beta
Student CV
A student CV (curriculum vitae) is a summary of your academic qualifications, achievements, contributions, extracurricular activities, and technical skills. CV is your first impression on the admission committee and thus, must be designed very carefully and subsequently, critiqued meticulously.
You will be one of a thousands of applicants who apply to a university, and therefore, the admission committee may have just a few seconds/minutes to go through your resume. You must ensure that the resume captures the attention of the committee member in the first few seconds itself. So, it is important how you endeavor to make your resume look more impressive and comprehensive than the rest.
​
A few important points that must be kept in mind while drafting a CV include content, format, and length of the CV. A well-written CV has to clearly define your objective and purpose through its content.
​
Finally, the font, font size, spacing, alignment, and the like, should be appropriate.
Statement of Purpose (SOP)
There are many aspects of a candidate’s application that are inspected before making a decision. A Statement of Purpose is an essay stating the purpose of applying to a particular course in a particular university. An SOP is the only document in your application that gives you the opportunity to prove that you have something unique that makes you stand out from the crowd. Therefore, a well-written SOP is extremely critical to your admission. SOPs usually need to follow a standard format.
​
The document seeks to understand a candidate’s life, the motivations for the chosen career path and his/her goals. Therefore, the SOP should have a summary of who you are, who you want to become, and why you want to pursue a certain course in an institution. You should also mention the past incidents that have influenced your career path in a specific domain and how joining a course/college will help achieve the career path.
​
Admission Essays
Admission essays are essays sought by universities abroad to decide on your candidature for specific courses. Universities abroad, for specific courses, often, but not mandatorily, require you to answer a few specific questions/prompts, and usually stipulate a word/character/page limit for each answer. They have a wide range of contexts with a purpose of further elaborating different facets of the applicant’s personality, as per the university’s specific demands for that course.
​
Admissions Essays are written essays, but unlike an SOP, there is no standard format. Universities usually provide the applicants with a list of required questions or essays. These vary as per the requirements of the university and the program and are created carefully to ascertain the eligibility of the applicant. More importantly, they are designed to prune the list and find the candidates that would be the correct fit for their program.
​
Letter of Recommendation (LOR)
Letter of Recommendation or LOR is a document that provides the admission officers with a comprehensive insight into your candidature, for admission into the university you applied for. The LOR is provided by a faculty member of your current or previous educational institution. It aims to provide admission officers with information on your experiences, achievements, contributions, and skills communicated by the recommender.
Usually, universities ask you to provide two or three LORs from your previous institution. This could be your teachers from your school in case of undergraduate courses, and professors from your college in case you are applying for Master's or PhD programs.