When I wanted to apply
for scholarships, the first thing I did was to define the region I wanted to
apply. By understanding the region, not necessarily to be a specific country,
helped me to know what I would need to prepare myself before even starting the
application process. Without knowing the application process and rules of the
game of the particular region or country, you will be just applying not in a
competitive way. Like in any kind of competition, you need to have a blueprint
and figure out your resources and how you will accomplish them
successfully.
Scholarship application is like being in the war zone. You
must be fully equipped, and use all your techniques and ammunition”.
- Ernest B. Makulilo
Application Fees
This is the first thing
you need to ask yourself: does the application require you to pay any fees for
admission processing? When I was applying for scholarships, I grouped my
applications into two major categories - those which required application fees
and those which didn’t require any fees to apply. And just know it gets very
expensive sometimes.
Generally, if you are applying for admissions and scholarships in
the United States, you are required to pay application fees. It’s extremely
rare to find schools that don’t require application fees in the United States.
So if your dream is to study in the United States, first and foremost you need
to determine how much money you have to cover the applicant's fees. But over 99
percent of applications in Europe and the rest of the work don’t require
application fees. It’s free of charge to apply. In this case, you need to
clearly think and use your resources wisely.
The
application fees in the United States range between $50 to $100, depending on
the school/institution you are applying to. There are some universities that charge
less than $50 while others go way up to $100. The question is, how many
universities in the United States, which require application fees, are you able
to apply to? How much money do you have as your budget? And bear in mind that, you
will not get admission just by applying for one or two universities.
For
the past ten years, I have seen many people come to me with a special request:
“Ernest, my dream is to study in America. Would you please help me with links
to apply?” Many people don’t know the difference between applying in the United
States versus the rest of the world. If your dream is to study in America, you
will definitely need to prepare yourself with enough cash to cover application
fees to all universities you are planning to apply to. In case you don’t have
enough money, my suggestion will always be to find universities that don’t
require application fees, and in this case, universities in Europe, Asia and
other parts of the world.
What
worked for me was to prioritize the region I preferred more. I wanted to
continue to be in the United States since I was already in the United States
through Fulbright scholarship at the time I was applying for my master’s
degree. I had to save enough money to apply for as many universities as I could
in the United States. I used about $1,500 for all my applications which
required fees.
Graduate Admissions Tests
Unlike other parts of the world, if you want to pursue graduate
studies in the United States you are required to take graduate admissions
tests. These tests are just like matriculation examinations in some countries
have or used to have in Developing Countries. I remember in 2004, before
joining the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, I had to take the
matriculation examination. Nowadays I haven’t seen prospective students in
Tanzania taking such exams before joining university studies.
Graduate Record
Examination (GRE)
In
the very simplest way, I can say, GRE is for all applicants who plan to pursue
graduate programs that are not related to management (non-management programs).
In my case, I did GRE because I was applying for social science programs like
political science, public administration, leadership, human rights, peace
studies and so forth.
It
costs about $205 to take GRE. What you need to do is to go to the official
website of GRE which is www.ets.org/gre then
search for the testing center (location) in your country. You can pay online on
your own just by using your Visa or MasterCard debit cards. Some banks in some
countries I know they don’t “allow” to use your card to do online purchase or
transactions despite the fact that those cards are visa or MasterCard. If that
happens to you, you go to your bank they will fix it for you and you can do it on
your own. There are some people who charge you more to use their cards to pay for
your fees. For instance, the exam is $205, they will tell you to pay them $250
so that they use their cards. Don’t waste your money in that manner, just go to
your bank will allow your card to be able to do online transactions.
I
have done GRE two times so far. The first time I did was in October 2008, and
the second time in 2015. Usually, the test results expire after 5 years. Back
in 2008, I took the test because I was applying for a master’s degree in
various universities in the United States. And in 2015, I was applying for
Ph.D. studies.
Apart
from the examination fees of $205, there are other fees associated with the
examination. Something you need to know about education in the United States
when it comes to transcripts or results, it’s the responsibility of the
university (your former school) to send transcripts to the university you are
applying to. They obviously charge you a certain amount, usually ranging from
$10 to $25. This is to protect the integrity of the results and people not to
tamper with the transcripts so that results need to be official once sent by
the university or of by the students must be sealed, unopened. When it comes to
GRE, it works the same way as normal transcripts sending.
Usually, the student/applicant needs to pay special fees to the
owners of the examination, Education Testing Service (ETS). The ETS charges $27
for each copy of the test results when you order to send to the university you
are applying to. And when it comes to TOEFL, the ETS charges $17 for each test
result for TOEFL. What does that mean to the applicant? You must be financially
stable to apply for universities in the United States. You need to pay $205 for
GRE, $195 for TOEFL, about $50 for application fees, $27 copy of GRE results to
be sent to the university by the ETS, and finally, about $17 for TOEFL results
to be sent. The good thing is the fact that your GRE and TOEFL results can be
used over and over until they expire (TOEFL expires after 2 years and GRE for 5
years).
If
you do your calculations for applying for one university in the United States,
it costs about $100 per application. That amount excludes the money you used
for GRE or GMAT or TOEFL or IELTS.
There
is one huge offer on the day you are taking the GRE exam. After finishing
taking the test, you are given the offer of selecting up to 4 universities of
your choice and the ETS will send the test results once they are out without
any extra charge. If you put those 4 universities, you have saved $27 per university, that’s about $108. My suggestion to you is to have a plan of which universities
do you plan to apply to. Don’t ever pass that opportunity. In both times I was
taking the examination, I had universities I was going to apply to. The screen
will display all states and universities with their special codes, you choose
then results will be sent.
Practice practice
practice. Make sure you know the format of the test, go to the website www.ets.org/gre you
will download free software to practice. You will be able to know the format,
sample questions, and techniques. But also you can go on YouTube and get some
techniques from others. Find books online and make sure you practice a lot to
get good scores.
Graduate Management
Admission Test (GMAT)
The GMAT, on the other hand, is for students who want to study management programs at the graduate level. For instance, you want to study for an MBA, you will need to take the GMAT. The exams fee is $250 and you find the test center in your country online at https://www.mba.com/exams
When you go for doctorate studies, you can either pursue your studies in coursework and dissertation like how you did in your master’s degree or completely do a Ph.D. by thesis.
And my thesis, it means
you don’t attend normal classroom instructions with other students. It’s just
you and your supervisor to work on your thesis
Generally speaking, almost all universities in the United States prefer
coursework and dissertation paths for doctorate students. Europe, Australia,
Zealand and other countries prefer a Ph.D. by thesis for students. These two
paths have different implications in applying for admissions and scholarships.
I have done both ways, I applied through thesis and also coursework.
When
you are applying in the United States, know that you are applying to study
Ph.D. through coursework and dissertation method. And the application process
is no different from applying for master’s admissions. What you do you
directly apply to the department for the admissions and scholarships. In this
case, you don’t need to have a Ph.D. proposal at hand, or you don’t need to
have a Ph.D. supervisor in order to receive admission. You will be attending
coursework with your classmates, and once you finish the coursework you will decide
which topic to work on.
In my opinion, it’s easy to apply to as many universities and scholarships through
Ph.D. by coursework and dissertation. As long as the department has the program
you like, and they are offering scholarships, you just go ahead and apply. You
have nothing to worry about whether there will be a good supervisor or
not.
In
Europe and the rest of the world, Ph.D. by thesis has different ways of
applying. First and foremost, you are supposed to find a supervisor for your
Ph.D. This is because you will not be attending classroom instructions, so you
need to have a supervisor from day one. So when it comes to the application,
you don’t apply directly to the university. What you are supposed to do is to
find who will supervise your thesis once admitted to that university.
In this case, you need to have a Ph.D. proposal on hand. You need to have
something in mind you want to do in your Ph.D. You need to write a proposal of
at least 5-10 pages. You will use this proposal along with your resume,
transcripts, and other related documents to apply for a supervisor. What many
people do is to find the university, then you go to the department and search for professors in the department with expertise in your area of study. For
instance, if you want to write something about elections better to find someone
in political science with such expertise and interest. If the professor accepts
to supervise you, he/she is going to send you the acceptance letter that he/she
will be your supervisor. That letter is technically the admission letter for
your doctorate studies.
One thing you need to know even before requesting for the supervisor is to find out
if the program you are applying to is offering full scholarships for international
students. If you don’t do that in advance, you will end up getting the
supervisor but no financial support from the university.
As I
pointed out earlier that, you need to apply for as many universities as
possible to get one. If you are looking for a supervisor for your Ph.D. by
thesis, don’t send one e-mail to one professor and sit down to wait for
acceptance. Send even e-mails to more than 30 professors from different universities
that offer various scholarships. In case you get accepted and given
scholarships, at that moment you will start figuring out where to go by making
a cost-benefit analysis.
Generally speaking,
applying in the United States has more requirements than applying in other
countries around the world. There are more requirements in terms of entrance
examinations and application fees to schools you are applying to. If your dream
is to study in the United States, you have to prepare yourself with money to
incur all expenses but also well prepare yourself with those tests making sure
you get good results.
The choice is yours on where to apply. But if you know for sure you have limited
resources especially, I would advise you to focus more on applying for
scholarships in Europe and other countries than applying in the United States.
Ernest Boniface Makulilo
EBM SCHOLARS
Missouri, USA
www.youtube.com/ebmscholars (for
English Videos)
www.youtube.com/ebmswahili (for Swahili Videos)
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