Always imagine an interview

When applying for a career oriented course, you have to write a personal statement, explaining how you got interested in the field and how you have developed your interest so far, demonstrating that you have some personal characteristics and skills which will make you a successful student and professional.

Yesterday I read a personal statement which looked like a list. When I asked the student to elaborate on some points, for example his internship with a professional, he said that he had taken a certificate from the professional – to certify that he has really interned. Hm.

First, some formats just don’t give you the opportunity to enclose such documents.

Second, even if they do, such a note does not say much about what you have done and learned.

Third, what if you are interviewed and asked to elaborate on the internship? Are you going to tell them that you have a certificate?

Talking intelligently about your experiences counts most when applying to college; it cannot be replaced by certificates, even if issued by the US president.

Being unable to talk intelligently sends the message that you are either unintelligent or just boasting about an experience you never had or trying to pass it off as something more special than it really was.

Here is my wisest tip: always imagine you are interviewed about the items you list in your resumes or mention in your essays. That will help you remember more and be self-reflective and coherent.

UK: UCAS 2010

I have covered only the tricky parts here. The rest is either obvious or clearly explained in the help sections on the right side of each item. You could also read my 2009 instructions and ask specific questions in the FB group or via e-mail / phone. Make sure you have carefully read the UCAS website and not rely ONLY on my notes and help. You should make sure you understand the process before you ask me about details.

Personal details

Postal address: write it the way a Bulgarian post officer could find it easily. I would just write the address in Bulgarian with Latin letters.

Residential category: UK Citizen or EU National

Reference numbers:

Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Number: your registration number – this is the number you are given when you register to take the test, and it is also displayed on your score sheet when you get your results

Student support:

Fee code: If you’ll be applying for student tuition loans, choose: 02 LA, SAAS, NIBd, EU, ChI, IoM or Student Finance England – Applying for student support assessment by Local Authority, Student Finance England, Student Awards Agency for Scotland, Northern Ireland Education and Library Board, SLC EU Team, Channel Island or Isle of Man agency.(if you are going to apply for tuition loans),

and then choose EU Team

Be careful here: The help says: “A small number of universities and colleges do not receive public funding and their students may not get help towards tuition fees under the student support arrangements. These institutions are clearly marked in the Course Search section on the UCAS website.” Check if the university you have chosen allows you to pay your tuition through public loans!

Education:

If you cannot find your school name, just fill it in the box

Did you / will you receive any formal qualifications at this school? Yes (even if you have not received them yet!)

Once you have added a school, you can add your qualifications:

Bulgaria-Diploma za sredno obrazovanie (or if you’re studying in profesionalna gimnazia: Bulgaria-Diploma za sredno spezialno obrazovanie). You could find this by clicking on the letter B in the alphabet.

If you have already graduated from school, you could give your GPA (среден успех от дипломата); you could also add your scores from the state exams (матури). If you haven’t, you’ll leave the “Grade” box blank, but you’ll enter the date when you’ll receive your diploma.

You could also add “Modules”. Here you could enter school grades. I would enter some grades on important subjects – by adding modules.  It might be a good idea to enter information about all academic subjects, starting from the ones that might be the most important for the chosen course (major). The registration centre is going to check if you have entered the correct numbers, comparing what you have entered to the official school transcript. When you add the subjects you study now, in 1year 12, leave the grade box empty (or chose “pending” if there’s a drop-down menu) as these will be available at the end of the school year.

After you have added (and saved!) all modules for subjects, click on the “back to summary” to enter other qualifications, for example TOEFL scores. You could find it by clicking on the letter T in the alphabet – TOEFL / TEFL (not TEFL / TOEFL!). You could enter the TOTAL score above, and then, by adding modules, you might give separate scores for separate skills.

You could also add your SAT scores even if UK colleges might not need them to accept you. If they are good, why not boast them?

Always make sure you have saved the information you have entered! Do not check sections as completed before you have made sure they really are! You’d better check them as complete right before sending your application.

Make sure you have a valid bank card with enough money in it  to pay your fees! You should have more money than the fee as your bank might charge some for the transfer!

Taking a year off

You could take a year off NOT because you have not been accepted. You could also apply successfully AND take a year off – through deferred entry application 🙂

Copied from UCAS:

“Taking a year out?

If any of your students want to take a year out before starting their course, they should check with their universities and colleges that they will accept a deferred entry application. If they apply for deferred entry in 2011, they must still apply by the relevant deadline above, and meet the conditions of any offers by 31 August 2010. If they accept a place starting in 2011, they cannot reapply through us in the 2011 cycle, unless their original application is withdrawn.”

Always make sure you have saved the information you have entered! Do not check sections as completed before you have made sure they really are! You’d better check them as complete right before sending your application.

Make sure you have a valid bank card with enough money in it  to pay your fees! You should have more money than the fee as your bank might charge some for the transfer!

Questions to ask yourself before you apply for a specific major

1. Why do you want to study this subject? Can you prove that you have a real, not superficial interest in it? What is your evidence?

2. Why do you want to study at this university? Do you understand the demands of the course? Do you know the way you will be taught and the way you will be expected to learn?

3. Do you know what skills you need in order to be a successful student in this major and a successful professional in the field?

4. Do some of your extracurriculars demonstrate your leadership, excellence or initiative?

Your unique perspective +

In their supplement Colgate ask the following: We honor the many different forms of diversity in our community. Your perspective is valuable because it comes from your life experiences, family background, and culture. Please tell us about yourself and what you believe is the best way to share your perspective.
Also, what do you hope to learn from the experiences of others?

One of you wrote to me that it’s a question about what makes you different from the others. It’s true, but it’s essential to figure out who “the others” are. Too many students believe that “the others” are their current classmates, so they start comparing themselves to their classmates. Too often, in order to impress colleges, my students start telling bad thing about their classmates. That’s a mistake because:

1. You sound arrogant and self-righteous. You might have all the reasons to feel that your classmates are not as good as you are, but that is not something to be proud of. You might feel proud if, for example, you have tried hard to help them become as good as you are.

2. Colleges are interested in college applicants, not in college applicants’ classmates. An essay is an opportunity to share something about YOURSELF. Talking about your classmates in most often useless … at best. Of course, it is OK if your teachers compare you to your classmates – colleges actually ask them to do that.

Colleges are interested in how you compare against the rest of the applicant pool, but you are not the one who is capable of making the comparison because you don’t know the other applicants, so you don’t need to be involved in any kind of comparison making. What you have to do is explore yourself, take out the best and show it to colleges 🙂

The other part of the essay prompt asks for your elaboration on HOW you plan to enrich the college community with your unique presence there. Think of all possible aspects – academic and non-academic. You might wish to be very specific here and mention some specific activities offered by the college or some that you plan to create yourself.

And finally, the prompt ask you about your hopes to learn from the experiences of others. You should make sure you know where Colgate students usually come from, what they are like. Think HOW you can learn from THEM in different settings – in and out of the classroom.

Commitment

Yesterday I watched a documentary about a Tai Chi master who taught in a public park in China. People said that they had to go to him at 6.30 every morning for three years before he deemed them serious and agreed to teach them. This anecdote could be used as an illustration of “Commitment” – another college admission criterion.

Most students are preoccupied with adding more and more items to their resumes. What they don’t know is the fact that colleges are not interested in serial club joiners. They are looking for people who can show dedication.

One of the signs of commitment is how much time you have invested in an activity. That is measured by the number of hours you dedicate every week  and also by the number of years.

The quality of your involvement with 1 activity is much more important than the number of activities.

Use of Resources

A student of mine was applying to an expensive private American high school. We were discussing her motivational letter, where she had written that she wanted to study there because they offered photography and web-design classes – activities she claimed she could not practice at home. I asked her if her family had a photo camera or a computer, and she told me that they had both. Then I asked her if there was someone forbidding her from using them to take pictures or create web-sites. She said, “Well, no, but we don’t study these at school.” Well, this statement did not explain why she did not practice photography or web-design on her own.

Too many applicants from my country believe that complaining about lack of resources would somehow help them get into college. Too many of them have access the Internet, digital cameras, libraries and cell phones. Admissions officers are aware of that because they know Bulgaria is an EU member, so it’s plain clear to them that we are NOT part of the Third World. Furthermore, they are not interested in what you haven’t but in what you have done. They are not interested in how you haven’t used what you lacked but in how you used the available resources. Not making use of available resources cannot be justified by lack of other resources.

I had a student who had neither a cell phone nor home access to the Internet but was offered fabulous financial aid by fifteen colleges, 5 Ivies among them. She never mentioned lack of resources in her application.

Colleges will not accept you because they pity you; they will accept you because you have become their hero – someone who has done his best out of what he has where he happens to live.

Believe it or nor, “use of resources” is one of their criteria for admission 🙂

Being honest about majors (US colleges)

Getting into college might be much harder if you honestly tell admissions officers what major you have chosen. Why? Because this major might be very popular at the college, thus attracting a lot of applicants and increasing competition. If this is the case, you should show that you have already done something impressive [for your age] in this field – you have prepared an excellent portfolio if you are an artist or a programmer; you have read a number of books related to the field, etc. etc.

If you are keen on science and art, and you’d love to study at Bard College, it might be wiser to focus on your interest in physics and get in much easier as an aspiring scientist. Of course, you don’t need to be secretive about your interest in arts; on the contrary: you should reveal your artistic side too and say that you’d be happy to develop it by taking some art classes, which would be impossible if you majored in Physics in a typical European university. Once in, you will be able to declare whatever major you like.

If you are really keen on studying law or medicine, applying for the very competitive pre-law or pre-med programs might keep you outside the door. Why not apply for the liberal arts option at the same university – you’ll be able to take the classes you need to prepare for LSAT or MCAT later. In fact, there are more successful LSAT takers who DID NOT take a pre-law program than ones who did.

Not enrolling into a very hot program might actually be a better step towards your becoming really good in the field. If you are not really good at the very beginning, you might find it really hard to compete against much more advanced classmates. If you are outside such a program, you might have time to learn at your own speed and reach the necessary level without crushing your self-esteem and giving up your dream. Not being good enough now means you might be brilliant in the future – if you invest effort and TIME 🙂

Applying to college

There is no strict algorithm applicable to every school. You should always visit the school’s website and read the specific requirements. Although many schools make use of common tools like The Common Application (USA) or UCAS (UK), they don’t necessarily have the same application process, asking for exactly the same documents. Often they share a set of generic documents AND require additional ones which vary from school to school. For example, the Common Application is used by over 150 US schools, but some of them require filling out additional forms and writing additional essays; they usually call these “supplements”. Many schools accept the International Student Financial Aid Application and International Student Certification of Finances, but some of them don’t. They have their own forms; some of these look like the common ones, and they might differ only in the presence of the college’s logo, but still they are different. You should expect the same variation in rules in all other countries too.

The good news is you could learn how to work with applications in general. Here are the steps:

– Choose your colleges

– Visit their websites

– Find the relevant instructions:

– if applying to a college in the EU, you are a EU citizen, not “international”
– if applying to a college outside EU, you are “international”
– if you have never studied at a college / university or you have but have not earned a degree (graduated from it and got a diploma), you are applying for “undergraduate” school

– If you plan to apply for financial aid, you should first make sure you are eligible – check if they offer financial aid to international students; you should be careful with EU schools – many of them offer financial aid only to citizens or permanent residents of certain countries, and sometimes the aid is not offered directly by the college but by some external organization.

(USA) The common application: 2009-10 First-year application

Read older texts on the common application to learn about its parts, etc. You don’t need to read the specific instructions (like the one I’m posting below) for specific previous years.

APPLICANT

Legal name: Your name as it is written on your ID card. Exactly!

Preferred name: If your name is Dimitar, but you’d prefer to be called “Mitko”

Former last name(s), if any – you have such a name if you have changed your last name because of marriage or divorce, for example.

Birth date: “mm/dd/yyyy” means “month, day, year” . 3rd November, 2008 in this format is written as ” 11/03/2008″

US Social Security Number, if any – if you are one of my current students, you probably don’t have any

E-mail address: it should include your real name to sound more formal. Avoid any “pussy”-like usernames.

IM address: IM=instant messenger – Skype, ICQ, etc. Would you like to be approached by college representatives? Well, if you have the guts, go ahead 🙂

Permanent home address: you know what it is – where your parents live, etc.

Current mailing adress: where you can be sure to receive mail. It could be a mail box at the post office or your grandparents’ address … whatever.

FUTURE PLANS – this section might be different for different colleges

Entry Term: Fall

Decision Plan: the most common one is Regular Decision. I usually advise against applying Early …

Do you intend to apply for need-based financial aid? Yes.

Do you intend to apply for merit-based scholarships? Yes.

Do you intend to be a full-time student? Yes.

Do you intend to enroll in a degree program your first year? Yes (for my students)

Do you intend to live in college housing? Yes or No – you might have different answers for different colleges. If you know that they offer financial aid only for the tuition, then you might wish to live off campus if it is much cheaper.

Career Interest: if you are undecided, just write “undecided”

Academic interests: well, you do have some, and there’s plenty of space to fit them in

DEMOGRAPHICS

Other citizenship (Visa type F1)

List any non-US countries of citizenship

Place of birth

First language that’s the language you started speaking first

Primary language spoken at home that could be different 🙂

White (including Middle Eastern) e.g. that’s not your nationality but your ethnic group, so if you are a Bulgarian citizen, but you are an ethnic Turk, you should write Turkish

FAMILY

You should include information about both parents, even if one or more is deceased (dead) or has no legally (or practically) responsible for you. If your parents are separated, divorced, etc. – if you are in any doubt, ask me!!!

Occupation: position at the moment

Name of Employer: the name of the company, not the boss’ name

College / Graduate school: if your parents have a University diploma, and they have studied at university for more than 4 years, then you should choose “Graduate school” and write its name. The degree is usually “Master” – of what? That’s their major.

Legal guardian: only if other than a parent!

Siblings: these are your brothers or sisters

ACADEMICS

Secondary schools: these are high schools (гимназии)

Entry date: the date you started high school

Graduation date: ask school officials

School type: all my students should enter “public”

CEEB/ACT Code: If you are one of my students, your school does not have such a code, so you’ll get 0000 after click on “not found”

Counselor’s name: one of the teachers writing your recommendations will be your counselor – the one who knows you best and is going to prepare the school report.

Counselor’s Title: if he is a subject teacher, you could write “Teacher of Physics”, for example

List all other secondary schools, including summer schools ….: if you have not changed high schools after 8th class or you have not taken part in any summer academic programs, you don’t write anything here.

If your secondary school education was or will be interrupted: no student of mine this year should fill in these!

Colleges & Universities: no student of mine this year should fill in these!

TESTS

My students should include information only about TOEFL and SAT. Fill in information not only about the tests you have already taken but also about the ones you plan to take.

Honors: Arrange these carefully! It’s a bit tricky!

ACTIVITIES

Extracurricular – write the most importants ones in order of interest, even if you plan to send a resume! It does not matter if any of these are institutional, family or independent ones!

Work experience – they ask you to include paid jobs, not volunteer ones! Thus, if you have worked for your family and did not receive any payment, you mention this under “Extracurricular”, not under “Work experience”

WRITING

Short answer: I love this “briefly elaborate” 🙂 It’s about ONE of your extraxurricular or work experience. As it should be include no more than 150 words, make sure every word makes sense! You should explain why it was one of your most meaningful activities, what you gained from it.

Personal essay: No matter what topic you choose, the essay should tell something about you – how the person/book/experience, etc. has influenced you

I suggest you write down ideas on ALL topics instead of focusing only on the one that seem the easiest. I’ll help you choose which one is worth developing.

Disciplinary history: No, No, I hope 🙂

Additional information: if you have something really unusual in your circumstances … you’d better ask me before you write something pathetic!

SIGNATURE

Application fee payment: Will Mail Fee Waiver Request ( it’s a letter from your school, explaining that you don’t fave the money to pay. Most colleges accept it)