
- TOEFL (new item added)
- SOP (1 small para done..lotss to be done yet)
- LOR's
- Transcripts (applied for 1 original at college right…will
apply for more as per demand)
- Financial Documents
- Visa Interview
I totally forgot to add about the TOEFL bit in my last post.
As per my discussions with people who have already taken the exam, it is not
all that difficult and scoring above 100 is easily possible with a little amount
of practice and preparation. A competitive university would want your score to
be above 100 (out of 120) in order to consider your application.
Also, here are the new additions to my time-line.
Timeline
July 18th – Traveled from Delhi
July 19th- Application for transcript- phase 2 (completed).
Left for Goa
July 20th-July 22nd- Attended the wedding of a close friend
from college and chilled out with college folks.
July 23rd- Back in Mumbai for a couple of hours; then caught
a flight back to Delhi
This trip did indeed blow off some steam. I had gone with
full intentions to forget about application and college admissions for a while
(Though at the back of my mind I had all of it running like background
processes). Well, the trip was fruitful also for the reason that I was able to
apply for my 1st transcript. Then I got to interact and take opinions from
a friend who has already completed his masters in US from one of the good
universities (Georgia Tech). For periods when I was traveling alone, I had
planned on adding bits and parts to my SOP and reading ‘The Gatekeepers’ by
Jacques Steinberg to get an idea of the admission processes in universities
abroad. Though I was able to flip through a few pages of the book, couldn’t
squeeze out anything for the SOP.
Anyways, talks apart, I thought of highlighting two important
things in this post:
- Transcripts
- TOEFL
Let’s start with the first one. For those of you who are not
aware of what transcripts are, here is what you need to know. Transcripts are
required to be sent to all universities/colleges where you want to apply. In
order to get a ‘transcript’ made, you are supposed to go to the exam section of
your college with your original mark-sheets of all semesters and convocation
certificate (the convocation certificate is optional I guess). After this,
follow these steps (these set of steps are specific to a college in Mumbai
university…it can differ slightly for other universities):
- Take the Transcript form from the registrar and fill in the
details. It is also possible to wind this step at the comfort of your
house by requesting the registrar to email the form to you. You can get a
print-out and fill it. It would save time.
- Once the form has been filled, you will need to buy letter heads of
your college. One transcript application requires roughly 10 letterheads.
So for instance if you are applying to 10 universities, make sure that you
have at least 100 letter heads of your college. You might be required to
write down a letter to the registrar requesting for the letterheads.
- Next, you are supposed to get a photocopy of your mark-sheets set.
(you do not give your originals!)
- Once the letter-heads, form and photocopy is done, arrange it and
approach the registrar, who might ask you to fill in a few details at the
backside of each photocopy. After that you can submit the form, 1
photocopy set and around 12 letterheads to the registrar in order to receive
one original transcript from the college. As per the revised prices, you
would be asked for Rs 1000/- for 1 original transcript.
Do apply for only one original transcript first and make sure
that it is error-free. After that, you can choose to apply for more depending
on your needs in the same manner. Quite a lot of colleges expect you to send
across the original transcript in the application stage. Some on the other hand
require an original transcript at the time of admissions; before that, an
attested true copy of the transcripts from the college would work. I would
strongly advise you to keep one original transcript with you at all times. You
may choose to send original transcript or true copy in the college application
depending on the specification of the university.
Coming on to the second point, TOEFL, this is the second exam
that has to be undertaken by a student who does not have English as his first
language. The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) gives the college a
fair idea about the proficiency of a student at the English language. It
involves 4 sections, namely- Speaking, reading, writing, listening; each scored
out of 30 marks. The best way to prepare for the test is to give a couple of
practice tests initially to gauge the level of preparation. After that a
student can prepare accordingly, working selectively on sections which require
more attention. On an average, a 7-10 day preparation is considered adequate in
order to score above 100. I intend to take mine by 10th August mostly.
Also you can start off by going through the official guide for TOEFL by ETS.
I have been reading through quite a few online resources
which provide info on the GRE, TOEFL and SOPs/LORs. One place that I would
definitely recommend checking out is HappySchoolBlogs. I have subscribed to it
and keep getting links to articles which are very informative in nature. I was
searching for some feed on TOEFL, when I happened to find the following page on
HappySchoolsBlog:
This contains links to pages, which contain answers to a lot many questions which were hovering in my head. TOEFL takers I would highly recommend you to check this out. Also do checkout forums on Edulix. Indeed you will have to search a lot, but you would surely find pertinent stuff if you put in efforts.
Please let me know in case if you do have any
doubts/questions. In case you feel that you want information on some other
related areas, please do bring it to my notice. I will definitely try and
provide you info to the best of my knowledge and on the basis of current
trends.
