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Looking to study abroad but worried about the cost? Here’s Good news!

There’s a popular misconception that studying abroad can be very expensive for anyone to afford, but that’s not true at all!  There are thousands of scholarships for studying overseas that are just waiting for you!

Obtaining an international scholarship is a very difficult task. We assist you in understanding everything and familiarizing one with the complex procedures of getting a scholarship for studying abroad.  

Whether you need help with need-based or merit-based scholarships, external merit scholarship research and sourcing, or just want another set of eyes on your financial aid application prior to getting admission, 360 College Review are here to provide the help you need!

The Detailed Analysis of ‘Study Abroad Scholarships’

A scholarship for studying abroad entails the monetary award earned by exceptional students who can prove themselves and present themselves accordingly. The financial support given as a part of this may be applicable for paying tuition expenses, course books, as well as additional expenses like air travel expenses and payment for accommodation once you are at the destination on your plan.

Each scholarship requires a varying approach. It is for the student to understand what factors will  carry the maximum weight. Team 360 College Review steps in here to get involved in the process and guides the applicant through the entire process. Whether you have to apply separately for a scholarship or you have to submit your application along with the main documentation and also discovering the most suitable scholarship for your case are all points that we at 360 College Review have at our fingertips.

 The Variety of Scholarships Available for Studying Abroad

All scholarship categories have a number of specifications which the applicants needs to take cognizance of. Choosing the precise and most apt scholarship is no easy task. It requires judicious and wise yet rapid decision making!

Presented below are a number of scholarships of varying types which exist for applicants who wish to study abroad. Each of them needs thorough examination:

• Scholarships Based on Merit: The outstanding and exceptional record of a student’s academic achievements, research orientation, sports skills or artistic abilities are considered for scholarships based on merit. These are considered as extra-curricular activities and have varying influence on the points considered for grant of a scholarship.
• Scholarships Sponsored by the Country in Which you Wish to Pursue Education: There are several government sponsored websites or educational bodies of certain countries which award scholarships to students who plan to attend an educational course in a specific country. These awards are based on the students motivation level to study in that country. Team 360 College Review provides guidance to facilitate students in finding such options.
• Scholarships Based on Background and Ethnicity: There are a number of scholarships which are awarded to students on the basis of their background and ethnicity like their race, gender, religion and medical history. Such scholarships aim at promoting equal opportunities for all. The most popular among these are minority based scholarships.
• Scholarships Based on Subject of Specialization: There are scholarships which require an applicant to enroll for a subject-specific course while they are pursuing their educational goals abroad. The eligibility criteria for such a scholarship may vary from course to course. These scholarships are based on the applicant’s field of study or the subjects in which they major.
• Scholarships Based on Specific Programs:  Several universities and colleges offer scholarships on the basis of their personal and academic achievements. The eligibility and qualification criteria may vary as per the requirements of the scholarship.

The Scholarship Sponsors –The Custodians

Scholarships are awarded by many organizations like schools, colleges, businesses, non-profit groups, individual patrons and philanthropists and government organizations to international students. Each scholarship is in recognition of a specific factor of a students’ life cycle and aims to motivate and inspire the international student towards a goal – this award may range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. As a student on foreign territory, every little input counts towards a wider horizon. Some scholarships are given to the student directly to cover their expenses and some are given directly to the institute of education as tuition fees so that the student does not have to incur that expense.

 The Support Team

The 360 College Review Team counsels students and counsels their families towards garnering  comprehensive financial aid which may also include university merit scholarship identification.

In addition, Team 360 College Review advises students on how to find and research about external funding sources. With the help of 360 College Review Application & Essay Mentors, we ensure that students are enabled to build strong scholarship applications.

We comprehend that each applicant and each application requires individualized treatment as it needs to be processed as a unique entity simply because every family’s needs are different. We stand by each applicant in their endeavor towards identifying financial aid and merit scholarship services like those enumerated below:

• Assessing the Multiple Options
• Developing an Academic Savings and Spending Strategy
• Exploring Opportunities for Scholarship and Evaluating Education Loan Options
• Evaluating the Eligibility Criteria for Need-Based Financial Aid
• Negotiating Scholarship and Financial Aid Offers
• Optimizing Payment Plans
• Preparing Letters of Appeal for Financial Support
• Repayment Strategies for Education Loan
• Search Support for Private Scholarship
• Saving for Further Studies and Future
• Understanding the Need for Requirements of a Financial Aid Application

The Preparation of an Application for Scholarships to Study Abroad

All scholarship applications are different and need to be attended to minutely. Some applications need to be drafted with a fine-toothed comb and demand intense involvement, however, some applications get drafted so smoothly that it’s like running a hot knife going through butter. Either- ways, all applications have to follow a finely defined path and go through the aging cycle as required for each process. During the process of compiling the university application, one has to pay detailed attention to all the documents like the LOR, essays, SOP, etc.

Given below is the stepwise approach to be followed while applying for a scholarship to study overseas:

1. Compile All Documents

– Do a thorough research and chose the country you want to study in

– Explore around for the scholarships you wish to apply for

– Collect and compile all your documents

– Prepare an academic transcript with the full history of your grades

– Request this transcript from your current school and all other education institutes you’ve been a part of.

– Your financial records: Your financial records will depend on how you’re financially supported at the moment. For example, if your parents support you, you’ll need information about their yearly salaries and income. If you’re independent, you need to provide your credit score and information about your income.

2. Draft your resume

– Your resume is the most important document – thus, you have to prepare it yourself. Be familiar with every word you put on it. Every word should be relevant and relate to who you are as a person.

– Your resume needs to highlight your skills, academic achievements, experience and non-academic accomplishments. It is important that your curriculum vitae is attractive but it is even more important that it is true.

– Ensure that you keep it simple and succinct – limited to one page.

– Do not stress yourself if you don’t have extracurricular activities to write about. Scholarship committees are mostly interested to know about your passion and commitment.

– Emphasize on the fact that you are aware of what you want and you have put in all your efforts in that one direction only. This shows the seriousness of your intentions.

3. Find Your References

– You have to list out your references in advance – this is highly significant.

– Make a list of your teachers, professors, non-academic staff and professionals with whom you’ve had a strong connection.

– If you have a work experience, list out previous employers, current employers, seniors and colleagues who valued your work, or even friends who can speak on your behalf.

– Inform all the persons whom you are listing as references, about the purpose of including their name and credential in your application. They may hear from your future institutes for a reference check. Give them considerable time to write out a thoughtful reference which will stand in your favor.

– Be thoughtful and plan the referencing step as you need a document which will support your credibility and worthiness.

4. Write a unique essay for each application

–  Your personal essay is an original document and it has to be fresh every time. It may be framed along the same lines each time but it should not be identical. It is suggested that you chronicle the details as bullet points. So, varying them each time will be easier.

– The essay about you should be personal, inspiring and a well written essay that delineates your goals, dreams and passion.

– Your essay should briefly outline the pathway about how a scholarship will allow you to chase your passion and facilitate these goals and dreams.

– Be honest, direct and wrote with clarity. Do not use bombastic jargon and lose your content in rhetoric.

– Share your learning from your experiences and what made you choose this path and how this leads to your career path.

– Ensure that you follow all the rules and guidelines which have been provided.

Getting a rejection letter should not be allowed to crush you. Instead, it should be taken as a learning experience. At the 360 College review we take you up at this juncture and then step by step deconstruct the entire process. The objective is to firstly, take you out of a possibly negative learning curve that may end up dashing your dreams altogether and secondly, we need you to bounce back as soon as possible so that we can help you reapply with confidence.

Our four-stage service is a totally constructive process for promoting a win-win situation. The consultants at 360 College Review will go over the entire admissions profile for highlighting areas of improvement. They will examine the previous application, and suggest a strategic plan to move forward and help you gain acceptance to your school of choice.

We help you pick up the threads and rediscover your confidence and energy to reapply or apply elsewhere. We stand by you, hold you up and even prepare you well enough to overcome all anticipated hurdles in the admissions process.

Addressing the rejection and moving on

Instead of wondering and moping over what could not be done it is our institutional approach that we roll up the sleeves and get to work on overcoming all hurdles.

There may be several reasons why the previous application was rejected but we do not dwell for long on that and move on to the next stage that requires a fresh approach to the application process.

The fresh application would entail:

1. Ascertaining the suitability of the applicant to the academic threshold being applied for. All courses required are available and the degree to which the applicant is suitable to apply are all researched and studied thoroughly
2. Preparing the applicant on the basis of grades, skills and image. We help you cover all bases with a rare dedication and sincerity of purpose.
3. Completing the application in the minutest detail. Doubly checking and then re-checking to ensure that nothing has been overlooked nor any loose ends left untied.
4. Meeting Deadlines by ensuring all relevant pieces of information required for the particular institution have been collected, collated and reported upon. The application should be airtight with all relevant queries answered and additional inputs given where required.
5. Bridging the gap between dreams, aspirations and ‘best fit’ besides availability of requisite courseware.

At 360 College Review we equip every applicant with ‘Informed Choices’. When the applicant has an idea of what he or she wants, we work towards helping them attain their goals. We are meticulous with the application process and take you through every step of the way.

1. No scope for errors: Nothing brings down the quality of the application as does the presence of errors and typographical mistakes.

2. Ignorance and being ill-informed is no excuse for a below par application
3. Honing inherent writing and composing skills: This is mandatory as the application goes through several levels of checks and measures.

4. Tempering the Temperament: Aberrations of behavior can be easily picked up by the trained counselors supervising the admissions process and our counselors at 360 College Review are also well versed in picking up hints of behavioral problems. They can help in dealing with such situations and can make the passage of the applicant smooth and hassle free.

5. When demand is greater than supply: Most institutions are eager to enroll the maximum number of applicants but they are overwhelmed by the deluge of applications every year and have to often reject applications despite the candidates fulfilling all conditions or even being ‘interesting’. The idea here is to be so good that one is hard to reject under any circumstances. Several institutions have confessed the need for diversity from academics to athletics.

6. The Essay Winning Streak: Writing the concise, precise and yet interesting essay entails obtaining the personal narrative, aspirations, academic interests, as well as personality traits and value system of the applicant. Team 360 College Review is tuned in to your persona and can best help you put your thoughts onto paper for creating a well-directed and comprehensively drafted essay.

Now that You have been put on the Waiting List – Here is how we can help you

Have you been Wait Listed? Congrats as there is hope. The college admissions experts at 360 Colleges Review can help you work quickly and surely on your application to take it from the Waitlist to the Accepted list. This entails our Quartet Approach.

Being in limbo need not bring life to a standstill. We can help you change the wait-listed status.

Here is the Quartet Approach for waitlisted candidates

• Review: Consultants examine your college application thoroughly to identify reasons for the wait listing.
• Discussion Points: The contents of the waitlist letter are gone over with you via phone or Skype to understand the points of conflict.
• Intense Redressal: Consultants analyse the content of your waitlisted material to ascertain possibilities of revision .
• Innovative Ascertainment: Redefining the letter, checking clarity, style, grammar, word usage, and spelling.

Our Special Waitlist Services Team is focused on:

• Putting together more reasons to admit you to your school of choice. The idea is to give themenough reasons to reconsider your wait-list position.
• Successively address the concerns the school where admission has been sought may have raised.
• Re-create the best fit between the school and your application.
• Make optimum use of the time.

You need to Show your Sustained and Continued Interest – we will help you along

Advice is easy to come by. Everybody seems to have something to say. There’s so much advice floating around about waitlists and letters of continued interest. It is like the tale of the elephant and the five blind men. Each person has his or her perception.

Many a times the advice is being given by someone who in reality has no real idea nor has any first hand experience. We at the 360 College Review have had the pleasure of being at both the sides of the admissions desk. It is our endeavour to help you understand the thinking processes of the Admissions Officer of your chosen institution for further studies.

The Wait Listing Period holds several opportunities for you

Just imagine that the admissions officer has presented you with a window of opportunity to sharpen your approach. You can make yourself better equipped to be greatly acceptable. You can understand the urgency of the admissions officer to immediately fill up an available admissions entry with the most desirable and most suitable candidate. The idea is to rapidly close the vacancy without touching upon or unduly playing upon variables that may or may not depend upon the ideal admissions scenario for you.

Your dynamics, flexibility and agility of thought are what are going to help you succeed and we at 360 College Review are here to do the hand holding to the point of acceptance. The admissions officer must find it virtually impossible to ignore you. You have to shine bright enough to be in their eye all the time. You become their most suitable candidate.

You may not be aware but this is a very crucial time for the Admissions Offices as well. They have to meticulously examine the suitability of every candidate and when some have to be wait-listed they do not entertain candidates who are unable to present their case better. The Admissions Office refuses to bear the brunt of a candidate being lost to them. Every vacant seat for them is a prohibitive loss. Therefore, they are eager to obtain the most suitable candidate, at the earliest and yet at no dilution of quality and standards.

 Revenue generation is at the crux of the admissions and enrollment process. The Admissions Officer is responsible for ensuring that the institution’s financial goals are also being met through their recruitment and enrolling exercise. The one-point program is to fill up all the requisite seats and do so quickly with the most suitable candidates. Making you suitable enough is our job at 360 College Review.

Here are some commonly encountered facts for your information:

1. Letters of Continued Interest are desired only by a hand full of colleges. We are aware of this and can help you approach accordingly. Most colleges give explicit details about what they do or do not want from you while you are waitlisted. It is a period of improving your chances.
2. Several institutions discourage the sending of a ‘letter of continued interest’ as they are large and wide berthed and probably do not want to encourage a deluge of mail that they are already having a tough time handling. Thus, they very clearly advice against any approach at all. We at 360 College Review are totally aware of this and will guide you accordingly.
3. Nevertheless, there is the small percentage of institutions that do want to know more about you and are willing to hear from you during the wait-listed period. It is here that we step in to guide you every step of the way. You will be asked to send a small write-up on your specific interests that suit the basic requirements of the institution that you are applying to. We help you put your best foot forward. Instead adding to the already submitted documents we will help you present your case in a manner that is all the more desirable for the institution where you may be seeking entry. The objective here is short precise and concise information provided with a fresh flavor and appeal. It is our specialty to understand your requirements and blend them with those of the institution and help you present them in the best possible way.
4. We help you frame answers that present every desirable facet of your personality and aspirations. We bring you about to the point where you can pre-commit to enrolling – the point of no return where you are well into crossing the admissions levels and going on into enrollment. There are a number of hidden connotations to being pre-committed and wait-listed for more than one institution. We at 360 College Review take you through the finer points of all these systems. We help you understand the significance of being on a wait list of one or more than one institution. The fact that Pre-committing goes with the assumption that you would be willing to pay full fare, and that your decision does not depend on any other factors, like financial aid. We are here to ensure that you understand the ramifications of all the actions and counter-actions. We are here to make you aware of the finer aspects of the process and how best you can leverage your enrollment to the best advantage possible for yourself.
5. Sharp Decision Making and Quick Responses. This wait listed period is for deep thinking and instantaneous decision making. The small window of opportunity to be made the most of and if all things are conducive the wait list status should be materialized into an enrollment status. Once a commitment is made the choice of joining and the likely time period is literally in our hands. Whether you join immediately or maybe in the next session is totally your prerogative.
6. Letting Go. Once the decisions and choices are put in place all we need to do is follow through with information, preparedness and even getting what we set out to get within the requisite parameters and allied variables. There is always the possibility that there may be confirmed enrollments in more places than one. We help you eliminate the ones not closest to your objectives and aspirations and help you focus on the ones you absolutely need.

1. Driving the Admission Drivers

It is critical for the applicant to understand what the business schools demands are. To be able to market yourself in the right manner especially in the highly competitive process of getting into a choice business school is a major challenge. What drives these drivers is the focal point. Team 360 College Review has culled some of the aspects that MBA admission committees value the most in business school applicants. These are the lens through which we see our applicants. Given below is the list of admissions drivers most MBA admission committees value the most in business school applicants:

• Leader/Manager– They want the cream talent – an outstanding Team Leader.
• Team Player/Relationship Builder –They appreciate those who build relationships despite difficult circumstances.
• Smart–Application with academic distinctions, GMAT, recommender reviews.
• Initiates– Initiated successful projects / changes.
• International/Cultural– Experienced international orientation and exhibits exposure and having remarkable cultural sensitivity.
• Presentation Skills– Well honed art of public speaking especially for large audiences often presenting to senior people, or even a skilled, talented team.
• Persuasion Skills– Possessing the art of persuasion among seniors

It is an accepted fact that the king of all Admission Drivers is Leadership. The focus is on answering all segments of the question being asked. The idea is to remove any form of ambiguity that goes beyond the scope of the question being asked.

2. Focus on the Question

• Answer all segments of the question.
• Example: Describe one of your greatest achievements and why you view it as such
• Remove sentences that go beyond the scope of the question.

3. Focus on Facts

Avoid subjective terms:

• Objective: it’s either right or not.
• Subjective: it’s a matter of opinion.

4. Dig deep for details

• Being as specific as you can be

5. Hold interest with detailed write-up

• Make it interesting to read
• The essay should be unique and bold

6. Ideas should be conveyed in short paragraphs, short sentences with distinctive section titles.

• Our essays are short, crispy and have juicy content relevant to the question

7. Strict Adherence to instructions like word count. Avoid being verbose. Saying much in a few words is the skill

8. Be Modest.

• Admit mistakes, be sincere, and criticize yourself. Stick to the facts always and provide authentic, verifiable information

9. Writing the Episode Essay should be like writing stories.