U.
S. A. - A Land of Opportunities: Dr. Anil
Neelakanan (
view bio )
UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
A LAND OF OPPORTUNITIES
United States of America - the land of opportunities
bearing the mascot of liberty. Get on to your seats
and buckle up I am taking you guys on a ride that
helps you to go for the real thing.
It all begins with a dream. A dream
of greener pa$$ture$$. So what are the routes to make
the dream come true? Being Medical students we have
basically two routes to choose from. Either the Medical
research wing or the clinical practice wing. I am
more familiar with the former and so shall describe
that in detail leaving the latter to more experienced
fellow mates.
Once you have made up your mind that
you are diving into research. Be prepared for a long
study time ahead. 5yrs of PhD and a couple of years
of Post Doctoral Fellowship before you can think of
being comfortable in the junior most post at some
place. Yes it's long and hard……..but trust
me, it's exciting.
First task would be to identify the
field you are interested in. You just cannot expect
to work on some crap for at least 6-7 years after
making it into a University. This is one place where
one has to ask oneself what he/she wants to do in
the years to come. This has to be done at least one
year in advance, which would be the preceding January.
i.e. if you wanna go in 2004 august [usual time of
admission in US is fall semester (stands for autumn
semester…..), which starts in august] you have
to start working on it in Jan 2003.
Once you have identified the field,
you have to decide if you just want to go for a Masters
degree or you want to get into a PhD program. The
masters program in the US is called MS or Master of
Sciences. All that you need to ask yourself is whether
you are sure you want to work in the chosen field.
If yes, go for the PhD. If not go for a Masters. There
is one more thing to be considered here. I will talk
about it in detail below.
So now you have one full year ahead
of you and you have decided that you want to go for
an MS/PhD in XXXX. The next step is to identify Universities.
This is a real pain in the butt. It is one of the
most crucial and daunting tasks that you would have
to face. The first thing you should do is to decide
what kind of Universities you want to apply to. Top
10 or First tier, Second tier, Third tier or the down
to earth fourth tier. There are several factors that
should help you in making this decision. The first
factor to be decided is how high should be the rank
of the university/department you apply to.
It is very important. There is no
point in applying just to Harvard or Stanford University
and getting disappointed for being rejected. This
decision depends on your academic achievements in
India and the rank of the college/univ from which
you did your undergrad here. It also depends on your
test scores (GRE & TOEFL) and strength of recommendation
letters. If you are confident enough about getting
high scores (you would know that when you prepare
for the tests), you can apply to higher universities.
If not.......you may still apply but it would be better
to have some second tier universities as a back up
......just in case you get rejected from the top ones.
The bottom line is; do not go for the most wanted
universities alone.
There are over 9000 Universities in the United States.
How do I get to know which University offers the program
(in the US "course" has a different meaning.
PhD/MS are programs and the subjects you study in
them are courses)? Thanks to some dude by the name
Peterson, our job is a lot easy! Log on to http://www.petersons.com
and look for graduate studies. Then choose the field
you are interested in and it will give you the list
of Universities that offer the program. You can also
opt to have a hard copy of his guide from the United
States Education Foundation in India (USEFI) located
at American Consulate Madras for just over 200 rupees
by post. Sounds simple, eh! BUT………..you
are in a fix now! This dumbass search engine offers
you 900 universities! OOPS. Information overload…………your
brain freezes and system crashes! NO don't give up
and pick randomly. This is very crucial. So now how
do I short list?
The
next task is to classify them into the above mentioned
tiers. This is where we got a little lucky. You can
go to http://www.usnews.com/
and find the index of universities and look for each
University; one by one. The website gives you all
details about the University and also a link to the
University website that you might wanna take a look
at. Give yourself 2-3 months for this. Now you have
a list of categorized Universities. But I think now
you gotta pay for this service.
Now you have to decide on what category
you wish to apply to. The things mentioned above would
provide a guideline for this. Another factor is the
money involved. Most PhD admissions in Bio fields
come with financial assistance. If that be the case,
you would not have to worry about expenses. Because
that would cover all the expenses. This is one factor
that makes you decide if you wanna go for a PhD. But
if you wanna apply to master's degree or a PhD that
does not offer financial aid per se, then it would
be wise to take a peek at the expenses involved. For
example, California is very expensive.....Texas is
cheap......state universities have less fees compared
to private universities etc.
Believe me; you might think why you should be bothered
about a difference of say 6000 dollars a year... But
once you get an admission and you wanna prepare for
the visa....you'll know what it means to show extra
money for showing bank balance. (Details below)
So take that into consideration too.
Then when you research about universities you would
feel... hey, I like this....it sounds good to me......
and you might wanna apply. Another very important
factor is whether the university does the work that
you are interested in (even within your chosen field).
If someone asks me to do rocket science......I would
say.....well...I am not capable...So look into the
research going on in the department of your choice
and see if it interests you. If yes, you can always
contact professors and clarify things regarding their
research. Professors in the US are more cordial and
approachable and have hardly any superiority complex.......hence
they are more approachable to a student. So you can
ask them anything about their work. But don't offend
them.....that's all.
Now you should have a balanced list
of 25 Universities that satisfies your self-determined
ratio of various tiers. Contact the professors there
and see if you like them and their work! May be you
might wanna look if there is any scope for some one
interesting…..just kidding!
So the bottom line is the choice of
universities is a personalized process and requires
time. I took around 4 months to choose universities.
And I went crazy with it......but believe me, it is
worth that effort. Now you would have ended up with
a list of 10 or 12. Most people end up applying to
6 or 7.
Ok
so now you have crossed one hurdle. Now you have to
think about taking your tests. In order to secure
admission to the University graduate programs in the
US you have to have above average scores on your GRE
(Graduate Records Exam) and TOEFL (Test of English
as a Foreign Language; to be taken by anyone whose
mother tongue is not English). What is on the GRE?
The GRE is a computer-based test and it consists of
three sections viz. Verbal (which tests your knowledge
in vocabulary and passage review), Quantitative (tests
your basic math skills) and Analytical writing (where
you have to write an essay on a given topic which
will be critically and brutally analyzed). There is
another genre of GRE tests called the GRE advanced
or GRE subject test. This tests your knowledge in
a specific field that you choose, like say, cell biology.
This is very hard and most people do not take it and
many universities do not require you to take it. But
mind you, top universities might insist on GRE subject
test. In Kerala you can take the test in Trivandrum
and you should apply by April or so to get a date
in September. August through December is the peak
time and you have to apply well in advance to get
a slot. The office is located in SS Kovil road (off
the thampanoor rd near the sree kumar sree vishak
theatres. You can download applications online from
http://www.gre.org/
Don't use old applications. They keep changing them
every year. The cost is about 100 dollars for the
general test. Hey it's only the beginning of expenses….so
wipe out that whine and look ahead. You need to have
a passport to take these tests.
TOEFL consists of three sections that look at your
reading listening and writing skills. This exam is
also computer based and conducted at the same center
as GRE. It is a relatively easy exam and you can find
more info on http://www.toefl.org/.
The exam costs about 70 dollars. The Barrons guide
to GRE and Barrons guide to TOEFL are very good books
that would help you get prepared. Take the practice
tests and see how you do on them. Have a score of
260 or above in TOEFL and 1100 (verbal + quantitative
with not less than 500 in each) on the first two sections
of GRE. When you appear for the GRE and TOEFL you
should have the names and departments of four Universities
to which you intend to apply. On the day of the exam
they would forward them free of cost to these four
universities if you decide so. But afterwards you
would have to spend 30 odd dollars to get your scores
sent to each university for each test. So if you intend
to apply to 6 Universities you can save the money
for 4 universities and you need to spend only 120
dollars on the remaining two. The universities do
not accept score reports sent by you. They have to
have the official score reports sent by ETS (the guys
who conduct the test). There is another test too called
the TSE (Test of Spoken English). This is optional
and you may take it if you want to.
The official results would take about
4-6 wks to come (but the computer would give you unofficial
scores for your reference immediately after the test).
In the mean time you have to start working on making
a Personal statement. This should explain why you
want an admission in that University and what are
your plans etc. You can get sample personal statements
from the website and from guys who have gone to the
US earlier. EVERY WORD SHOULD BE CAREFULLY CHOSEN.
It is a very very important document. Make one for
each University that you intend to apply. Give a month
for this. Finally you would cry out loud when you
look at the Statement of Purpose (also called SOP
or personal statement).
In the same period decide on three
faculty members who have taught you at undergraduate
level or above. They should be willing to give you
recommendation letters. You would need three for most
universities. Most faculties in India would ask you
to make one so that they need not put in effort. Here
is the catch. If you make three letters, they would
look alike and a trained eye at the University can
catch it. So make it and get your pals to change them
so that they would all look different. You can find
sample reco letters on the internet. There are certain
qualities they look for in these letters. They can
be found on the internet too. So now at the end of
September you have three recommendation letters and
a personal statement ready. Now these recommendation
letters have to be on the letterhead of the faculty.
They should be put into an envelope, sealed and signed
across the flap by the faculty. If you intend to apply
to PhD you better get the letters from someone who
has a DM/MCh or a PhD because only they can analyze
your capability to do a PhD.
By this time you should have contacted
the universities that you intend to apply and should
have got their applications by post or online. Now
you have to get your transcripts ready. Here what
you should do is make photocopies of all your mark
lists and get them signed by the Principal/VP. Also
copies of degree certificate, official transcripts
from Rajan and any other thing pertaining to the course
you have done MBBS or above. Put one copy of all these
in an envelope and seal the envelope and get the Principal
to sign across the flap and put his seal and college
round seal on it. Address the reco and transcript
envelopes accordingly. You would require three transcript
envelopes (containing a copy of all these) per University.
Which means, you have to get over 120 copies signed
by the VP at her office for 7 Universities. Now you
know why people restrict to 7 Universities. Arranging
these documents are one helluva job. Fill up the application
and include the application fee (25 to 100 dollars)
as a dollar draft (which you can get from any nationalized
bank by producing the documents that say you need
to have dollars to apply). Get a banker's statement
from the bank manager stating the amount your parents
(or who ever your sponsor is……..better
be parents or spouse) have in their bank account.
That money should be sufficient to cover at least
one year's expense mentioned in the University brochure.
It may be anywhere from 14000 dollars to 50000 dollars.
So now you know what I meant when I said make sure
you look into the expense of studying at the University
before you choose to apply to it. This money should
be immediately available in SB account or Fixed deposits
and the statement given by the manager should show
the amount in dollars too.
Now you can dispatch your application
kits to the Universities. There you go. Now just email
the Universities to make sure that they have received
all the required documents. This has to be complete
by December. Most Universities have deadlines in December
through Feb. Make sure your application is complete
before that. So now you can just relax for a while.
They have to look at your application and think about
giving you admission.
In the mean time you should keep in
touch with the Profs of these departments and see
if someone can give you financial aid. Financial aid
comes in several ways. Research assistantship (RA)
is a form of aid where you are paid for helping your
professor in his research work. They pay you minimum
15 dollars per hr and you can work for maximum 20
hrs a week. Another form is teaching assistantship
(TA) where you assist your prof in taking classes
and grading papers or may be you might even be asked
to take classes yourself! They pay you min 15 dollars
an hr up to a maximum of 20 hrs a week. These may
or may not be accompanied by tuition waiver, a scholarship
that pays your fees in the University. If you can
convince a prof that you are good, he might give you
RA/TA (not both) and a tuition waiver. Sometimes some
schools give them to all first year students. So you
have to look into all these while choosing Universities.
Top Universities are expensive but have higher chance
of getting aid. So you have to balance the benefits
and risks of applying to a University. If some prof
is willing to take you on, you are guaranteed admission
to that University. You have a higher chance of getting
aid if you apply to a PhD program.
Now one fine morning when you sip on your coffee and
browse your mail box you would see "Congrats
you are selected"! Well……a big hurdle
is over. You have got yourself an admit. Now if you
have been offered financial aid, you should choose
only one university by law. So you should inform the
other universities who have offered you admission
that you are not going there.
Time
to start preparing for your visa interview. Believe
me what you have done so far is nothing compared to
the task ahead. You have to arrange a hell lot of
documents like property documents, bank statement,
assets assessment, admission letters, special photos
etc etc etc. When you reach this stage you just join
the yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/usvisa200X/
(X stands for the year you are planning to go……
you may check it out now for 2003). This has a section
called files that contains samples and details of
all documents that you need to apply for visa. It
is also a gold mine of all possible questions that
a visa officer might ask you. You need to download
the forms DS-156, 157, 158 and make drafts for application
fee, issuance fee and courier charges (fees vary every
now and then) It is about 8000 rupees altogether.
You should receive form I-20 from the University (which
is a document issued by the university after entering
all your details into the US govt computers/servers
named the Student and Exchange Visitor Information
Service-SEVIS) to do all these. When you are all set
you book for your visa interview online. Please make
sure that you book 6-7 weeks ahead because may thru
august is a rush time at the consulate. So by July
you go for the interview.
Now you go for the big event. The
visa interview. It is all worthwhile when the visa
officer says, "Good luck son wish you a safe
trip" and you pay your visa issuance fee and
courier charges. The third day your passport comes
by courier with the visa (F-1 student visa) stamped
in it and I-20 form inside a cover stapled to your
passport. DONOT OPEN THIS COVER UNTIL YOU LAND IN
THE US. Only the official at the US airport may open
it. Now you do your shopping and stuff and get your
flight tickets. You are all set to fly! Contact your
friends/relatives or the Indian students association
and get at least a temporary accommodation arranged.
Just before you land in the US you
would be asked to fill out a white form called I-94
(also called the arrival departure record). At the
immigration you go to the official who opens the cover
and stamps entry on your I-20 and passport and staples
the I-94 card on your passport. DONOT LOSE THIS CARD.
You have to return it whenever you leave the US, even
for a vacation to India. They'll give you a new one
when you come back (but it will have the same number
as the one issued when you entered first). When you
are in the US make a copy of the documents (passport,
visa, I-20 and I-94) and carry it with you always.
The first thing you should do there
is to start your bank account and deposit the initial
amount you have carried with you to get started. Then
you attend orientation program arranged by the university
for all international students. Then you apply for
your Social Security Number. Once you have it, make
sure that no one other than you and the US govt knows
your number. You can be in hot soup if someone misuses
your SSN because it is like the password of your identity
and all your details. Make sure you comply by all
immigration laws always and keep asking your international
students' office regarding everything you do. Make
sure you don't do anything illegal.
Now
move into a new apt with your friends and you can
think about settling into your routine work after
this rat race! Now don't even think about getting
home sick after all these! It will take some time
to sink in. WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Dr.
Anil Neelakantan
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