Getting into a good grad school!

Deep in the psyche of an undergrad say from one of the umpteen NITs in India, this is what runs:-

"I need to get out of India into a plush foreign university. The monster guarding this garden of eden is GRE who I will bore into death by mugging up a few thousand words."

What next???

"Get into a good university!"

But slowly these ideas look vague. What's a good university? Well, I need funding, where will I get it? I love math, archaeology, or thermodynamics or even somersaulting, where do I go to study? What do I do next? ... and the questions keep piling up.

All these questions accumulate into well worded emails that are dispatched to the inboxes of seniors. These 'Seniors' are mythological creatures who roam the garden of eden possessed with infinite knowledge to help anyone get there.

Knock... Knock, reality check! What the heck is happening here? Who are these omniscient seniors? So I decided to interview one such senior.

Question:  Tell me about your work?

Answer:  "I work in robotics, to come up with a way to perform coordinated control of multiple agents ...blah blah blah".

Interpretation: "I am a geek, doing grad school trying to prove some insane theory god knows possible".

Question: What about the garden of eden,... er I am sorry,  the GOOD university you got into and how do you recommend others get into such good universities?

Answer: No university is good or bad. It all depends on your field of interest and the related research work going on in that university.

My Thoughts: The guy looks seriously confused, may be I got an impostor senior who knows nothing.

What I expected for an answer: A foolproof fail-safe bullet list of procedures to follow to get into a GOOD university with an appendix on the list of good universities.

Reality: No one knows these good universities, every university is good is some field or in some aspect. The only way to find out these good universities are by doing some research yourself. I think a bulleted list might help here.

• Identify your field of interest. What you love to do or what makes you go nuts and keeps you up for hours at a stretch? That most likely is your field of interest. If nothing drives you crazy, think of what you think you would like to do with your future. There is a good chance that this is your field of interest. Your field of interest needs to be specific, it cannot be as general as mechanical engineering or electrical engineering, it has to be something specific like mems, robotics, computer vision, etc. If none of these help you figure it out, draw of lots is not a bad idea. If you don't feel like doing that either, forget grad school!
• Search for university rankings (say from agencies like usnews, etc). The information from these sources might not be perfect but might give you a rough idea on the universities that have focussed research on your field of interest. If you can't find field specific rankings, pull up the general university ranking. Then go to the webpages of these specific universities, specific departments and look at the list of professors, their research interests, ongoing work, future work, etc. This will help you decide if that particular university is worth applying. This step is tedious and time consuming but absolutely essential to decide on which universities are worth applying.
• You might also use the statistics from these ranking agencies to get a picture on the average intake, gre score, gpa requirements, etc required to get into the universities you have chosen from the previous step. A word of caution, no ranking is absolute, they are just opinions from different people. Don't overly depend on them.
• Actually the seniors can kick in once you have decided your field of interest, they can help you figure out a candidate list of universities. But in most cases it is better you figure out the candidate list and ask them what they feel about those universities.

Question: How does one decide if one's profile is good enough to get into XYZ university?

Answer: No one knows! Its a game of chance and sometimes recommendations and profile.

Reality: No one can say for sure if you are good enough for some university unless you go to extremes like ivy league universities which are too chosey or bottom-of-the-pile schools which accept everyone who applies. Every university, every department is unique. It has its own set of requirements that it thinks make a candidate eligible. You can't say exactly what happens in the admission process but if you have some inside idea from a grad student from the same department, he will be able to give you a rough idea on what the school looks for or a rough chance of getting admitted to that school.

Question: Money! Honey! How does one get funding in grad school?

Answer: There is no guarantee that any university is going to offer you funding. It is generally a game of chance. You apply and sit tight for them to reply. PhD admits are generally accompanied with guaranteed funding and Master's admits are mostly unfunded, this is the general rule of thumb. 

Reality: No US university is cheap. The tuition and living expenses vary from 20,000 to 30,000 USD per annum. Funding is a game of chance and there are no guarantees. There are always exceptions to the above rule of thumb and the chance of these exceptions here are very high. Not having a letter of funding with your admit or just having partial funding does not mean you are doomed. There are always ways to survive. Every university has campus jobs that are offered to students and there are also part-time jobs you can look into. This research into sources of funding comes very late in the admission process. It has to start only when you get your admits. A senior or a friend of a senior in the university where you are looking for funding can come in very handy to help you figure out the chances of getting funding in that university.

Question: What papers do you think one needs to apply for grad school?

Answer: Look at the application form! Every university is different, the general list includes Statement of Purpose (SOP), Letter of Recommendation (LOR), transcripts, other certificates, sometimes financial documents.

Reality: A bullet list here would be great!

• SOP is a 1 or 2 page essay where you should try to show what your field of interest is and what you plan to do in the future, why you are interested in the XYZ university, etc. The SOP requirements of every university might vary slightly but this is the lay of the land.
• LORs are letters of recommendation from professors, companies or some prominent academic or an organization telling their opinion of you. LORs can add a lot of weight to your application if it comes from a big shot professor/person in your field or in general. Internal recommendations from a professor in an univerity you are applying to often guarantees an admit. You might sometimes be asked to write a draft of your LOR yourself, then the recommender might edit it before signing it.
• The other general documents are your transcripts, marksheets, resume, etc.
• Some universities might require more than one specialized essay, or financial documents.
• If asked for financial documents in you application, you can mention that you have zero personal funds and plan to depend on an assistantship to cover your expenses. This doesn't affect you application's merit or the chances of being accepted. Once you are accepted and based on the funding the university offers, you might have to show some documentation to show that you can cover your expenses in graduate school. This is strictly a visa requirement and the university doesn't care if you have funds or not as long as they get the tuition fee.

These are the excepts from the interview of a 'senior' (myself)! Feel free to ask me any clarifications on anything I have mentioned here, but don't ask me to do your research with regards to grad school applications that every person has to do. Finally, all the best.

DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE NOT TRIED AND TESTED METHODS. THE AUTHOR ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY IF THIS PROCEDURE ON GRAD SCHOOL APPLICATIONS DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU.