PS: This article is our monthly newsletter for January 2019. You can read a similar post on trends of 2017 here.

Greetings of the season from Team Yocket!

With all the rumours (and tremors) of infamous "Trump effect" fading off and clearing the air for the real picture to be seen, 2018 has been an exciting yearforstudy abroad aspirants. It has been a year when the mojo of study abroad started working again and optimism returned among aspirants.

And thanks to all the enthusiasm shown by you, Yocket is now a community of 250,000+ (vs 167,000 in Jan 2018) aspirants from over 10,000 (vs 7700 in Jan 2018) undergrad colleges across 2800+ (vs 2000 in Jan 2018) cities and 122 different nationalities (vs 91 in Jan 2018). Top countries include India, US, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria, UAE, Iran, Ghana & Taiwan. Together the community contributed to over 80,000 questions (vs 52,000 in Jan 2018), 3 Lakh answers (vs 2 Lakh in Jan 2018) and 196,000 university admit/reject updates to help you take the most informed decisions at all times.

We are pleased to share some insights from the past year with you.

HOT CONTENT:

• Yocketers read about how to score perfect 340 in GRE, but then some of them didn't meet their target (happens) so they started reading about universities accepting 300 - 310 GRE. Of course this guide to MS in US by UC Boulder student helped them tremendously and so did all the 195 articles published in 2018 on Yocket Blogs.
   
• Yocketers are a curious bunch of people. They asked a lot of questions. 35894 to be precise (in the past year itself). And their questions got 137775 answers on Yocket Discussions. Interestingly a question on Canadian university got one of the highest number of views + comments. Any guesses why?
   
• We like constantly experimenting and reinventing ourselves. With our first 1000 YouTube subscribers in a short span, this recent experiment- Yocket Student Stories seems to strike a chord with viewers already. Yaay!

• Higher education abroad directly translates to freedom of pursuing the course that YOU like and then tailor it as per your needs; not a readymade one that is given by a university having 50 affiliated colleges under it. Well, Yocket now boasts of accurate information and reviews of 1000+ universities, across 13 different countries, offering 5500+ courses; which essentially means a ONE STOP destination for all your university research and networking.

HIT EVENTS:

• Along with our partners, we managed to meet about a 14,000 of Yocketers at 480 events across 16 cities andvirtually. Hey, wasn't Yocket just confined to the screen? [Hint: NO]
   
• Our yearly ritual of travelling across India to conduct Yocket Meetups was held in September and October last year, wherein we connected with over 1400 of you guys (and some of the parents too) across 8 metros. However, the best part of these meetups has got to be experiencing the study abroad culture in different parts of the country through the eyes of those goodfellas called volunteers who help us conduct these events smoothly.

• Second edition of our yet another yearly ritual "EducationUSA -Yocket Virtual University Fair" got an overwhelming response to say the least. 6000 aspirants kept the 55 universities on their toes (or fingers in this case) during 2 action-packed days, asking all sorts of doubts and getting their profiles evaluated.
   
• While the Virtual Fair helped aspirants get the first hand info from the universities, our latest offering FastTrack Decisions helped 350+ aspirants get a decision from 6 universities within 15 days. Some even got it in 2 days. Did we mention that we like to experiment?

HAPPY YOCKETERS:

Over 18,000 students entrusted Yocket with their critical decisions.

Asritha Venkatramana, Afsan Gujarati & others opted to get personalised help in university applications along with free profile evaluations, SoP analysis, Visa guidance, app fee waivers, scholarships and more.

Aditya Roy, Vaishnavi Yeruva & others preferred the super convenient and speedy (not to mention cheap) document shipping service via DHL / FedEx and sent their documents to 350+ US, Canadian and European universities.

Duurga Prasad, Adarsh Rajesh & other needed our help slightly later i.e. during their funding phase. Our education loan experts helped them navigate the complex arenas of loan providers with zero hassle, best rate and shortest time.

Arpit Sharma and others, along with their parents trusted us with transacting over 2 million USD & other currencies via Yocket Forex services.

NEW in 2018

• GRE Flash cards and GRE practice sets: Hear hear 2020 aspirants ! Give these a go on the app.
• Group Chats: A new way to connect with your peers planning for the same university (app exclusive). Say bye to spam and number leaking forever. Give Yocket Groups a try?
• Yocket has started its offerings for those kids who wish to pursue their bachelors (undergrad) abroad. Know someone like that? Share?

We would love to hear your feedback / stories from 2018 and your study abroad goals for 2019! Have a great year ahead!