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| Common questions asked about USA Scholarship |
Common questions asked about USA Scholarship
Common questions asked are:
- When should I take GRE and how much time should I invest?
- My degree isn’t complete yet, should I apply or not?
- My grades are low and I don’t have an extraordinary profile, should I still consider applying?
- Assess yourself to find out how much time you need to prepare for GRE. Take a mock test from ETS and consider your weak areas to work on.
- Fulbright asks you to submit the final degree by December of that year. An incomplete degree doesn’t hurt your chances.
- Even If you have low grades or not a stellar profile, still apply, for two reasons; 1. You don’t know if you will get selected or not, let’s find out by applying. 2. You would learn from the process even if you fail. Perfect opportunity to improve yourself and the application doesn’t even cost you anything
Furthermore, there are a lot of things that could compensate for
low grades. Fulbright is a cultural scholarship and they consider leadership
qualities, extracurricular activities, cultural activities, and also some
underprivileged areas, fields of study, and gender are given preference.
Important points about personal statement and research
objectives for Fulbright:
A personal statement is your life story, your journey, you as a
person, your motivations, and achievements that make you who you are. While
research objectives are your study goals, your future plans, your academic
journey and experiences, and your passion which compelled you to opt for a
research degree in the field of your choice.
But you are the same person and you have the same experiences to
include in both so it might overlap? Well, that’s the point. You don’t have to
just write down a detailed CV as if someone is interviewing you. Give a
perspective, a presentation. The important part of your experience is not the
duties you performed or the academic honors you achieved, but the things you
learned, the skills you gained, the impact it created on you, and the impact
you created in return, the outcome you gave back to the institute or organization
or society. In short, how an experience CHANGED you and how did you bring
a CHANGE in return.
Now that you have similar experiences you have to mention in
both essays but keeping in mind the point stated above, you can have two
perspectives. You learn and grow in two ways, personal growth, and
technical/knowledge-based growth. You attend a lecture, you don’t just go
and learn formulae, you always learn something new, you learn how to
communicate, how to write, how to behave, how to ignore negativity, how to be
patient, how to be consistent, etc. All these learnings change you, make you a
better person. You learn, you grow, you influence others positively and
you bring a change. This is all very important and should be included in
your personal statement. While you learn technical stuff, it goes to your
research objectives.
And in the end, don’t forget to link all these to the main
point, how would your experiences and learnings help you during your research
and stay in the US. And how does it make you a better candidate for Fulbright?
Remember it’s a cultural scholarship, so your social engagement and your
passion to solve a crisis in the country matters a lot.
Express yourself. See yourself as a new person, recalling all
the journey that brought you here so that you could grab this opportunity to
change your life once again. Go for it, pour your heart out. First, just express
things out, don’t worry about fancy words and grammar at this point. Take out
that story of yours, those passionate goals of yours, when you feel this is
what you always have wanted from you, then send it to someone for review.
Note that Fulbright has a preferred quota for interdisciplinary studies like energy, water, agriculture, etc. But that ‘Hardworking’ motivation for energy/environment studies is too old and overheard now, bring something new. You will be competing with at least 10,000 people, brace yourself.
To know about your strengths and specialty in you as a candidate, I suggest spending some time to take personality tests. It will give you confidence and you will learn about your strengths more, Learn to show the best of yourself, believe in yourself, and learn from your mistakes instead of demoralizing and underestimating yourself.