Choosing the Right Counselor - Major Decision Dear Students, US offers large variety of Quality options for every profile of the students. It is one of the country having more than 3500 Universities out of which around 500 Universities across disciplines regarded as excellent. The students who start research atleast 1 year in advance are able to choose right University. However, majority starts late and thereby rely upon the their friends and others for the advice and evaluate only 30-40 Universities. Counsellors play major role in advising the students start from Selection of Universities, application process, Financial Aid, VISA etc. However, today most of the Counsellors have become so commercial that student interest has taken a back seat. PLEASE DO NOT choose the Counsellor who has tie-up with the Universities. Tie-up means a Commercial relationship between the Counsellor and University and they are paid huge Referral Commission in exchange of sending students. ONCE the Counsellor is paid REFERRAL COMMISSION, students will never gets the financial aid as University expects students to pay FULL FEES. ALSO you will be pushed into to lower University even though you have the profile for far better University and to me this is MAJOR ISSUE. The Student interest has taken a backseat over the commercial decision. THE GOOD COUNSELLORS MUST have following: No University Tie-ups: There are large number of Universities fitting each profile and there is no need to have tie-up. If Counsellors have tie-up, they will have inclination to suggest tie-up Universities for huge Referral Commission. 2. Research Team: This is ESSENTIAL. With changing admission criteria, the Counsellor should have a team which constantly interact with Universities, compile the admitted students data, compile financial aid data, track the changing admission requirement and have expertise in converting your Graduation marks into US-GPA which is very important for University selection. Very few have GPA conversion expertise and you should ask this to Counsellor. 3. Financial Aid: The amount of Financial aid being offered to International Students are HUGE. Check University web-sites for the figures. However, Indian students do get far less scholarships than Chinese, Korean, Singaporean students. This is purely due to NO EFFORTS by Counsellors to identify Universities with surplus amounts arising out of Industrial funding from Research, have no capacity to screen Faculty profile, have no contact with faculties nor have research data specific to your area of specialisation. The approach is too generic and they will ask you to apply without any research or data in hand. Due to this even students with excellent profiles do not get funding. Counsellors should know how to approach for Teaching or Research Assistantship as it requires specialised efforts. Do ask these questions to Counsellors. Most Counsellors will tell you that it is difficult to get these in first year as they have no information or expertise how to get these. Check University web-sites which shows the RA/TA figures. Students who makes structured efforts do get these from 1st Semester itself. Teaching Assistantship is like getting around 60% fee waiver and Research Assistantship almost full waiver. These are HUGE amount but how much efforts you as students and Counsellors do to get these. If Counsellors leave the RA/TA to students, they definitely do not understand the US education and admission system. 4. Right Country Choice: Many counsellors have tendency to divert you from USA to Australia/UK as they do not have USA strength and are not confident. If you ask for Information about USA and the Counsellors talk about any other country, please stop and move out. That is not the right counsellor for you. 5. Experience: USA is one the most difficult countries and Understanding the USA education system, requirements etc. takes minimum 3-4 years. It is not an easy task thereby experience of the Counsellors is key. Sometime for big Counsellor organisations, the TOP management is definitely have the expertise but the Junior Counsellor dealing with you are not thereby you are deprived. Please see to it that you have access to TOP and they directly help. This is essential. Finally, students should do their own research, plan their activities well in advance and approach in systematic way. Identifying Counsellors with dedication and Student-centric approach is key. Counsellors should also follow the Ethical practices as Education is noble field and commercials should always comes second to student interest. We hope students will see value in this article. Please send your feedback to tushar@AstuteAcademy and we will be happy to reply to your specific queries. Tushar Vinod Deoras - Founder- Counsellor Astute Overseas Education Academy AstuteAcademy
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 12:11:32 +0000
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