Between Application and Admission:

Hi guys. Hope you all are doing good.. A lot of people are doing your GRE right about now and probably will start application process in sometime. To all of you, my best wishes.

I have spoken so far about the following topics:
1. SOP
2. Things to do before GRE (University Decisions, etc.) and Application Process
3. Pre-Requsite Courses and Branch change.

I think I should talk about the stages after you complete the application..

Most of you guys would be thinking GRE/TOEFL/SOP/LOR might be really really difficult. Trust me I thought the same too last year at this time. But I am really sorry to say the difficult part will come in another 5 months at around December end and after. If you guessed that this is because admission decisions will start coming at around that time and that will increase your anxiety levels, react to this post and get a cookie from me later because you guessed right.

Filling up the application of a foreign university for the first time would be stressful because of the simple fact that you have never done it before and as human beings, we tend to fear over any mistakes that can possibly occur. If you are tensed, just chill and know this. It is just an application. You get it wrong you can always correct it or you can always E-Mail the admissions department about it. It is not like you have murdered somebody to freak out about it. MY ADVICE: If you are filling the application for the first time, sit with a friend who has already applied to a university before and get his help. Once you fill the first one, the next set of applications will be a piece of cake. You will know what all is expected and hence you can start filling out easily.

NOTE: Get all the necessary docs such as Personal History Statement, SOP etc ready to apply if you are timing your application process speed

So now that you have applied for the university, what do we do?

Answer is WAIT. You just have to wait and this is THE HARDEST part in the Aspiration of MS to admission process. It happened for me. People around me were getting admits and rejects left right and center. And trust me, that is maddening. You will feel like ripping the hair our of your head in suspense. GRE would feel like a walk in the park at that time. This is one good reason to apply early. You might get decisions early. However, there is generally no sure date as to when your admission is offered or rejected.

Before I continue, you should know about the type of admissions:
1. Rolling admissions
2. Non-Rolling admissions ( I forgot the technical term for this but who cares.. :P )

Rolling admissions are those in which the university offers and rejects admits to prospective students as and when they evaluate their applications. Example of one such university is the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. They offer rolling admissions which means you generally get the decision of your admits in a month or month and a half. (Mine took near about 8 weeks and I was offered admission but then I am always an exception :P )

For the lack of a better term, the non-rolling admissions are those in which the university waits till the deadlines and then sums up all the applications and decides which ones are good and which ones are thrown to the trash can. These universities take a longer time to get back irrespective of when you apply.

REMEMBER YOUR APPLICATION HAS TO BE COMPLETE FOR THE ADMISSION DEPARTMENT TO REVIEW YOUR APPLICATION. AND BY DEFINITION, YOU HAVE TO PAY THE APPLICATION FEE FOR THE APPLICATION TO BE COMPLETE AND NOT JUST FILLING OF APPLICATIONS AND UPLOADING DOCUMENTS.

So, the big question, how do we know if the university that we have applied to has started handing out admits??
Technically, most of the universities have answers to this question in the FAQ part of the website. So you will have a rough idea as to when you can start expecting the most dreaded email to your inbox.
There are other resources too to know if the university has started sending out admits.

Yocket can also help you in finding out if your university has started sending admits. On Yocket, you will find plenty of students posting their results as and when they get it. Yocketers also put in their profile so  one can connect to similar profiles. "Yocket" generally consists of the Profile and Academics information such as the following columns:

1. GRE
2. TOEFL
3. UG Score
4. Work Experience
5. Research Papers
6. Dream University
7. Universities Interested (Applied, Admit/ Reject, Final)

Please do note that the data posted there is not verified by the website. It is students who upload stuff there. So it is expected that you don't spam and cause miniature heart attacks to the other students.

One can see that a lot of people start posting details there as and when they get admits and so it will be great if you can post your results as and when you get it.

Thanks again for the support. I enjoy writing here. Hopefully you guys enjoy reading this and find it helpful. Please do hit the like buttons if you enjoyed it or found it useful.. As usual, if you guys have doubts, do comment them here. I will reply as and when I can.

PS: It will be really amazing of you guys to just not comment "#" below to follow the post. You can choose to follow the post and that will keep giving you updates. If you look at the top right corner of every post, you will see a down-facing arrow mark. Click it and you will see a "Turn On notifications for this post". Please use that feature. Thank you. Cheers :)