Applying to US Universities

US Government / USIEF Scholarships for Indians:


The United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), the Fulbright Commission in India, offers fellowships and scholarships open to Indian citizens for 2010-2011. In addition to providing opportunities for personal, academic and professional growth, Fulbright-Nehru and other exchanges promote mutual understanding between the people of the US and India. India and USA signed a historic new Fulbright agreement on July 4, 2008, increasing India’s contributions to the program and thus the fellowships are now known as Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships. Some of the scholarships and fellowships that support degree-seeking students from India are:


Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships for Leadership Development
International Fulbright Science and Technology Award
International Fellowships Program (Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowships)
East-West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship Program


If you live in or around Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai or New Delhi, we encourage you to visit USIEF. More information can be found here.

BPCL Scholarship:
BPCL is India’s leading oil company. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited awards scholarships to students who have demonstrated all around brilliance and have a passion to achieve excellence in their chosen field. BPCL scholars are a group of Indian students who seek assistance from BPCL. There are age restrictions, and it is only for Masters degree (not for PhD). When contacted by app2us.com, Chidambareshwaran Raman, a 2004 BPCL scholar, said, “BPCL Scholarship helped me gain confidence to pursue my higher studies without worrying about financial support. I would encourage students to apply for all the
scholarships available for higher studies. A Scholarship is a recognition for your hard work through the years and an investment made in you for the good you are going to do for the society.”


More information about BPCL scholarships can be found at:
http://www.bharatpetroleum.com/scholarship/scholarship.asp

The Paul Foundation Scholarship:
The Paul foundation scholarships are suspended for 2009. When operational, these are given for Masters and PhD degrees. They do not seem to favorably consider supporting the study of management, medicine or engineering, so applicants from Science and Humanities background have a better chance.


More information can be found here.

Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship:


The scholarship pays upto US Dollars 25000 to study abroad. The best feature of this scholarship is that there is no restriction on what you have to study. A key requirement is that you fluently speak the language of your target country, Indian students need to prove they have good verbal skills including that of spoken English.


More information can be found here:


There are some loan scholarships, which are not as beneficial as above scholarships but may help some applicants:


Sahu Jain Trust educational scholarships:
More information can be found here


Narotam Sekhsaria Loan Scholarships:
More information can be found here

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Reference: USIEF website, Other scholarship websites

The Last date for obtaining the application forms is very close - May 20th, 2009. For more information, please check out the scholarship announcement at timesofindia.com. If you have questions about other scholarships you can always ask at www.app2us.com

Reference: Official website of the scholarship.

The typical dilemma some applicants face that they were taught by ‘less famous’ or non-PhD professors but there are other stars in their college who never taught the applicant. The real answer is both the LORs in this case will be useless but you need to get from those who actually taught you. Many applicants have some work experience and want to know whether they should get the letters of recommendation from the professors or managers at job. The answer is that PhD or MS admission committees don’t give any weight to references from the job (with the exception if the job was a teaching or research job). On the other hand MBA adcoms like only job related letters of recommendation especially from current and recent jobs. All of us who have ever applied for a US university know how tough it is to even think of getting a letter of recommendation from our current boss!! If you have slightest doubt that disclosing your application plans will lead to direct or indirect disadvantage at job just ignore this wish of MBA adcoms and go ahead with the reco from old employers or professors.

Then there are various combinations of doubts involving the internship supervisor etc. You can get maximum one LOR from the summer internship job - if the company or the supervisor adds value to your profile.

Here is a quote from UC Santa Cruz CS website, “While good GRE scores and grades are important in deciding on graduate admissions, our group relies heavily on letters of recommendation and your statement of purpose. We’re interested in hearing what your professors and others have to say about you, and in what you have to say about yourself. We have found that letters from active researchers in computer systems tend to be most helpful; a letter from a person we know is more useful than from a person we don’t know. Letters from faculty who’ve observed you in computer systems classes, particularly those involving projects, are also good.” This is specific to a particular research group, however gives some idea on how the decision makers think.

If you have doubts you can always ask a question at www.app2us.com
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Let us dissect a transcript. What does it look like and what does it contain. On the outside, it is a sealed envelope. The envelope could be an official envelope of the issuing university or even a simple white envelope. It may even be a printed envelope provided by your target US University. It does not matter what type of envelope as long as it is sealed and provides the name of the issuing university - printed, typewritten or handwritten. The flaps of the envelope should be signed by the issuing official. The envelope should essentially contain 3 items:
1. A covering letter explaining the grading system of the university. This letter must be on the official stationary of the issuing university and signed by the registrar or equivalent. This letter must contain the address and phone number of the university which is issuing the transcripts. This letter must be in original in each envelope, do not use photocopies.
2. All the mark sheets from each year or semester. These could be attested photocopies, obviously you do not want to send your originals.
3. Attested photocopy of the degree or provisional degree. If neither is available yet, this should be explained in the covering letter.

Universities worldwide issue some sort of official document that shows all the courses taken by the student and the marks or grades obtained. In many cases these documents are provided to the student each year and the university does not necessarily maintain a database. So the only way to get a transcript for the student is to supply an attested photocopy of his or her mark sheets back to the university to be sealed in an envelope.

A registered user of app2us.com informed us that he had a very difficult time obtaining official transcripts from his university and eventually his U.S. applications were rejected. This typically happens at newly started colleges or universities where the staff has no prior experience of issuing transcripts. As an applicant, it is your and only your responsibility to understand what is a transcript, and explain it to the university officials. If you have already graduated this could involve traveling to your university, stay for a few days and get the transcripts. But you cannot leave this to chance IF your university is not very efficient in issuing transcripts.