APPLICATION PROCEDURE

When to take the GRE
Ideally applications are made to Fall only in the good colleges. You should have your GRE score in hand by 31st August.

Deadlines of many good colleges
1 Nov - For international applicant for a few top colleges
1 Dec - For most ivy leagues and topmost colleges
15 to 31 Dec - For all remaining good or decent colleges
15 Jan to 15 February - For all remaining average or decent colleges
15 February+ = think of applying next year.. very few options

If you are thinking of admission into a top college or are looking for PHD, you need to communicate with the professors and believe me the entire process takes much time. You need atleast, minimum 1 month for selecting the universites, based on your interaction with professors . For many fields, MS is not offered by top universites - only PHD

PHD advantages:
1) opportunity to do wonderful research and get more exposure without other worries
2) all top colleges offer only PHD
3) increased chances for admission
4) no fees to pay - study without worries
5) additional stipend - salary for doing research and teaching
6) In rare circumstances can leave in 2-3 years with an MS (not recommended)

MS disadvantages:
1) less opportunites to do gradaute research
2) Less chances of funding
3) Little exposure - you will gain nothing except an admit into US

Only advantage of MS - finishes early

Deadlines for giving GRE
If you are giving your GRE after 1 Nov, then you are heading for serious trouble, and ideally you should forget about applying to any top university. Apply as early as possible. If you start early and finish your communications with professors in the month of October, finish all your applications by 15 November.
Preparing SOP needs atleast 15 days.

For Recommendation letters; Professors take time to fill online ones. Dont waste till last moment.

Transcripts : have many transcripts ready before november

Resume preparation, SOP modification for each individual university is a highly time consuming process. Finsh your GRE and get your scores before 1 to 15th October to have time for all these processes

If you are applying for a PHD
1)Identify areas of interest - or the specific field your desired future careerfor example regnerative medicine in biology or artificial intelligence in CS.Try to have strong theoritical basis in that. Do strong laboratory or research projects in the field while in college.

2)Win 2 to 3 national level technical paper presentations. Participate in as many as you can in the field of your interest (which you want to pursue your further studies in)

3) 80% is excellent so dont worry about acads. BTech or BE is more than sufficient to enter a PHD and most of the new PHD admits are bachelors. Have atleast above 65% for eligiblity

4)Try tp present techncial papers at IIT's and communicate with IIT professors and try to do research under them. If you do a research project at IIT, its 50% as good as passing out from there.

5) If you are able to present any original research paper at international conference, your paper will be published in international journals. All univesites give most importance to these and your chances are increased by nearly 50%.

Remember GRE score is just one factor and criteira to evaluate different marking systems. Guys with 1550 scores may be rejected and those with 1200 have been accepted.

Write your SOP yourself
Ideally 2 safe colleges should be decided (Get help from someone yu know) , and you should apply to atleast 4-5 other good colleges, according to interaction with professors and 1-2 dream colleges. many good colleges have no applicaiton fee.Try them out.If you have money apply to 14-15 colleges.. 2 safe, 6-7 top, others good

Postal Charges
1) Gov registered post - 15 to 30 days - 200 Rs (untrackable)
2) Gov speed post - 10 days - 475 Rs. (can be tracked on internet)
3) Private courier - 4 days - 750 Rs(can be tracked on internet)
Plan your application accordingly..

A L L T H E B E S T

Courtesy: Rajeev Kasat, IIT Kanpur.