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Article from studyusa.com
Congratulations on the decision to pursue a professional business degree! Are you wondering where to start? Applying to MBA and specialized master’s programs requires careful planning and preparation. Checking these first tasks off your list can help put you on the path to success.

1. Know your strengths.

Make a list of things you do well, outstanding professional accomplishments, what you’ve learned from your successes (and failures) and your most ambitious goals for the future. These are all items you’ll want to talk about in your essays and interviews. You’ll also want to start to identify people — such as professors, employers and clients — who can attest to your strengths in letters of recommendation.

2. Pick an admissions test.

You have options for applying to business school, so be sure to choose the best test for you. These days, more students than ever before are submitting GRE^® scores with their applications. The test is accepted equally by top-ranked business programs all over the world, and it has several smart features to help you show your best. You can skip questions and go back and review or change answers. You also have the final say on which scores schools will see. Learn more about the GRE^® General Test anddouble-check that your top-choice schools accept it.

3. Set your goals.

There are two important pieces to accomplishing this step:

4. Stay the course.

During the business school application process, the excitement of pursuing a new career milestone can turn to tedium if you let it. The key is to set short- and long-term goals and stay motivated to achieve them. Focus on the positive and what you can do, not what you can’t do. You may even want to team up with a buddy — another MBA hopeful who is applying to different schools — to practice, vent and swap encouragement. Students often connect with one another on the GRE Facebook and LinkedIn pages, which also provide a good dose of motivation and support.  

Most of all, remember what drove you to consider this path in the first place and know all of your hard work will be worth it in the end.

Most Americans think that “Indian food” consists mostly of some curries, rice, naan, and a few vegetarian dishes. Yet for those willing to explore, the variety of Indian food provides an almost infinite and delicious number of options. Just the division between North and South Indian cuisine indicates spectacular differences worth trying, if a diner is willing to experiment.

Similarly, most non-Americans considering U. S. colleges and universities know of only a very few. Those like Harvard and Stanford are so famous they overshadow the other nearly 4,000 institutions that make up American higher education. But those willing to explore the college world beyond those internationally known names will find a variety as compelling as any Indian dish.

Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States does not have a single national university to which most students aspire. Each state has its own public university, such as the University of Michigan, the University of California or Louisiana State University, with each of those also having branches in smaller cities and towns. They enroll mostly state residents but also welcome those from other states and many from abroad. And they offer a wide menu of courses and majors. The University of Illinois, for example, offers respected degrees in fields as varied as business, engineering, education, and agriculture.

Four-year private colleges and universities make up the remaining menu, offering educational opportunities for students in every field one can imagine. While an individual private college may not have as many options for students as a large university, it still provides exceptional educational experiences, whether student seek a bachelor’s degree or wish to earn an advanced degree in the future. Small colleges like Kenyon, Amherst, Davidson, and Lafayette offer many majors as well as programs providing students opportunities to put their educations to work.

Because of their fame, schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT receive many more applications from students in the U.S. and around the world than they can admit. Schools like these reject as much as 95% of their applicants. However, many other institutions in the U.S. accept more than 50% of their applicants. Most gladly welcome students from abroad. American colleges strongly believe that having students from many backgrounds on campus is valuable for everyone’s education, and they are eager to enroll students who will bring unique and varied viewpoints to their campuses.

Many colleges and universities not household names offer educations that fit a student’s tastes and desires better than a more familiar one. They may be smaller, so students get more attention; they may have unique programs found nowhere else; or they may have well-funded and equipped laboratories that give undergraduates high-level experiences. Many lesser known but highly regarded institutions specialize in areas such as engineering, the arts or business. The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Babson College, or Worcester Polytechnic Institute offer exceptional programs. Having these options encourages broad thinking about what students want in their lives and careers.

When it comes time to decide where to attend college, parents usually feel that students should be satisfied with their options. At that moment, the end of high school, there are so many items on the menu it’s up to the student to choose, with parents guiding them based on their experience.

Luckily, the Internet makes searching for and evaluating colleges easier than ever. Parents and students can search sites like Study  in the USA (StudyUSA.com),Big Future (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org) or the Common Application (http://www.commonapp.org) together to see the varied menu. Each site (as well as many others) offers ways to search colleges, such as by school type, majors, and region of the country. Discussing these options as a family can be very helpful when considering making such a huge decision. Whether a student is interested in engineering or literature, there will be several good choices available, with the added bonus that many institutions allow students to major in more than one area if they wish.

Looking beyond “name brand” institutions will help you find American colleges and universities uniquely suited to your child’s talents, interests, and abilities. Their variety, while bewildering at first, will provide exciting opportunities for any student.

Article from studyusa.com

The entire globe is grappling today with an unbelievable rise in violence, crime and depression and worrisome deterioration in the societal moral bearing, responsible citizenship as well as employability skills; with growing number of complex socio-emotional and environmental challenges. At the same time Education, Innovation, Technology & Employability have emerged as the biggest riders for our successful sustenance on this planet. In order to ensure that our students can thrive successfully in 21st century, our schools and our education system will have to keep pace with the changing time.  To prepare students for their future, we need to first understand what the future looks like.

Success is no longer just about what we know. Now we have Google for that.  But the real power lies in what we can do with what we know; how we can we effective use it to resolve the challenges at work. Therefore, the schools need to prepare their students to live and work in a world in which most people will need to collaborate with people whose ideas, beliefs, perspectives and values are different from their own; a Global biome in which  individual lives would be affected by issues that surpass their own national boundaries.

Nurturing successfully, the students of 21st century is the call of accountability & it’s preparation starts with creating a positive school culture with a safe and caring environment with values and empathy for people and environment, embedded in the entire length and breadth of the school climate shared values and relational trust, a powerful pedagogy and curriculum, high student motivation and engagement, a professional faculty culture, and partnerships with families and the community.

The schools therefore essentially need to integrate the creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills required of world class workers and ethical citizens & prioritize the depth not breadth of learning, promote cross-disciplinary, team-based problem solving, adapting to the emerging advances in digital technologies & preparing students for working lives that may span a range of occupations, many of which may not currently exist.

To reach there, schools must minimize the substantial body of factual and procedural knowledge and consciously optimize the ability of students to apply what they are learning to everyday problems, to apply fundamental concepts and principles in real-world contexts. Rather than emphasizing passive and reproductive learning, there is a growing need to promote creativity and innovation. At a time when solutions to societal challenges and the nature of work are becoming increasingly cross-disciplinary; we need to teach the School subjects, in integration with each other.

Teaching and assessment processes, besides just teaching and testing the factual information, must focus at nurturing the students’ abilities to work in teams, use technology, communicate, solve problems and learn on the job. For that, our curriculum must create opportunities so as our young aspirants get to  brainstorm , have group discussions and work Collaboratively , which would also help in acquiring good interpersonal and communication skills. The three key ingredients for such a responsive school would be the empowered teachers, effective school leaders & the innovative approaches going hand in hand with technological advancements.

The sustainable design for a 21st century school has to predominantly have the Self-life-long learning format of pedagogy which has become almost inevitable to success, today. Our rapidly drifting economy puts a high premium on self-motivation, innovation, and the ability to acquire new skills and evaluate new ideas. Fortunately, this empowerment is innate to all human beings; it exists in every child. We simply have to stop discouraging or quashing it and educate our children to emerge winners in the examination of life.

Article from studyusa.com

According the IIE Open Doors Report (2015), only 8 percent of international undergraduate students relied on U.S. university scholarships as their primary source of funding last year, meaning that the university covered most or all of their tuition and living costs.

However, many other international undergraduates received smaller merit-based scholarships to cover a portion of their costs. These students come from around the world and bring diverse cultural perspectives to university campuses.

However, these students do share some common characteristics that make them more competitive for both admissions and scholarship programs.

Grades and Test Scores

Most universities will look at your high school grades and ACT or SAT scores as a way to predict how well you will perform in college.  Even when the ACT or SAT is optional for admission, one of these tests will usually be required for scholarship consideration. It is common practice among U.S colleges to quantify grades and test scores in order to shortlist merit-based scholarship candidates. Keeping your GPA in the top 25% of your high school class and achieving competitive standardized test scores can make the difference when it comes to scholarships.

High School Curriculum

The most selective scholarship programs will also look at your grades and test scores in the context of how challenged you were in high school. A student with strong grades and test scores, for example, may not be as attractive to a scholarship committee as another student who participated in more challenging coursework and activities during high school. Advanced coursework and extracurricular activities can provide more compelling evidence that you are ready for the challenges of college life beyond the regular high school curriculum.

Recommendation Letters

Scholarship committees will typically refer to your counselor and teacher recommendation letters to learn more about you and verify that information in your application is accurate. Be sure to choose counselors and teachers that know you best when asking for these letters. A good recommendation letter will address your unique qualities, emphasize any challenges you may have faced, and explain how you overcame failures.  In addition, your counselor or teacher should reference any achievements you may have mentioned in your application.

Personal Statements and Interviews

Selective admissions and scholarship programs will want to make sure that you are a ‘good match’ with the campus environment. The personal statement is your chance to explain your background, interests, and future goals as they relate to the academic environment and mission of the institution. Research the college or university that you are applying to, and then practice writing about yourself in relation to what you learned about the campus. You may also need to interview with a scholarship committee over the phone. Practice communicating your personal statement in an interview format. Common personal statement and interview questions include:

Early Application and Interest

Waiting until the final application deadline, or applying late, will not help you win scholarships. Colleges and universities often give scholarship preference to early applicants because these students appear to be the most interested and likely to enroll. Students who reach out to staff and faculty early in the process can also gain advantages. Scholarship committees may even record the timeliness and quality of these interactions for future reference and consideration. Take advantage of Early Action, Early Decision, and other priority deadlines.

By Jim Crawley

Applying for admission to a graduate program in the United States can be challenging. The process starts by choosing a specific graduate program and then finding out which colleges and universities offer this graduate program. The next important step is finding out what documentation is required to apply for admission. To make it even more confusing, the requirements for admission can change from one university to the next.

One item that is often requested is a personal statement.  What exactly is a “personal statement” and why do universities ask for it?

Unfortunately, there is not one answer that works for every graduate program at every university. In fact, graduate programs within the same university may or may not require a personal statement, and those programs that do require it, may ask for different things in the personal statement.

In most cases, the personal statement provides the graduate department with additional information—personal and unique information—about the applicant they would not be able to find in the application or academic documents. They are normally looking for the student’s motivation to be in the academic program, the student’s academic preparation, and whether the graduate program is a good match for the student’s goals and qualifications. The department is most concerned with admitting students who have a high probability of being successful in the program.

The most important thing to remember is to understand what the graduate department is looking for in a personal statement. The best place to find out this information is on the departmental web page or on the university’s international graduate student application for admission. It may simply say “Personal Statement Required,” or there may be specific instructions about what information the personal statement should contain. If they give specific instructions about the content of the personal statement, it is very important that the applicant follows these instructions.

If there are no specific instructions given for the personal statement, the applicant should write a 1-2 page, double-spaced statement addressed to the specific program at the university. It should explain why the student is choosing this specific graduate program as well as why the student would like to study at this college or university. If you will be submitting personal statements to more than one university, remember to always change the name of the academic program to match the exact offering at the university, and of course, make sure the correct university name is on the statement. 

In addition, it is important for the graduate committee to understand that the student is prepared to be successful in this program. In other words, has the student’s first university degree provided good preparation for success, and if applicable has the student included any research, volunteer or work experience that is related to the academic program.

If the student will be applying for “conditional” admission, then it is likely their English language proficiency is not very high. A personal statement will still be required, and it will be important to write a high quality statement in the native language and include an exact translation. At the top of the translated document, it is important to explain that the student is in an intensive English program and this is the reason for the translation of the original statement.

If the student is applying for regular admission, the personal statement is to be submitted in English. Always remember that the statement must be written by the student. Grammar and spelling should correct before submission.

The personal statement can be very important to any graduate admissions committee decision, but if the program is highly competitive, the statement may take on a higher level of consideration. Take careful consideration to produce a thoughtful statement that both impresses and informs the graduate committee. A well-written personal statement could decide whether the student is a great candidate for their graduate program.