If you are planning to study abroad, you already know that the competition to attain a successful admit is stiff. Additionally, the increasing threat of Omicron has made things even more difficult. Over five lakh students from India consider destinations abroad to pursue their undergraduate or graduate-level education. A wealth of information and consultancies exist to help students at every step of the process, but ultimately a lot depends on the mindset and the efforts made by the student. Here are some tips that can be helpful as you embark upon this journey:
Start Early
Starting early allows you to choose the best destination, university, programme, and prepare your applications and determine your budget and means to fund your education. Remember, everyone would love to get scholarships, but only the best and most genuine profiles catch the eye of the admissions committee, who award scholarships based on merit. Starting early does give you that opportunity to possibly qualify for a scholarship and raise some eyebrows.
Hard work
Students need to do their research, gather official documents, give examinations, prove medical fitness, and determine finances. Many students assume that by engaging a professional consultant or company, they can do away with the effort required to achieve their dreams. The companies or consultants will hold your hand, provide guidance, help with research and let you know what you need to do to create the best possible version of your application. In the end, you need to furnish all of these documents with your own effort.
Set a timeline
Set a timeline of the entire process. Break this down into tasks and deliverables for each month leading up to the first deadline that you wish to target. These include test prep, document collation, and financial clarity to name a few. Ensure that you try to meet the first and early deadlines for all the universities and programmes you wish to apply to. This greatly helps your chances and also allows you time to re-calibrate in case you don’t get an offer from a university of your choice.
Be realistic about your profile
A grave mistake many aspirants make is to look for readymade templates and professional services that write or create documents for them. These include services that offer to write your letters of recommendation, statement of purpose, and other university essays for you. A key aspect to remember here is that all the top study abroad destinations treat ethics and plagiarism extremely seriously. Their programmes are a testament to that as they require large amounts of research and original perspectives to be shared by students during the course of their studies. Spend time on creating the original version of your personal documents as no one knows your story better than you.
Treat professional advice as a collaborative
Several students often choose to engage a professional consultant or company to help with their entire process and guide them through it as it can get daunting otherwise. But this needs to be treated as a collaborative process. Complete reliance or expecting the consultant to take care of everything while you sit back and relax, couldn’t be further from the truth. Consultants and advisors can review everything for you and help create the best case and application for you, but more crucially this is your life and you are the master of your destiny.
Budget and Affordability
Knowing ahead of time and discussing with your parents, family or sponsor is essential to your success in this endeavor. How much are you able to genuinely afford for your study abroad ambitions? Will you need a loan, and if so, how do you plan to pay it back? What collaterals will you be able to furnish against the loan? These are some of the essential questions to consider and as always, it is best to start addressing these as early into the journey as possible.
Often overlooked in the entire process and planning is budget. This includes all the costs involved in putting together your documents, medical tests, required competitive examinations, application fees, visa costs, and flight tickets, to name a few. These tend to add up.
Choosing Fall term over Spring can be an added advantage
The fall term in most study abroad destinations has larger intakes, and more research grants and funding begin during this term. So generally you are better off planning to apply for the fall term as your university options, scholarship options and the number of students being admitted is much higher than in spring terms.
You need to remember that this is a journey, and every journey has its ups and downs, but in the end, you will get to your destination one way or the other. Be patient, give your best and stay calm to ensure that you remain healthy, mentally and physically.
— Authored by Bharath Arvind, Head, Study Abroad Counseling Services, Yocket
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