There are so many issues people face while writing their SOP - that is - their statement of purpose. SOP could make or break your application. Many times, as has been said countless times before, a weak point in your application could be made up for in your statement of purpose by giving appropriate explanations. But i know of many people who get stuck at the very first paragraph of the SOP. How to start one’s SOP? Often times it has been seen that people just blindly copy something off of SOPs they find on line. Just for the sake of sounding really out of the ordinary, people end up sounding just like anyone else - or just like how …

The University of California at Irvine is one of the fastest growing UC campuses. It has some of the most renowned names in Computer Science on its faculty list. The machine learning group at the university has some of the most renowned names on its list. People like Pierre Baldi have been instrumental in UC Irvine’s rise as a top notch CS department. But now, another big wig in the world of computer science joins UC Irvine as faculty. Mike Carey, a National Academy of Engineering member, is acknowledged as one of the 50 most influential computer scientists in the world by a UCLA-maintained Web site that tracks research citations. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery …

Northeastern University has a pretty popular program in Telecommunication Systems Management. We thought it would be helpful to aspirants to know more about what this program entails. We spoke to Sameer Marathe who is currently a Masters student at Northeastern specializing in Telecom Systems Management. Sameer took time out to talk to us in detail about the specifics of the admission requirements, work experience requirements, funding scenarios and a lot more. Here is more on Sameer and what he had to say:
1) Personal Information
Name: Sameer Marathe
University you are studying or studied: Northeastern University, Boston
Currently pursuing: Masters
Department/Program you are enrolled in: Telecommunication Systems Management (TSM)
Specialization, if any: Business
Undergraduate College: PVG’s College of Engineering & Technology, Pune
Undergraduate University: University of Pune
2) …

Georgia Institute of Technology (GEORGIA TECH)’s Industrial Engineering program is one of the best in the U.S. kaalEDGE.com had a chance to talk to Nishad Dravid, who is currently enrolled in this program. Nishad gives a great overview of the program, funding situation and job opportunities.
1. What is your current specialization in the Industrial Engineering Program?
Nishad: Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management
2. Why did you choose GEORGIA TECH?
Nishad: Actually it was the only admission I got. The reason for this is that I was really choosy in selecting my university. I was applying in Fall 2007 season, and if you go back a few pages on the history of the stock markets, it was a golden …

University of Florida Gainesville (UFL) has a popular Mechanical Engineering (ME) Program in the United States. We had the chance to talk to Ms. Bhavana Rajput, a Mechanical Engineering graduate student in UFL. Bhavana shares her thoughts with kaalEDGE.com about the Mechanical Engineering program, the composition of student population and research interest along with her insights about the application process at UFL.
1. Where did you do your undergraduate degree in India?
Bhavna: I did my undergraduate degree in Government College of Engineering, Pune which is affiliated to Pune University
2. What is your research area of interest?
Bhavna: My areas of research interest are Propulsion and Alternate Energy.
3. Can you give us some pointers to the general …

Hi Guys. I wanted to draw your attention to a lot of discussion that has been going on at the kaaledge forums. Pretty often people dont end up on the forums - but in general trying to discuss stuff with others in the same boat as you is a pretty good way of moving forward. Of course, we guys at kaaledge.com are always there to help out with our insight and knowledge, but meeting other people who are interested in graduate education as you and have same questions as you - can be a big help. So here are a few sample posts from our forums:

Here is a readme for the kaaledge univ selector feature:
http://www.kaaledge.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=248

Here is a comprehensive list …

Management of Information Systems is a course which is pretty popular among a lot of foreign students in the US. We had the chance to meet an MIS graduate from CMU’s MISM program - Sudeep Agarwal. Sudeep works for Oracle now and has taken the time to talk with kaalEDGE.com and shares his experiences from the CMU program in MIS and his insights from the application process.
1. Can you tell us about your background in India - undergrad education, etc.?
Before MIS, I worked with Oracle India for 3 years. I did my undergrad in Chemical Engg from BITS Pilani.
2. Which program did you pursue and at which university in the US?

I got my masters in Information Systems Management …

While there are many, many guidelines out there which you will be asked to follow while writing your SOP - its not very hard to come up with some basic guiding principles on which to base your SOP. In this post, we have tried to drill down to a few basic principles you should keep in mind at all times, while writing your SOP. Since these are pretty basic and kind of like notes-to-self - they are described crisply so that you can take the maximum out of them and commit them to memory:
1. Basic idea is to convince the admission committee - that you are the student for the job.
2. Succinctly describe how you are a fit for the …

So you slogged it out for your GRE. And how you are done! Some happy with their GRE score, others not so happy - so now what?? What do you do now? Well many people think the toughest part is over, and i actually tend to agree. But what is not over, is a period of uncertainity. You are still not sure about which universities to apply to - your SOP still needs work (or hasnt even started) and recos are yet to be taken from profs. So a lot is still hanging in the air. Here is where kaalEDGE is trying to help you guys out with university recommendations. We just started with another project - that of …

Well, one thing is for sure - if you are applying to a US univ from Asia - chances are that you are cash strapped - meaning - in many cases you can barely afford a US college education! Heck, people in the western world find it hard to pay their way through college and with the dollar growing strong against the world currencies, its even harder for people in the developing world to think about education in the US. Many universities hence make it mandatory for students to send in proof of finances at the time of admission - while others require proof of finances after admit is issued for I-20 release.
The proof of finances - is to …