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本帖最后由 kobe119988 于 2009-10-16 00:38 编辑
Just Have A Little Faith
(1) Evaluate and improve yourself
The application for study abroad is a process in which you are working on the probe towards an understanding of yourself. You do not know your position in the compepition pool and you do not know which city, which institution and which program is your favorite. I know many of our applicants, nowadays, are the children who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Their parents determine everything for them. But now, I have to remind you that you have to think for yourself: Who am I?
I used to spend more than one year on this forum and collect types of information. I went through every post carefully and stored them in txt files which I can copy to my mobile for further reading. There were hundreds of txt files in mobile and I used to read them again and again just for an answer to the question above: Who am I?
"Who I am" means you have to analyze your strong points and your shortcomings. Your educational backgound, your GPA, your English proficiency, your research experience, your awards and honours, and your extracurricular activities which are the main factors determining your victory in application should be taken into consideration. You know the positions in the program you are going to apply are quite rare and your "rivals" may be from a top institution with an amazing GPA and awesome awards or papers. And you, just as I was, may be from a second-rated university with a mediocre GPA without any sparking awards which may attract the professors. You may think your awesome competitors may occupy all the rare positions and you may have no chance to win an offer from your dream schools. It is an objective reality. But you know, your strong rivals also apply for a large circle of institutions and your dream schools may be not their final choice to some extent. No one can guarantee he can get an offer from his favorite school. What every applicant has is just the possibility of an offer, so do you. The application is a show time and just show yourself. I knew my school was not a famous institution which is a reality you can not change but I could do my utmost to improve my GPA (if you still have chance to improve it). I knew I had no attractive awards but I could turn to my teachers for an participation in ther research projects. Everything you are struggling to do which you can show in your PS and CV will improve your possibility to win the offer. Yes you can.
When you know who you can, you can turn to this forum for the information you need. Some seniors share their experience in improving their competitive strength. These posts are the best for you. Learn from them and pursue any chance to stimulate any advantageous factors for yourself. Learning their skills in contacting professors and writting application documents is also your task.
(2) DIY and Six offers
DIY or apply through an agent? It is a big question. Differnt peoples have differnt ideas, of course. If you choose to apply by yourself as I did, it is Ok, if you have enough time and energy to collect information, write documents and wait an offer for a comparatively long time. If you choose to apply through an agent, it is also Ok. If you are willing to pay some money, you need to do nothing and you have time to cope with other personal affairs, civil servant exam or job hunting, for instance. Offers will be sent to you. So It is also a good choice.
To my part, I choose to DIY. Of course, I had to spend much time in collecting information, learning to write application documents and mailing them to my dream institutions by the deadlines. It was a painful process, to be honest. At the same time, I gave up the chance to participate in the China postgraduate entrance exams as well as civil servant exam. They are something you have to pay. When you have no way back you will sprint forward without any looking-back.
I applied by myself because I have been believing that I can do anything if I try to do. I do not like to put my fate on the hand of the agent. There are many agent who can help you apply, but I just put no faith in them. Some of them are famous, I know, Qi'de and Tai'sha for instance. But I believe there be no apparent differences if I employ them to apply for me and I have to pay more than 10k or 20k. It is not easy to have a deal with me.
Even so, when I was applying I still turn to some administrators of this forum for help, NANA and A Tai, for instace. They know much and are always willing to help you. I trust them much more than the so-called famous agents. If they could help me apply I would be willing to pay them. It is a joke but also a honest word. This forum, GTER, is a big and warm family whose members are always to help new members. I was helped. That's why I often help to answer the questions of our new peers and that's also why I write this post. I want to feed back.
Finally I got six offers from six institutions respectively including HKU, CUHK, STOCKHOLM U. What I want to tell you is that no matter who you are, you deserve the offers if you try to pursue.
(3) The art of choosing
Choosing an offer is an art. Every program, every institution and every
city will give you a unpredictive future. Then how to choose if you have more than one offer?
There is no clear answer to this question. But I can inspire you by telling my process of choosing. I had two offers from Sweden (Stockholm and Lund), one from Singapore (NUS) and three from Hong Kong(HKU,CUHK and CityU). The advantage of Swedish offers is that no tuition fee is needed. The disadvantages, however, are that the cool climate and painful living language. The school reputation, at the same time, is also not very well-know in China's job market. So I abandon such two offers.
Singapore was alway my first choice because this country is so beautiful and I have some friends them. Their attractive immigration policy also sounds good. Nevertheless, its job market is too small due to its small territory. Few foreign students have a chance to get a job and settle down. What is more, through my investigation and enquiries, I found that the sarary would not be high even you can find a job there. I gave up it for money, yes.
And Hong Kong where I am studying and living was my final consideration. I also analyzed it for advantages and disadvantages. I want to say its disvantages at first. As is know to all, Hong Kong is small which is much smaller than any province of Chinese Mainland. At the same time, it is not the best place to improve your English due to its Cantonese accent. And learning Cantonese is also a hard task if you want to find a job here. But how about its advangates? Hong Kong is small, but it is twice bigger than Singapore. Taken as a seperate entity, it is small. Regarded as a city, I believe, it is big enough. As the financial center of Asia, Hong Kong has a comparatively big job market due to its international identification and its sepcial status in China. To my major, law, the expected sarary is higher than Singapore. And the climate, is Ok to me who is from Fujian.
But how to choose one from the three Hong Kong offers? I want to study in Hong Kong because I want to be employed here. So how the Hong Kong locals think about your degree when you gradute is the most important thing which you have to take into consideration. As a law student, I was happy that I knew two Hong Kong attorneys who may be my expected employers. When I asked them how to choose the offers, they advised me to abandon CityU first. Because Hong Kong locals attach great importance to school reputation, and CityU is not good enough compared to HKU and CUHK, even its law school is older that CUHK's. Hong Kong locals always think that HKU, CUHK and HKUST are best institutions. CUHK's law school is quite new but as a world-famous university, CUHK has enough ability to establish a excellent law school. Even one day HKUST also establish its law school, this law school, of course, will be regarded to be better than CityU's. Such argument may be not right, but to my part, I accepted it.
Finally I accepted CUHK's offer. Someone may raise a question that why I did not choose HKU. First of all, HKU's offer was too late. I received it when I had pay my tuition fee to CUHK. And the tuition, of course, is not refundable. Many of my peers in a similar situation gave up the big amount of tuition fee they had pay to CUHK and turned to the embrace of HKU. Because HKU's law school is much better than CUHK's. Yes, I thought so. But I did not think such difference deserve the huge tuition fee. It was a lot of money. Regarded as the second best university by most Hong Kong locals, CUHK also have enough reputation to guarantee its students to have enough competitive strength to win a job here. What is more, if I chose CUHK, I may I have an opportunity to obtain a qualification to be a Hong Kong lawyer which is much better that a paralegal if I chose HKU. To a law student, the BAR is much important than the degree. From this perspective, even CityU JD is much better than HKU LLM. Because a JD can pursue an attorney qualification while a LLM not. To put it in another way, a JD can pursue to be a lawyer whose saraly will be quite high while a LLM can only be a paraleal who is just an assistant of the lawyer and the sarary will let you down. It is a truth you have to accept.
Here comes to the end of this post. I hope every new GTER member can get your dream offers and all of you will have a bright future. |
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