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GRE and Applying to US Universities

2 : Pre-Apping
References : Peterson's Guide
Generally pre-apping is done in the Summer vacs before the final year. You can either pre-app by post or by e-mail. The advantage of sending by post is that it is almost sure that the letter will reach there and also it is a job of a few days writing all the addressess on 70 - 90 envelopes. Also, the addresses are more easily available from Peterson's Guide.
For pre-apping on-line, you gotto have the e-mail addresses of the Grad Offices of various univs and a Sample Preapp. It is much faster and at times the friendly Grad-Secy's reply to your mail confirming that you will receive the app packet soon. The major hassle is to get these e-mail addresses. Another disadvantage is that generally it spreads over a greater time period. Anyway, the choice is yours.
The best part is that you really don't need to worry too much if you don't get app packets from some univs `coz at the time of apping you always get it from a friend or a friend's friend or ....
One more thing, at this point you might like to have a ranking list of your department which can be obtained from :

• Rankings of all Departments.
• US NEWS Magazine.

3 : Sucking
References :
This is the most important part of the entire apping process. Sucking, as it is called in IIT, is the process of writing to the profs in your field with your resume and intent to join their univ. Important because this is what decides which univs you would be apping to.
Start with making a good Suck Letter. Do try and write your own suck before you cog one from the above link. Bug your seniors as much as you can about the nitty-gritty details in your suck letter. Anyway, ultimately all the suck letters (at least their structure!) turn out to be nearly the same. I sometimes wonder when those profs out there will start a standard format for the suck letters!
Nowz the time to get the e-mail addresses of as many profs as possible. This is a major time consuming task made easy by Your's Truly ... 'coz towards the end of this tutorial, we give the e-mail addresses of most of the profs in reputed EE univs ... places where an IITan would app to!
Try and suck as many profs as possible ... Suck 'em Dry!. Don't hesitate in sucking profs of higher rank univs.
Now wait for the initial replies and experience the thrill of making the first step towards the land of stars and stripes. But beware of standard replies ... which you might get from many profs.
Try and have some co-ordination amongst all the apping people at this stage too.

Finally, as I promised the e-mail addresses of the profs. We at IIT Bombay, are broadly divided in three groups according to the field of research. We give the links accordingly.

• Microelectronics Group.
• Signal Processing Group : An exhaustive page in itself containing all the stuff a SigPro guy would require.
• Communications Group : Sorry, no links yet! ... The Comm guys don't seem to be interested in passing on the info!

4A : Apping Begins - Some General Fundaes
References :
So, now that you have your suck replies etc, it's time to make one of the bigger decisions about the places you will app to. Before, I delve into some more intricate details about apping in IITB, there is some general stuff one should keep in mind. So, here goes ...
The task of deciding the univ is made easier if you try and co-ordinate your efforts with at least the guys in your field from your institute. By this stage, it would be very clear to you that an RAship totally depends on the Prof. It is he who funds you if you have an RA. So, it is wise that you guys try and follow the policy of "One Prof - One Student". A TA on the other hand, depends much on the univ - and your luck. It is here that your TSE and TOEFL scores might come in handy. This is totally dependent on your calibre and there's not much a prof can do to get you a TA-ship. Of course, if you are in for a Fellowship, man, you must be some crackoo in life and there couldn't be anything better than that.

4B : Apping Begins - Details
References :
In this tutorial, we would look at the documents generally required by each univ :

1. Form : The university form all filled up. Some univs have only one form while others have two forms : One for the Grad Office and the other for the Department. There's no need to elaborate more on this as generally the univ catalogues explain the entire procedure very clearly.
2. Transcripts : Don't blindly take two Transcripts per univ. You will be surprised to know that many univs require only one transcript. So, do count and order the precise number you require plus two extra (just in case!)
3. App Fee : Try and apply for a deferral for both the app fee and GRE/TOEFL scores : try writing to your prof Depts as well as the Grad Office. According to my experience, EE Depts generally don't defer the fee ... but there's no harm trying!
4. GRE/TOEFL Scores : Even if you don't get a deferral for these scores, generally there's no need of sending the original copies (they cost helluva lot, man!). Send in Xerox copies of these scores and if the univ desperately requires the originals, they will contact you later and you can always send 'em at that time.
5. Statement of Purpose : Here is the most trickiest of all the work. You need to put in a lot of effort in coming up with a nice impressive SOP. I am not sure how much of a role this plays in getting a schol ... but somehow everyone considers it to be really important. Moreover, if you finally come up with a nice one ... it'll make you feel very proud and you can use it later for your jobs too! Here we provide a lot of sample SOPs.
6. Other Documents : The other stuff which people generally send along with their apps are Resume with Research Summary (tex file), Recos (very important!) and some other stuff which I don't remember right now :)

Try to send your packets as early as possible so that you can send it by Speed Post rather than the other expensive couriers. Always be on the lookout for friends going abroad. This is cheaper as well as faster.

6 : Waiting for the Sun ...
References :
Now that you have sent your app packets, you should write to all the profs who replied. Do not hesitate in writing even to the ones who sent standard replies. Of course, you would get acknowledgements only from the ones who showed interest earlier on. The univs generally take at least a month or two before giving out the final decision ... unless a prof. is majorly interested in you and hurries things up just for you. Otherwise, the decisions can come in as late as June-July. So, now what you have to do is log into your account daily (there sure is going to be a lot of rush in the PC Lab after the lectures) and just wait for the

You have new mail

prompt.
For the people who have a lot of choices and have to manipulate/negotiate with one of the univs, I just have one piece of advice : Don't be too scared of the April 15th (the D-DAY ... my birthday too!) deadline, but do try and avoid getting into the mess of rejecting one univ and taking up another one. Generally, these ppl in the US are very considerate and understand your dilema. So, they do not take too much Nabad unless you have pained them a lot.
P.S: The title of this tutorial just suggests my fascination for The Doors.

6 : Things to Take
References :
Sorry, guys, currently, I am coming straight to this section.
If you reach this tutorial, you have finally cleared all the exams of the course and my heartiest Congratulations for the same. Now, all you need to do is Relax, wait for all the papers to arrive and apply for your Visa. Simultaneously, try and contact the Indian Association of your University and get your fundaes cleared about the place and it's requirements. Mostly, the list of "Things to Take" will be the same as the ones provided here.

Some other apping links:
The following are (almost) exhaustive links to U.S. univs in general and their Electrical Engineering Departments.

• Links to U.S. and Canadian Univs.
• EE Departments of U.S. Univs.