Impact of fake documents and lies on visa approval

There are many visa applicants who lie during the visa interview and present fake documents. Remember the interviewer is trained for his work so any lies about anything may lead to a rejection of the visa. If you present any fake documents regarding financial situation or academic grades not only your visa can be rejected but you might also be barred for visa for a certain period of time or even worse forever. Hence never present any fake documents. In some cases the visa has been revoked even after a visa was granted. The decision was taken after it was found that some of the documents were ‘fake’ and hence visa revoked. Such cases have been found normally in those cases where a student was not awarded funding and hence in order to show the sufficient amount of money in his account, the student took the help of some private agency. Such agencies put the required amount of money in your bank account until your visa interview is done and charge some price for it.

Not always however the fake documents are identified but refraining from any unlawful act is certainly an advisable idea. Sometimes visa applicants lied about their relatives and siblings being in USA. They think that if their siblings are already in USA their visa might get rejected as visa officer might think they are planning to settle down in USA itself. However this is a misconception. In fact, every visa application is viewed as completely separate to other visa application and it doesn’t matter if two siblings are applying for a visa same year. There are several such cases when two siblings have been approved visa at the same time. Hence one should not lie about anything. If you have any close relative or siblings in USA, reply honestly. More often than not this is not going to affect your chances of getting visa approved. However if you are found out lying it’s almost certain that your visa will be denied.

Once you have a successful visa interview the interviewer will keep your passport. The passport with the visa on it will then be sent to your address through courier. You will need some valid document in order to collect it like driver’s license, taxpayer's ID or some other valid photo identity card depending on the country you live in. Once you get your visa, you can start packing. The next step will be preparing for your long awaited journey to United States of America.

Student Visa: How to Show ‘Ties to Home Country”?

One of the most crucial things as is often projected is showing sufficient ties to your home country. The ties to your country may be either financial or emotional or both. Of course, financial ties can be shown easily but the emotional ties are very difficult to show. Visa officers want to make sure that you are going to come back to your home country after you have finished your education in US. As a matter of policy all the non-immigrant visa applicants are assumed to be a prospective immigrant and hence are treated accordingly. The question however, is how to show the sufficient ties to home country?

Normally if you have a large family in your country it’s a sort of emotional tie to your country. They expect you to come back to live with your family. The family business and the property in your country are an evidence of financial ties to your country which makes the probability of returning back to the country higher. For this purpose, many visa applicants produce the ‘title’ of their properties to the visa officers which shows that their parents or family owns the property of such and such amount of value in domestic currency and then also show the value in the dollars by using the ongoing exchange rate. I am not however sure if this is absolutely required. However this should help in getting visa approved. But I don’t think you need to worry much about this if you have other proper documents. After all there are many poor students who come to USA for higher education funded by the university and they don’t have much to show as property or family business. Most importantly it’s your approach to the questions being asked that matter most in visa getting approved.

A visa officer may ask questions like given below in order to judge ties to your country

“What are your plans after you finish your degree?”

You can always answer that you may work in USA for a couple of years and then come back to your country and use your work experience there. Or you may simply answer that once you have your degree you will come back to your country and use the learning in your country for whatsoever reason you deem fit. It’s not a good idea to tell them that you won’t come back to your country and rather you will work in USA only and live there forever. If you answer like this your visa is almost denied.

The interviewer is also concerned about the financial situation of your family. If a visa officer believes that you are the bread earner of your family and that your family depends on your income, your visa might get rejected. So answer carefully.

As a matter of fact, more than the papers presented to the visa officer the approach towards the question related to ties to home country matter. One should be aware of the context and most probably he/she will be approved a student visa. You don’t need to know the specific questions that are going to be asked but you need to know the sort of answers that can be asked and if you know the context you can figure out the probable questions and would be able to find out an appropriate answer. If you read the visa questions related posts on this blog, you know the context and you can certainly devise your own answers depending on your unique situation and you are likely to get your visa approved.

Please do follow the blog if you like it and show your presence by feedback, questions and comments.

GMAT: Information and Preparation

Dear Readers, one of the followers of this blog, Carcass is writing the following post for GMAT test takers looking for admission into Management PhD programs and MBA programs. Since many students from the related fields are using the blog for useful information, I find such attempts to include information regarding GMAT and other related exams an extension of the blog which would be helpful to a larger set of audience. Since most part of the application is almost same for every discipline the applicant of other streams can use them without any loss of generality and I would like to thank Carcass for this post and would welcome other readers to post some quality information related to their respective fields.

Hi to everyone, I'm Carcass and I'm proud to write this debrief on GMAT for this blog, a real “gold mine” for the applicants to PhD and its complicated process. Thanks for your work Econ Grad.

So, when an applicant decides to apply for a PhD in business administration or management or for an MBA in a business school (top or not) the GMAT is probably the most important factor to consider.

However, I want to emphasize that each part of the application process is important and has its specific role (letters of recommendation, SOP, GPA, and so on) BUT in my opinion the GMAT and its score covers at least a good 40-50%. The reason why? Because an applicant can do a PhD even at 50 years for instance or an MBA after several years of work and hence there could be differences in the level of study at different times and may not be comparable. The GMAT is the best yardstick to test different skills in “real time” by a Business School (logic, grammar skills, how to approach to a problem), in fact: your GPA can be low because you worked during the university or your letters can be inflated and so on. GMAT tells at what point you are.

I wrote this article to describe what the GMAT is, but at the same time trying to give you a different point of view based on my experience.

GMAT is a CAT test (Computer Adaptive Test) which means that if you answer more questions correctly then you have to answer tough questions. The maximum score is 800 that you can achieve. Don't be afraid anyway, a high score can be achieved but consider this: if you want to apply in a top BS you need a high score; please refer to this for 2011. Getting a score of 700+ is indeed a good score for top programs.

For all the information you need go to the official GMAT website. You can also follow this link for more useful information and get a free guide titled "The GMAT Uncovered".
So, now let's take a look closer to the GMAT.

First step for the test is to write the AWA (Analytical Writing Assessment) where you have to write about two arguments: analysis of an issue AND an argument; you have 30 minutes for each of them.

The best tips that I can give you about, are: at least 750-800 words, an inherent coherence of these essays, and the most important thing: even though this part of the exam (the first to face) DOES NOT count for the total score, a low score (max is 6.0) may create problems. For admission in a Business School, a low score involves that essay or SOP must be the best possible, in particular for non-native speakers, it should be at least 5.0. Maybe the best template for this, you can find at this link (the structure is not so different from the format that someone has to write for TOEFL, only a bit longer).

Second step is the Quantitative section, during which you will be asked to answer 37 questions in 75 minutes, and it is presented in two different formats: Problem Solving and Data sufficiency.
The first requires you to set up and complete any calculations to find the exact results (numerical or algebraic); the second requires you to read a problem and thereafter consider TWO statements, by which you don't have to necessarily find an exact number or value BUT if the two statements, alone or combined or neither, are SUFFICIENT to solve the stem.

The best tips are: a really good math fundamentals, an holistic approach, tons of practice; ultimately, it is a kind of math that all of us studied at high school or in the first year of college, nothing to do with for instance tensor calculus or other stuffs, but number properties, geometry, fractions and so on. Here, the real difficult is to combine different skills at the same time and have a sort of “strategy” as to how to attack the problem.

The third step is comparatively more difficult, especially for non-native speakers (even for native, however): the Verbal Section format where you have to answer 41 questions in 75 minutes. There are three different formats: Sentence Correction, Critical reasoning and Reading Comprehension. The first tests your grammatical skills (GMAT tests only a finite range of rules, for instance: modifier, pronouns and so on). The critical reasoning section tests your reasoning after reading a short statement or paragraph, read a stimulus and select one of five different choices that best fits with the statement. In the reading comprehension, you have to read a short or a long passage and then answer to questions about the main purpose of the passage, what you infer about on a particular portion of the passage and so on.

What can we say about the GMAT: it is a really complex test, that tests the combination of different kind of skills at the same time, this is the real difficulty of this type of a CAT test under time pressure (a factor to be considered carefully); of course to do all this, you have to study hard and must have a STRATEGY, finding your weak and strength points to beat it; find yours.

Final thoughts: I would like to say what I read some time ago when I started to study for this test: The GMAT doesn't test what you KNOW, but what you THINK, and HOW you think. Finally, some useful links where you can find advices, free test and most important thing, a community that can help you anytime.

http://gmatclub.com/

http://www.beatthegmat.com/

http://gmatclub.com/forum/best-gmat-books-77703.html

Lectures free by one of the best teacher on the GMAT: Ron Purewal. Thursday with Ron

http://www.manhattangmat.com/thursdays-with-ron.cfm

Please don't hesitate to raise any doubts and any suggestions are welcome. Please do follow the blog if you find it useful. Good Luck :)

Explaining low GRE score in Statement of Purpose (SOP)

I have been seeing this search item for quite some time now “how to explain low gre score in sop”. Finally I decided to write a post about it. I did some research over internet to find something which should be useful rather than just randomly writing something. I came at the conclusion that only situation the low GRE score can be explained is if the candidate has been asked to do so by the department or if there is some place provided in online application for any such reasons. Only a few universities usually provide any such columns though, where the candidate can explain GRE score or poor GPA or something similar.

Another situation arises when the admission committee asks you to explain the reason behind the low GRE score. This indicates that the admission committee found your application competitive except the GRE score part. In such a case you may be asked to explain the low GRE score. If you have a genuine and convincing reason for the low GRE score you can try to explain it to them. Some students become nervous when they are writing GRE for the first time, others may not have prepared for the same well in advance or someone might have spent too much time on a single question which might have proved costly. As a metter of fact, lots of student write GRE without adequate preparation and later they realize they could have scored much more if they had invested some more time into it. But unfortunately this becomes too late and fearing the loss of a year they might decide to go to some low rank school with the very same score.

Though above listed reasons are genuine, nonetheless more often than not, these are not well taken by the admission committee. The lack of preparation is essentially a fault of the student and nervousness is also not well received as an excuse for the aspirants who are going to do PhD. But if the admission committee has specifically asked you to explain this tell them the truth.

Further, which section score is bad that also matters which depends upon the program you are applying to. If your score is less than 3.0 in analytical writing then probably you don’t have much scope for explaining this as you don’t really need to prepare much for the writing section. This tests your ability to write in English, some simple grammar and spelling mistakes are not going to be well received for a PhD candidate especially those who are going to have their PhD in humanities or history or similar disciplines. For economics most important is quant section. The questions that appear in GRE quant section are indeed easy ones. That’s high school mathematics. But that needs some practice and if you didn’t practice and scored badly, none other than you is to be blamed. The verbal is not that much important for economics PhD aspirants but for good universities, a score of about 500 is still expected.

Remember the statement of purpose is place to showcase your strengths. So to the extent possible use it to showcase your strengths and don’t provide any excuses for bad performance unless it’s ultimately needed and has very genuine reason behind this with no shortcoming of yours. Hope this helps.

You can click here to have an idea about how to write a good SOP and click here to judge yourself how your SOP is after you have finshed writing it.

Please follow the blog and raise doubts and provide feedbacks.

Student Visa Interview Questions and Answers

In a student visa interview the interviewer is primarily concerned about following issues:

                     1. The student has sufficient funds to finance his studies while in USA

                     2. The student is competitive enough to complete the course he has been accepted for

                     3. The student has minimum level of speaking English capability in order to survive academically as well as in daily life

                     4. The applicant has sufficient ties to his country or not that is, if he’s likely to be back to his country or not

In an attempt to find the situation of the students on above listed points the interviewer is going to form his questions. The visa interviewer does not have much time and normally the interview does not last more than 2-3 minutes. Hence it’s advised to be better prepared for the interview that is, keep your documents organized in a folder, and be concise and organized in your answers to the questions. Being better organized and prepared will increase your chances of getting visa.

As far as economics PhD applicants are concerned I would assume that not significant proportion of students would accept admission offers without assistantship. Those who are going without assistantship are required to submit a large amount of money at their disposal and they should provide authentic bank letter, passbook and other assets for financial availability.

I am surprised why a visa officer would try to determine if the student is competitive enough to complete the program he has been selected for. After all this is something which has to be determined by the admission committee and it’s not a mistake to assume that they can take better decision about the ability of the student to complete the program than the visa officers. Normally this is not a big issue. But this could create problems if you have any backlogs. In such cases you must be prepared to provide a proper reason if you are asked why you have any backlogs.

Normally the third issue is not a problem for those who have TOEFL or IELTS or some English test score. For that the score should be good normally better than what is being asked by the departments. But usually no one gets a visa denied on this basis unless you have real bad score especially in speaking section.

The fourth and final question needs good amount of space hence this will be discussed in next post. If you have any doubts regarding admission or visa process feel free to ask. I would welcome someone who can contribute by writing some guest posts regarding the specific visa process of the country you belong to. In general you are welcome to contribute to the whole admission process.

Complete F-1 Visa Process in Easiest Steps

Once you are confirmed which university you are going to join, the next step is to apply for a student visa. By now you are pretty excited and want to get a visa as soon as possible. But getting a visa can be a lengthy process. In fact it’s a cumbersome process if not dealt with in a proper way. To summarize, the complete visa process can be defined as below:

A. Issuance of I-20 form

Complete the Financial Affidavit form; send it along with Bank letter to the International services office or address provided by the mail from the department

B. SEVIS Fee (SEVIS I-901): Documents needed

                  1. Form I-20

                  2. Credit card to pay the fee (Master Card, Visa)

C. DS-160 Form and Visa Fee

                 1. Scan and upload your application photo

                 2. Complete your DS-160 application online

                 3. Print barcode at the end of the application on a laser printer

                4. Pay the visa application fee (at the current exchange rate) at one of the designated branches of the specified bank, the bank depends upon the country from you are applying

                5. Make your appointment through VFS. You will use your barcode and fee receipt number to schedule an appointment

                6. Carry the Following Documents with You:

                               • A passport

                               • Your confirmation page (printed on a laser printer).

                               • Visa Appointment letter

                               • Visa fee receipt (Bank fee receipt)

                               • SEVIS receipts

• In addition, if you are applying for a petition-based visa (H, L, F, J, M, R visas) should also bring petition-related documents.

                              • One recent (within the past six months) passport size photograph 50mm X 50mm (2" x 2") with a white or off-white background.

7. Additional required documents:

                              a. I-20 form

                              b. Admission letter from the university

                              c. Proof of funding:

                                             i. Department Assistantship offer letter

                                             ii. Bank Letter showing the financial availability and/or financial affidavit

                             d. Detailed Resume

                             e. Supporting educational documents

                                             i. Mark sheets of bachelors and Masters (any degree after bachelor’s)

                                            ii. Academic transcripts of bachelors and Masters (any degree after bachelor’s)

                                           iii. GRE and TOEFL score cards

                                           iv. Diploma of Bachelors and Masters (any degree after bachelor’s)

You should then be prepared for some likely to be asked questions in a visa interview which constitute the subject matter of the next post. 

Visa Interview Appointment and Required Documents

This post answers mainly two questions: 1. How to get appoint for visa and 2. What are the required documents to be carried for visa interview?

Once you have completed the first three steps: got the I-20 letter, paid the SEVIS fee, completed the DS-160 form and paid the visa fee you can now apply to for a visa interview through VFS. You will use the barcode and fee receipt number to schedule an appointment. You need to determine the visa consulate where you are supposed to apply to for a visa interview.

While going for a visa interview you will need following documents to carry with you:

• Passport

• Your confirmation page of DS-160 form (printed on a laser printer).

• Appointment letter from the department you have been offered assistantship

• Visa fee receipt

• SEVIS fee receipt

• In addition, if you are applying for a petition-based visa (H, L, F, J, M, R visas) should also bring petition-related documents.

• One recent (within the past six months) passport size photograph 50mm X 50mm (2" x 2") with a white or off-white background.

• Proof of financial availability: financial affidavit, bank letter and passbooks, fixed deposit documents etc.

• Admission related documents

In addition of the above listed documents, you must also carry following documents:

i. Mark sheets of bachelors and Masters (any degree after bachelor’s)

ii. Academic transcripts of bachelors and Masters (any degree after bachelor’s)

iii. GRE and TOEFL score cards

iv. Diploma of Bachelors and Masters degree (any degree after bachelor’s)

v. Masters (All post-bachelor degree)

You should also be prepared to answer some important questions that are likely to be asked in an interview. Those will be discussed in the next post.

Universities with Low GRE Score Requirement

Recently lots of applicants have been searching for the key term: low gre universities. Though it’s tough to list universities which have low GRE requirement, I have tried to enlist some universities where a GRE score of around 1100 can be good for admission. Remember that other credentials also count for admission and hence simply having a GRE score of 1100 by no means, guarantees admission. Most of these universities also have extended deadlines so these are good for those who have written GRE very late, say by the end of January or even middle of February.

The list of the universities:

Texas Tech University

Oklahoma State University

University of South Florida

Northern Illinois University

Georgia Institute of Technology

University of Nevada - Las Vegas

Northeastern University

University of Central Florida

Please note that GRE requirement vary from year to year. Hence applicants are advised to contact the present students at the university to enquire about the recent GRE requirements especially of the previous year. Most of the universities have their PhD students email address on their website.

I hope this is useful for those who for some reason could not score well in GRE. Please follow the blog if you find it useful and ask questions that you think should be addressed.

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Instructions on Filling up online DS-160 Form

As already discussed in the post DS-160 application is very lengthy and can be confusing. On You Tube I found this video which gives instructions on how to fill up online DS-160 form. It gives the detailed step by step guidance about the application.

Hope this is useful.

DS-160 Form and Visa Fee

The way I have been listing the visa process, completing the form DS-160 is the third and probably the lengthiest steps among all the steps during the visa process. The first two steps being I-20 form and SEVIS fee. The DS-160 form can also be filled up online, click here to fill it up online. However, before filling it up online don’t forget to read the instructions given on the page.

Also this is going to take some time, the best thing however, is that you don’t need to complete the form in a single attempt rather you can save your work in halfway and retrieve the application. You can save and exit and return back to your form as many times as you want. In order to fill up DS-160 form, you will need following documents so keep them ready with you.

1. Passport

2. Application photo: you will need an application photo to be uploaded at the website. This photo has to meet certain requirements listed here. You can get this photo from your mobile or laptop and check in the system if it is accepted. If it’s accepted you can proceed with the application. You may also want to contact professional photographers for the photo.

3. Receipt of the SEVIS fee

Again, make sure that there is a printer ready such that you can get the print of the confirmation page. This confirmation page would be required when you go for visa interview. If you want you can print the compete form for your records but that is not necessary. At the end of the application don’t forget to print the barcode. The print out should be taken from a laser printer which is not a problem since now a days almost all the printers are laser printers.

Once you have completed the DS-160 form online, you can proceed with the next step of paying the visa fee. The visa fee can be paid normally only to the designated branches of a particular bank in your home country. Hence in different countries, visa fees have to be paid to different banks. You need to find it yourself on the website of the Embassy of the United States in your country. To make the payment of visa fee you will need your passport and a copy of it. Validating the visa fee payment may also take 2-3 business days. Only after that you can get appointment for visa interview.

Please do follow the blog if you find the content useful. Any comments and suggestions are most welcome.

What is SEVIS I-901 fee and How to Pay?

SEVIS I-901 fee, in short, SEVIS fee can be said to be the second important step in in the process of getting a student visa or exchange visitor visa. Every international student (with some exceptions) is required to pay SEVIS fee before he/she can apply for a student visa. For students requesting for F-1, F-3, M-1 or M-3 visa SEVIS fee is $200. If you are coming for a full time PhD you are requesting an F-1 visa aka student visa. Remember if you are required to pay the SEVIS I-901 fee and do not pay it, your visa application will be denied by Department of Security. SEVIS fee is used to maintain the track record of school and programs, students, exchange visitors and their dependents who are legally enrolled in US education system.

Knowing what is SEVIS fee, the next question is how to pay for it? In order to pay for a SEIVIS fee you will need I-20 document. On your I-20 document, SEVIS code starting with ‘N’ is located at the top right of page one above the barcode. You will need this code while paying for SEVIS fee. It’s also a good idea to have your Passport with you such that there is no mistake while entering the information about yourself in SEVIS form online. The most convenient way to pay SEVIS fee is through credit card. You can use your credit card (visa card or master card) to pay the SEVIS fee. The fee can be paid online following this link.

When you are paying the fee online makes sure you have a printer ready as you would need to take the print out when the form is completed. You cannot return to the page and print the coupon or payment receipt at a later time. If you have made a mistake in entering any information do not pay again, contact them and inform which information needs to be changed.

Once you have paid the fee it may take 2-3 business days for this payment to be verified and available in the system. You can check the status of your payment here. To check the status of your payment all you need is your SEVIS code, date of birth and your last name. Once this is done, you can proceed to the next step of visa application which is filling up the DS-160 form online.

Please do follow the blog if you find the content useful. Any comments and suggestions are most welcome.

What is I-20 and what to do if it Contains Errors?

The first step towards getting the student visa is to get an I-20 form. I-20 form is an official document from the international services office of a university which explains all the issues related with your course. It contains information in following way:

First Page

1. Information regarding the candidate, the name, address and date of birth of the candidate, country and citizenship status of the candidate

2. Information regarding the university, the school name, school official to be notified of student’s arrival, school address and school code

3. Information regarding why this certificate has been issued

4. Level of education (masters or doctorate whatever applicable)

5. Nature and duration of the course

6. English proficiency: if any English test is required and if you have any

7. Estimated expenditure

8. Estimated income (assistantship amount)

9. Some remarks

10. School certification: bears the date, signature and designation of the school official issuing the document

11. Student certification: this is where your name is printed and you have to put your signature. This means your acceptance of the terms and conditions which are printed on page 2.

This is your responsibility to recheck if all the information is correct and up-to- date. What if some information is incorrect or there is some printing mistake, say in your name? Immediately inform the ISO about the error and request them to send a new updated I-20 correcting those errors. Do not go for a visa with an I-20 containing errors or even minor printing mistakes.

Only after you get the new error-free I-20 proceed to next step towards the visa process. Your ‘I-20’ contains a very important code starting with ‘N’ which is located in the top right of page one above the barcode. This code is know as 'SEVIS' code.

Page 2

This is also a good idea to read all the terms and conditions on page 2. Some of the students have misconception that they can work outside the university to support their expenses while this is not allowed in normal circumstances.

Also check the third page for any errors. Once you are convinced that everything is correct proceed to the next step. The next step is paying SEVIS I-901 fee.

There are new contents forthcoming which will be targeted to make visa process easier. Please do follow the blog to boost my interest in writing new useful posts. Thanks in advance.

Is it too Difficult to Survive in an Economics PhD Program?

Difficulty of Survival in an Economics PhD program: this is a question which hovers in the mind of most of the applicant especially the ones who have not a very strong hold over mathematics. One of the reasons behind that I guess is the preconceived notion that economics PhD program is highly mathematical and is suitable for those who are very good at mathematics. Though this could be partially true, but it’s not an absolutely perfect reason in any means. Having a solid mathematical background may be an advantage though. In some courses, mathematics is required which needs fair knowledge of linear algebra and calculus.

The survival in a PhD program can be separated into two different parts, a successful completion of master’s program, clearing the qualifier exam and thereafter successful submission of Thesis which will ultimately get you a Doctorate degree. The master’s program consists of a number of compulsory courses including Mathematical Economics, Econometrics, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. Needless to mention, all of these courses need a fair knowledge of mathematics. Notice that I have been using ‘Fair’ and not the exceptional knowledge of mathematics and that’s what the truth is. All that is needed then is to work hard and one would be able to complete all the courses without much difficulty. Again by working hard I don’t mean that one has to go away from social life and study 12 hours a day and something. But yes… one may have to devote significant hours of the day studying. I am not here talking about top 20 programs, unfortunately I don’t have any experience about them. As far as optional courses are concerned one may choose ones which don’t need very complex and abstract mathematics.

Once the master’s is over, working on a thesis again depends primarily upon the patience and not upon the mathematical ability. One learns the required mathematics in the course of working on his thesis. It’s the patience and the hard work that is needed when one has to find the desired result of the thesis. When a lot of papers are needed to be read and a large volume of data has to be played and manipulated with. I think I would have much to say about this once I start working on this but I can say this much from the experience of other PhD candidates who did well.

Normally the first semester would be easier and it would get more difficult in next semester and that makes perfect sense. In the first semester one is in a transition phase from being an undergrad student to a graduate student. As time goes one, one gets accustomed to the course pressure and working hard. The conclusion is surviving in a PhD program in Economics is not too difficult if one is sincere and motivated. If you are interested in going in detail click here but I think that’s not of much relevance as of now and you may want to check it out later once you are done with you applications and waiting for the results.

Good luck with your applications. Please let me know if I should address any particular topic. If you find the blog useful please follow the blog and make comments.