How are we doing yet? Still hanging in here or left? — Part II

Continuing from my previous blog post,

3. Prepare a list of word templates you will need to react, reply and respond to the kind of answers you get from Professors.

Personally I had three prepared for myself

The first one was a more generic template. It expressed my interest in clear, concise and crisp grammatically correct English. You have to make changes regarding the research section, papers and your interests, etc.

The second one was a thank you reply! Unfortunately some professors will not “click” with your mails and profiles as some other will. As one of my friend who already got into the Phd program at New Zealand’s University of Auckland Dept of Imaging Science, he told me

Only 20 percent of the professors you approach in all, will acutually reply back.

The point here to be noted is that it is just a reply. It can be the most obvious one

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. You should apply through the admissions office at ZZZZZ@akd.edu

this one takes the cake!

Thanks your interest in our Phd program. Unfortunately, I am not taking any more students And/or Not teaching at the school anymore and/or Not full time faculty at the time
and/or I am on Sabbatical
(No offense. This kind of replies,make my day actually. You push me down. I will keep on coming up even with more force. The more you push me down, the more I will come up again to fight back)

So, if you get one of these replies, please don’t forget to send them a courtesy emails thanking them for time. Because you didn’t ask them before flooding their email inbox(s) and you wanted to see if you reach a common ground!

I know I do this everytime. And I know I would like to see a thank you note(atleast) from the person who sent me the first horrendously complex introductory emails. But that is just me

And the last tip for the post, don’t forget to keep your profile ( Academic Resume, Summary of interests, Linkedin Profile, email accounts, phone numbers, etc.) updated!!

Keep sharing and following! Have a good day! As again, I would love to read your stories

Share your stories and follow. I need motivation so does everyone So, just keep it on !!

Have a good day!

Country/Schools update – New Zealand first

Fair day people! In last two weeks or so, I have applied to various universities around the world ( See my previous blog on which countries I applied). Even though I started and spent most of my learning (how to approach professors and schools) time for US schools such as Cornell and Yale, I am glad to inform that I have completed my first round of phd e-mails to

New Zealand – (1) – University of Auckland

Remember my last post about countries short-listing, for the most part University of Auckland at New Zealand (Business School) ranks low on the catch part for me. As you know I want to research in the field of “the strategic implementation and supply chain integration of information systems”. I applied to the head of the Department since I was unable to find/locate any relevant and descriptive research interests for any of the faculty members. (Tip#1)

On the other note, there are some schools that you think are easy for you and some are tough. This is the easy one. I am sure that my profile makes it very competitive for them to not select them. This is a good thing, as I see for now.

The information systems department is associated with the department of business at UoA and I approached one of the ranked professors at this school. Simple method! Show your interest in the program and professor’s research. Don’t forget to send your latest updated academic resume attached!

Note: Please remember faking your research interest won’t take you anywhere. You are going to be out even before you got in to the school. Since Phd is a very serious affair, do what you really like. It is okay to be confused (for now) however, but liking for the sake of liking will not go very far. Take time to explore Professor’s latest papers and his research interests. In my exploration experience ( as I say it), for ninety percent of the professor’s, their homepage or faculty page will have a separate section called Research Interests which will clearly say what his/her interests are. Now, all you have to do is to figure out if your research interests match upto his/ her research interests. I think even if it is remotely similar, you stand a shot of getting a good reply. So don’t worry if that is not exactly what you are willing to do, just go ahead and write a note to the professor asking for details on his research interests and also don’t forget to write your interests!

Stay tuned for more schools/countries update next!

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Academic Support document

Disclaimer: This blog post is a rationale for what you can do to strengthen your application at Graduate and PhD level.

Ideally, I could go with you ten rounds of discussion over what my profile has better than yours and what my school taught me even though it is not in the top 15 schools of the world. But any rational thinking person will agree that there can be no arguments about how much important it is to embellish your profile and your achievements and fine tune with the school(s) you are planning to apply.

No matter what major you are going for, be it IT, public policy or health! You will need to highlight what you have earned respectfully. I don’t know about you, I want to go to a top program. And to fulfill this desire to highlight your resume and accomplishments, you will find yourself in this position wanting to create something called as Portfolio for yourself.

As I understand it now and what internet tells me, an academic portfolio can be divided into following separate yet connected sections

I.            Education
II.          Teaching experience
III.         Research experience or areas/interest
IV.         Published or to be Papers
V.          Great Projects at School
VI.         Glory at Work experience
VII.        Resume

In this blog post, I will discuss the teaching experience part of portfolio. Now I know it is not in the order of the above, but everything counts!

A little BING search on the student portfolio(s) gives a good idea on what it looks like and what are its common components. (If you are reading this carefully, you will note how I wrote Student portfolio and not just portfolio.)  For some of us, who were lucky enough to land up a Teaching assistant or graduate assistant opportunity while in school, you will have some fluff to add towards your portfolio reflecting the amount of teaching exposure you have. Yay! And for the people who don’t have any teaching experience in those roles, research will be able to bolster your application.

Now moving ahead is definitely a good sign. You can ask me, Why? For two simple reasons – You get a separate chance to highlight your achievements as Teaching and/or graduate assistant(s). Second, most of the applicants wouldn’t have material to prepare this. So that makes you an early achiever or If I may say- early riser in the apps process from now onwards! Right!Till me next rambling!