hey all i'm Apurva welcome back to WeDesified this is our ninth video in the study in the usa series
in this video we are going to talk about the complete application timeline all the things
you need while applying for the college in the us and we will also tell you how you can plan
this process step by step in detail so let's get to it but before that please subscribe to
our channel and also hit the bell icon so that you will be notified every time you upload a new
video so far in our previous videos we have discussed about gre toefl lor sop
and other things you need for the admission but let me remind you that this application process
is painstaking long and expensive so you need a good plan in place to get everything right
you don't want to waste your money and precious time in this process
we know a lot of people who had to postpone their plans for a semester or even for a year
because they couldn't get that dream admit or that scholarship since they missed mr deadline if you
don't want to be one of them then you should watch this video carefully and make a timeline that
works best for you the admission deadlines mainly depends on which semester you would be going for
the priority deadlines which means the deadlines to be considered for scholarships would be around
december and january for fall semesters and around august and september for the spring semesters
if you would be going for fall right after your graduation then you will have to start
thinking about this process in your final year of undergraduation itself the first thing you need to
decide on is which semester you want to apply to we have already made a detailed comparison
between fall and spring semesters in this video so go check that out if you haven't already in
a nutshell most people go for fall semester to have a continuous education without any gaps
but if your main goal is research or you are going for an undergrad or a phd program then you
can choose either fall or spring semester based on your convenience if you are applying for a
master's program then most colleges require you to have a four year undergrad degree or 16 years of
education so make sure you check this requirement if you are in a three year undergrad program
now the next thing is to start preparing for the gre exam we think on an average six to eight weeks
is a good time to prepare for gre understand the pattern of the exam and give a mock test
within the first week of your preparation itself to understand your strong and weak areas focus
more on increasing the score and it is very much possible to increase your score by at least 10 to
15 marks by putting efforts in the right direction while you're preparing for the gre like one month
into the preparation start writing your sop so that all those fancy gre words are still
fresh in your mind and it can help you to work on that story building skills for your writing
in the last two weeks write as many timed mock tests as possible like writing your main exam
plan your toefl or is exam also within the next one two weeks after your gre because the writing
and reading in gre will be helpful for your toefl or ielts as well and you will just have to
practice the listening and speaking sections also don't forget to make your own templates for your
toefl exam while preparing for your toefl exam you can simultaneously finalize which universities you
want to apply because the university selection would mostly be based on your gre scores
you can start looking at the colleges based on your mock test scores and finalize them
after your main exam so by the time you are done with your toefl preparation you would
be ready with the list of colleges you want to apply and also their toefl requirements
most of the colleges have overall cutoffs but some may have sectional cutoffs too like you have
to score this much in reading and that much in listening etc so you will understand how much you
need to score people usually apply to six to eight colleges like two to three in safe two to three in
moderate and two to three in ambitious range so do good research and finalize which college you
wanna apply to mainly based on their curriculum your background and scores don't just listen to
some consultancy or counselor this is your future and you need to decide which college to apply to
spend the next couple of weeks on completing the first draft of your sop and loas and get them
proof read multiple times if you are applying for a phd program then keep at least a month to reach
out to the professors and have back and forth communication with them while you finalize your
colleges the next thing is to prepare your resume and order the transcripts from your university
typically the resumes can be multiple pages so put all your relevant projects and experiences at it
the transcripts should be officially signed and sealed from your university so do not tamper with
the seal and send them in a sealed envelope many people get confused between transcripts and mark
sheets well mark sheets as the name suggests are the individual mark sheets that you get for every
semester or for a year whereas the transcripts are like the consolidated sheet that shows all your
marks for all the semesters together along with them you will have to send the original degree you
can send them a provisional degree if you haven't received your original degree by that time in case
your final semester grades are not declared yet you can send the transcripts up to your seventh
semester that's totally fine and you can submit them after you start your college in the us too
most of the u.s universities are familiar with the indian universities and their grading system
but some of them are not in that case they might ask you to go for a wus evaluation
for your transcripts again very few colleges in the us are asking for ws evaluation these days
and you can probably avoid applying to those colleges unless that is like a dream university
because again you will have to pay more money and you must be already feeling that you are
putting way too much money into this what is wes wea stands for world education services and what
they do is they review your transcripts courses curriculum grading system and take a few other
factors into consideration and convert your gpa from a 10 point system or percentage system that
is usually followed in india to a four point rate system which is a u.s equivalent so this has both
good and bad like if you have good grades already your wes gpa is going to be really high since they
converted into a four pointer and high chances will end up getting 3.5 or even higher but in case
your gpa is low since your college grading system is very difficult and wes doesn't know about it
then it might not yield you good results so if you end up going for wes then keep these things
in mind they have two different evaluations document by document and course by course
verify which one your prospective university needs they need a sealed transcript copy to be
sent for them for evaluation and they would send the results directly to the college so you might
end up paying some more in case you are reporting them to multiple colleges also keep a few buffer
days to get the report from wes some colleges just accept everything online you can upload everything
in their portal pay the application fees and you would be done but some colleges need you to send
them the hard copies as well so what goes inside that mission packet well you would report your gre
and toefl or ir scores directly to the college but you can still keep their hard copies in the
admission packet you can also keep the copies of your sop resume and eloas which is optional again
but mainly the sealed and signed transcripts so you will have to order the sets accordingly
you can also keep the financial documents like your bank statements loan letters if any or
affidavits for them to process your i20 asap but in the case they are not ready you can upload them
in their portal later people usually use fedex or dhl and york it also has some very good deals
so check them out and find the one that suits you the best so for the timeline of the application
process this is what it looks like six to eight weeks for gre one to two weeks for toefl or ielts
two to three weeks for sop and loss one week for resume transcripts and wes if needed
and one week to send the admission packet so in total it would take about 15 to 16 weeks
that is about 4 months so if you are going for fall semester you should start at least
by august and for spring semester at least by may so that's all we have for today we will come
up with more videos on the next steps let us know if you have any questions in the comments
below and please like share and subscribe to our channel until next time take care bye