Are you frustrated with your academics and scholarship applications?
You were one of the best graduating students or you performed excellently well in your research thesis, but you still keep getting a decline in admission or scholarship applications.
You have been trying all possible means to study abroad with a good scholarship package but all your efforts seem not to be working.
You have challenges in meeting these requirements: getting a supervisor for Canadian universities, blocked account for German Universities, high GRE score for American Universities, good work experience for South African Universities, good recommendation letter for Asian Universities and high grades for Australian Universities.
You know you need to meet all requirements before you can be admitted before even getting a scholarship.
It really looks like a big problem but it’s surmountable only if you can follow the basics and prepare excellently.
What to do to over-turn an admission or scholarship decline
For you to get a good head-start in getting good admission news, you have to totally submerge yourself in the application process. Making scholarship or admission applications is the most difficult task for a student after examination.
The situation is worsening as Universities and funding organizations are increasing the application requirements in order to screen out the un-serious applicant. This means if you want it, you have to go all the way for it.
What you really need to do
1. Are you Passionate:
Most times, people develop passion for a course before they graduate even if they got admitted in the wrong course. This passion is extremely necessary if you want to undertake graduate study.
Create passion for your present course of study even if you want to change to another area of interest in future. Anything worth doing now is worth doing well because you never know what the future entails.
Passion enables you to attain high grades as well as get great recommendation letters from your lecturers. Application reviewers will select a first-class graduate of Geography ahead of a third-class graduate of Business Administration if both candidates were to be competing for a position in the graduate business school.
2. Are you Practical:
Practical knowledge is the most important part of a science related education. Unfortunately, many Universities around the World still lay more emphasis on theoretical knowledge.
At most, the student should be given equal privilege to be exposed to both of them. Ensure you take the practical sessions of your course such as laboratory sessions, field trips, internships and research projects seriously.
Students also tend to give less attention to these practicals because they sometimes carry lower credit points. The truth is that the practical skills and knowledge you have goes a long way in determining the kind of funding or admission you get.
A potential supervisor wants to see that you have gained adequate skills during your study. You can always prove this by obtaining high grades in these practical courses and by describing the skills you gained in your motivation letter. One way to improve your practical skills is to always apply your theoretical knowledge to random related scenarios around you.
3. Are you Positive:
There is always a positivity in every negativity, it depends on what you want to see. Staying positive is key in every sphere of life.
Positivity is also very important in academics because the good grades might not come your way sometimes or a lecturer might just hate you for no reason. In-spite of any negativity, you need to stay positive about your abilities and capabilities of securing a good scholarship package.
You need to stay positive even after receiving many negative admission/scholarship responses. Less effort will be required in making the next application since you gain more experience with more applications. When you fail in one application, it strengthens you for another application.
4. Are your documents Prepared:
Required documents are specific to each application but there are some documents that remain indispensable to any application. Focus on these kinds of documents and ensure they are of high quality.
Some of the compulsory documents includes: curriculum vitae, motivation letter, cover letter, statement of goals, recommendation letter and research proposal. Some of these documents are only required for a research based graduate study.
Creating these documents in high quality remains the hardest task in making applications. On the other hand, these documents also remain the most important part of your application assessment.
You need to strive hard to put these documents together before the application period commences. This allows ample time to increase the quality of the documents and applying early enough. The required documents preparation will be treated deeply in subsequent posts.
5. Are you Prepared to make your application:
This is the only thing that you have 100% control over. The application reviewer does not get to decide the country or course you apply to.
However, a lot of research and work is required to successfully make the right application. Each country and continent has its own specifics and requirements. There are also different kinds of graduate programs based on research or coursework.
Ensure you make at-least three applications based on your preferences. Sometimes, it is good to spread your application tentacles to different continents. On the other hand, it is also good to focus on just one country.
Scholarships come in varieties such as free tuition, partial scholarships, living stipends and teaching/research assistant-ships. These varieties are synonymous to specific countries and courses.
Now that you want to get serious with your application
Finally, you are on the path to study at your desired country with your required scholarship. This post covers the general basics you need to know in order to overhaul your application process.
Most of the topics covered will be dealt with deeply in subsequent posts for you to understand how to tackle the advanced challenges that comes your way.
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I believe we shall congratulate ourselves few months down the line about our academic success.