Please carefully review a) the key sections of the website, b) important guidance on using these resources; and c) the disclaimer below, to ensure the strongest-possible application.
Key sections of the website
1. Field-Specific Tip sheets: These contain admission tips for a specific field and country (i.e. motivation for applying to that particular field/country, the degrees available, application components etc.)
- For field-specific tip sheets: you will be asked to select the degree-type (bachelors, masters, doctorate, medicine), country (USA, UK, etc.) and field (business, anthropology, etc.) to find application tips for that specific field/country/degree-type.
- Most of our field-specific tip-sheets are for the UK and USA. However, you may be able to use these when applying to this field in another country (see ‘Note on translatability keys’ below).
- If we don’t have a tip sheet for a Masters program that you are interested in, you should consult the doctorate tip-sheet (if we have one for that field), to get some advice that can be useful for your masters application. (Vice versa: if we don’t have a doctorate tip-sheet for your field, please consult the masters tip sheet for that field — if we have one — to get some beneficial advice).
2. Country profiles: These give an overview of each country (i.e. degrees available, funding opportunities, visa process, accommodation options, etc.).
- Note on translatability keys: We have included ‘translatability keys’ within country profiles. These ‘translatability keys’ outline: how application processes for this country compare to applications in the UK or the US (in terms of timelines, component requirements, degree types etc.) This information should allow you to: i) look at the field-specific tips given for USA or UK; then ii) adapt these tips for an application to another country (using the ‘translatability key’ in that country’s profile).
3. General tip sheets: general information on how to work on each component of an application.
4. Other
- AV Library: contains all our downloadable and multimedia resources (many of our tip-sheets also have download links, so you can access the tips offline in pdf format).
- We also have a section which contains tips for students with disabilities.
IMPORTANT GUIDANCE ON USING THESE RESOURCES
- What is the best way to use these resources?
Look at the relevant field-specific tip sheet and country profile you are interested in. Combine these with the general tips on our website. Consolidate all this information with your own research (online sources, university websites, talking to people you know etc.).
- What if there is no tip sheet for the field I am interested in?
If you are interested in applying to a field we do not have a tip sheet for, go through the relevant country profile and familiarize yourself with higher education there. You should also go through a field-specific tip sheet we have developed for this field for another country, then look at the translatability key (within the country profile) to adapt these field-specific tips to the country you are applying to. You should also consult the general tips, review tips for allied fields, and conduct your own research.
- What if there is no country profile for the country I want to apply to?
If there are no profile for the country you are interested in applying to, you can still benefit from going through the general tips we have listed on our website. Further, application-tips for the USA tend to be fairly comprehensive for masters and PhD programs, do you can still consult our field-specific tip-sheets for these countries and gain some benefit in your application.
- How do I deal with broken links on the tip sheets/country profiles?
Please note that all links embedded in our tip sheets/country profiles were funtioning when this content was created. However such external links can be changed/deleted/moved by their owners and so may be broken (i.e. do not open) in the future. For such links we recommend that you search for them online — for this you can google the title of the link (if avaialble) or key words (these are the ones used in our content, which explain what the link includes or the organization the link belongs to etc.) to find its current and functioning version. Other ways to access this link include searching the title/keywords of the link on the main page of the organization (which the link belongs to) — sometimes the content of the link is moved to another section of the website etc. If such methods fail, don’t worry — for our tip sheets and country profiles we try to extract all relevant information from the links we find, and so it is likley that the information on the broken link has been summarized in our content.
Disclaimer
We have developed the content on this website, making every effort to make sure it is accurate and comprehensive: checking the reliability of sources, drawing on sources based on their reliability (university websites, faculty blogs, professional organization pages, etc.) and — when possible — corroborating information through interviews with professors, counselors and other relevant experts. However, we do not claim that the information is error-free (there is always a possibility that our sources may have been unreliable, or the information may be outdated, etc.) Therefore, we suggest that you use our tips as a guide during the application process, but these tips should not be a replacement for your own research. In fact, our tips are meant to be the starting-point for your research, not the end-point. It is, therefore, highly recommended that you do your own research as well — especially by visiting your prospective university website and speaking with faculty, counselors and others who are knowledgeable about your field.
Payment
Our resource is free for students and prospective applicants. If you are an institutional user who is benefitting from our resource (an educational consultant, school/university counselor, etc.), we request that you make a donation to help sustain this website for the benefit of students.
