MS for Dummies! - Part 2

Now that you're done with the most difficult and time consuming part of applying for a MS; the pre-application, the next step is a lot easier and quicker. Infact, if you've done your work during the pre-application stage...this step is just putting it together..thts it!

Application:
1) The "application" can as such be classified into 2 types: The online application and the offline application. In this day and age of internet and the WWW, the online application is a no-brainer! Its a lot faster, reliable and most of all, cheaper. Infact, most universities insist on the student sending an online application instead of a printed application form.

2) Since I myself only applied online, i'll discuss about the same only. Every university application has an "electronic" as well as a "paper" part to it. Typically the electronic part consists of an online application form and payment of the application fees. In many cases, at the end of the online application, you might receive a student or application ID. Note this down and provide this number in all your correspondences with the university, online or otherwise. The application fees typically vary from as low as 25$ to as high as 85$ per application. Credit cards can be used for the very same. The paper part of the application basically consists of all the documents (SOPs, LORs, transcripts, financial statements/affidavits and in some cases additional forms prescribed by the university) required to verify the claims you have made in your online application form.

3) The transcripts and letters of recommendation must be signed/stamped on every page and must be sealed in individual envelopes, also bearing the signature and stamp on all the openings. Other documents can be put in individual sealed envelopes. All the envelopes must have your name, student/application ID, date of birth and must state the contents of that particular envelope. All the individual, white envelopes can then be placed in a larger, FIBER envelope. Also put in a single page stating the documents you have provided, your full name, date of birth and your application ID in the fiber envelope. Seal the fiber envelope properly. On the outside, write the TO address boldly and legibly in black ink. The TO address will specifically be mentioned in your application page. If in doubt, send an email over to the university. Typically, each department has a slightly different address. Apart from this, on the lower left corner, also provide the FROM address i.e YOUR address along with your telephone number (complete with the country code 91 and the area code).

4) Once you've filled the forms online, payed the application fee and organized/packed the application envelopes...do a final check as to if everything is in order as per the requirements of the university. This is when, all the work AND the lil diary i asked you to maintain in the previous step will help you out a LOT!

5) Now, you can send these applications via courier. FEDEX, DHL, UPS are the most well known courier services. But they are pretty damn expensive (even after factoring the "student" discount). On an average, they charge about Rs.900 for each packet. What you could do instead is send your packets through "agents" who'll charge you exactly HALF of what FEDEX, DHL etc charge you and ultimately your packet gets routed through FEDEX, DHL etc. only. One such agent is "Parla book house" near the McDonald's in Vile Parle. There are a few more if you bother searching/asking. Insist on a tracking number so that you'll know exactly where your packet is.

You are officially DONE with the application step. Typically you should have finished this stage by the middle of your 7th semester...sometime around October-November...LATEST by December.

TIP: Each time you pay the application fee online, either PRINT or SAVE the application confirmation page. It proves indispensable in case of any hiccups. Also, within 3-4 days of sending the application packet, send an email over to the concerned person in each university telling them that the packet has been dispatched on such and such a date and asking them to acknowledge the receipt of the same. You might not get a reply most of the times, but keep the mail for your record.

What they've done...

...is created the biggest monopoly in the world; created a world that voraciously feeds their selfish, capitalistic ideologies; created a world that runs according to their whims and fancies. In short, they've managed to accomplish what Hitler would have sold his eye, kidney, arm, leg and one half of his moustache to achieve.

What am i ranting about?...It's the United States of America, the sole remaining super-power which loves playing G.I.JOE...with the world as its battlefield and its biped inhabitants as pawns.

To be fair, this blog is biased. I am not the biggest fan of the U S of A. Never have i been a fan of this land of self-righteous, hypocritical snobs. Be it their pompous behaviour at the individual level or their "If you ain't American, screw you" attitude on a global scale, America isn't gonna win my vote for anything. And yet, inspite of all of this, in an attempt to make me eat my own words, fate has me heading to this very patch of land on gods green earth...

Now, you'll be asking yourself, why is it that this guy is going on and on about Amreeka?...what has it done to him to earn his wrath? Well, it hasn't done anything to me, directly, as such. But it's done a lot to shape the world i still live in...and shape it to meet its needs and requirements, often at the expense of non-American life. This means everything from staging wars on what seem trivial or capricious grounds at best, on weak foreign countries...to orchestrating what seems to be, self-inflicted wounds to bring about a set of changes that further champions Americas cause of "Defending the free world" (read as: Muhahaha, we are soo gonna own you non-Americans...its not funny!). The last point refers to a documentary, "911: Loose Change", which i saw a few days ago. Once again, as with anything coming out from the belly of the U S of A, you have to take it with a pinch of salt..but somehow, i found most (not all) of the evidence shown in the documentary, portraying the 9/11 attacks to be a meticulously planned "theatrical" produced by the Federal government of the U S of A to further its own "AGENDA", to be true. It sounds far fetched, and by all means, it might very well be the figment of a hyperactive, paranoid American imagination, but the proof (and the gob loads of it provided in the documentary) seems to thwart any suggestion of it all being a coincedence. Far too many questions have remained unanswered, far too much has been carried out behind closed curtains in the name of "Homeland security" for all of it to be a coincedence.

Frankly, apart from McDonalds (and the barrage of other fast-food chains that happily pump calories into ur arteries in exchange for your money) and therefore obesity, cosmetic surgery (boob jobs in particular) and bucket loads of fancy 3-letter (sometimes way more) acronyms...FBI,NSS,CIA,IRS and what not, America has given the world NOTHING. If you bother going through wikipedia and other online resources, most of the discoveries/inventions have their roots in Europe, Africa, Asia...anywhere but America. Heck, they have ripped off names of so many other countries/cities to name their own cities!!

What America has been successful in is, luring people from other coutries to its shores with wads of green notes and branding them and their intellect as AMERICAN. And what do they do this for?...running the likes of Microsoft, IBM, NASA, Intel, Accenture, Motorola, AMD and what not. And the irony of it all...their ego wont ever let them acknowledge the fact that America is what it is today purely because of the rest of the world, and not itself. Why else would they reject a prospective MS students VISA because he/she says that he/she intends working in the US after his/her MS?! The VISA in itself is a Vociferous Interview for Spewing Absurd answers conducted by Visually Impared Stupid Arses who cannot understand 3/4th of the documents you give them and hence ask you to repeat its contents over and over again.

God bless America!

Half a year..

Has it ever happened to you...some ONE event or a series of events taking place over a period of time, entirely changing your perspective about, well...EVERYTHING? It's so earth-shaking, you start questioning every single belief of yours; WHY is this happening?..WHAT purpose does all of this serve?..WHEN it is ever gonna end..if at all?..WHY is it just me?..WHERE is this all gonna lead me to?

At this point of time in life, you only have questions...a lot of them, cropping up in your head. Its like this endless spiral. If this never ending twist towards nothingness ever ends...it ends with a HUGE "?" staring at you. Try as you may...none of anything thats happening seems to have any reasoning, explaination behind it. Its not the fact that strange things are happening that bugs/frustrates/irritates you...its the very lack of ANY reason/substance behind those occurances that drives you up the wall...repeatedly.

Afflicted (or AFFLiC73D ;) ), that's what i called myself the last few months. Why? Because thats exactly how i had been feeling. Its like having the Midas touch...but working the other way around. Anything i touched...either went up in vapours...or dangled long enough in front of me to get my hopes up just before it disappeared into oblivion.

I started the application process for pursuing a Master of Science course in the U S of A in the month of November. Having joined a counselor (Kraft Education Services....highly NOT recommened!!)..i got the ball rolling. Back then, everything seemed nice and dandy. Looking at everyone and everything around me, i realized i stood just as good a chance of getting into a decent university/course of my choice as anyone else. I had decent academics (atleast on par with those around me)...decent extra-curriculars (..again atleast on par with others) and whatever else thats needed to land me in the U S of A. Or so i thought...

After the endless running around for everything from recommendation letters to financial documents to a hundred copies of what not...i started applying to universities..one by one..from the last week of December. After much deliberation and spending exactly infinite hours over the internet, i zeroed in on 7 universities that piqued my interest for various reasons and which seemed to accept students with a profile similar to mine. Neways, to list them out...University of Southern California (applied a lil later), Syracuse Univ, Northeastern Univ, Illinois Inst. of Tech, Rochester Inst. of Tech, Auburn Univ and Louisiana State Univ. This was a list of moderate to safe universities...hadn't applied to any of the "ambitious" univs since i didn't want my dreaded LUCK to play any part in my admissions. Having finshed sending the online applications in the 1st week of January and the application packets by the 2nd week...now all i could do was wait an watch.

Since i had poured in months worth of research into the university selection procedure, i thought my admission procedure was gonna be pretty undramatic. I mean, based on a number of factors, i sorta knew where i would almost definitely get an admit and where the chances were a lil less. So neways...it became a daily ritual of sorts now...checking the application status for each univeristy one by one...it was the first thing i did when i woke up every single day. 3 weeks or so went by uneventful...i slowly started hearing about people getting admits/rejects here and there. Neways,i had to wait till the 7th of February to get to know my first DECISION. IIT replied...and much to my surprise...in the negative; apparently my academics were LOW! (Since when is a MU 1st class LOW?! :). Ranked a distant 84, this was by far one of my 100% safes. I still cannot believe that i got a reject from these guys... Neways.."6 more to go.." i consoled myself. Oh, how stupid i was...

12th February, Syracuse Univeristy kisses me goodbye..and unlike IIT, they didn't even bother giving me a reason for my rejection; even after i explicitly sent them an email asking for the same. "5 more...quite a bit left.."...Come 20th February, RIT sends me a mail saying..."you suck, ciao". To tell you the truth...the RIT reject is what completely changed my outlook towards the whole "Applying for an MS" thingy...this university wasn't in the top 100...accepted almost everyone ..people with MUCH lower profiles had got in with SCHOLARSHIPS. I was stone cold stunned to get a reject from them. Neways...completely heart broken...i waited for the remaining "REJECTS". And i soon got one from Auburn on the 6th of March and this one gave me the most mailto:%21@#$ed reason of the lot for my rejection. Apparently, everyone from MU whom they had accepted had a "First class with distinction" in every semester and i ONLY had a pass class in my /first/ year (thanks to Mech!). These guys seriously think of us as daft fools who'll aceept whatever bull they throw at us...but then again, i dont think we have any option but to do so...Neways...3 more to go...and at the rate things were going, i had almost completely ruled out ANY chances of me going to the US for a MS this time arnound. I had immediately ruled out ANY chances of gettin into Northeastern or LSU (..i was proved right later in case of NEU...LSU, i deferred the app thinking of trying for Spring'08). By this time, everyone had atleast ONE admit..and trust me, with ONE in hand...a 100 rejects are inconsequential.

I still don't know why i did it (probably the fact that effectively only one more Univ was left..USC and the fact that pursuing an MS has been both mine and my parents dream since eons..led me to do it)..but i applied to 2 more universities...George Washington Univ (same league as Northeastern, Auburn etc) and SUNY Binghamton..ranked 124, on the 17th of March. Once again, i was kinda sure SUNY wud reply in the affirmative...but these guys were the swiftest in telling a NO..one week flat. With a reject from a univ ranked 124...i officially gave up ANY hope of an MS and decided to stop thinking about it and get on with life. But i couldn't..not with someone or the other getting an admit every alternate day or so...i had forgot how it felt to get a sound sleep. It had been weeks since i /SLEPT/ and not just lie flat on the bed staring at the nothingness. My mom was depressed...although she tried to make the best of it. Dad, well...ego getting the better of him, would be totally "OK" about it all infront of me...but i've heard plenty of times about how worried/sad he was about the whole thing from my mom.

March went by, so did April...and most of May. Each day seemed to last forever. USC were mum...they had a standard reply (if they ever replied that is!)..."Few more weeks.."...and GWU was well..stagnant too. By now almost everyone had wrapped off their application phase and moved onto the visas...And i was well..living each day as it came. Until the 24th of May that is. I doubt im gonna be able to forget this day ever in my life. Just as i was studying for an exam...during one of my routine breaks i sat down to check my mail. I had just 2 new messages...one bull...and the other not-so-bull. It was from GWU's ECE department. My hands were trembling (..i was accustomed to this by now...) ... and although i was used to rejection by now...the thought of ANOTHER was proving to be heart achingly painful. I opened the mail after some 2mins...and inside lay a very non-descript message...

..." A decision regarding your application has been made. We cannot reveal this decision to you over the phone/e-mail. Kindly wait for 2-3 weeks to get a post regarding the same." The lack of the usual CONGRATULATIONS or other such HAPPY words in the message, which i had seen in everyone elses admit messages sent shivers down my spine. In my mind, i was 99.99% sure this was yet another reject. But i just wanted to CONFIRM it for my satisfaction. I logged into GWUs online application status page...AND I SAW IT! I BLOODY SAY IT FOR THE FIRST TIME! The words..."Congratulations!"...frankly...I did not bother reading ANYTHING after that! I didn't matter!...Congratulations can only be a GOOD thing (unless they were VERY VERY sick saddists..) and a GOOD THING HAPPENED TO ME! I finally had an admit...after SIX long, agonizin, painful, depressing months! And the best part...this was from a pretty damn decent university WITH consideration for a scholarship/Assistanceship! I mean...univs one and 3 ranks above this had rejected me (Auburn/NEU)...but these guys WANTED me! I was thrilled to infinity...my dad and bro who were at home then...were elated...many calls were made in a matter of few seconds. My mom, who had gone out came back home to see 3 guys...jumping around SENSELESS!

I frankly dont care for USC anymore...but yea, if it does come..it'll only make me feel even better (..alhtough confused too) and i might take that up...but i dunno...lets just see how things pan out.

At the end...some (...all those who bothered reading it till the end!) must have found this blog to be a drag..some a pain..some inspirational..i dunno. To each his/her own. All i can tell you is...live life as it comes...each day. You have to accept the fact that many things in life aren't in your hands...you just gotta accept what comes to you..and try and make the best of it. All this...and the fact that application for MS in the US..is a game of poker where you need luck by your side...and a LOT of it. Oh this, and the fact that counselors are !##$in USELESS. Anyone thinking of applying for an MS...drop in a line via email guys...i'll help you out however i possibly can.

Bu bye

P.S: Aditi, Shweta, Uddip..guys you've stuck with me like glue through this mess...love u all (..Uddip, in a non-gay sorta way :D)..and to everyone else who stuck by me and didn't let me lose hope..THANKS A TONNE! U dunno how much it meant to me! :)