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The mistakes you never want to experience...

Format of your name: If your name has more than three words, there is a potentia l risk that the last name may be mistakenly written different in different place s. The last and first names are two most important things, and it must remain sa me everywhere. The rule of thumb for this is, put first word of your name as fir st name, the last word of your name as last name and the rest part as middle nam e. The middle name, for example, may be blank if your name is Abdul Hai, or it m ay be Barakat Gazhi Mohammad if your name is Abul Barakat Gazhi Mohammad Mainudd in. Whatever be your name, keep the three parts always same. Forgetting about the extra section in GRE: Most of us think that there will be o ne verbal and one quantitative section. But in reality, it is possible that one additional verbal or quantitative section will appear in the exam. Those who do not know this or forget about this, may feel panic-seized when they see an addit ional verbal or quantitative section in the exam. Registering for TOEFL at the eleventh hour: It is not a big problem to get desir ed date for GRE. Since the number of TOEFL applicants is much higher than that o f GRE, you must not leave a late date for TOEFL, and decide to register at the e leventh hour. During the peak season (October to February) the scenario is even tougher. Therefore, plan well which date you intend to take the test and registe r accordingly. Rescheduling the GRE or TOEFL at the eleventh hour: The option of rescheduling G RE or TOEFL becomes unavailable in the last three days before your actual exam d ate. Not only that, the TOEFL server may seem down due to maintenance. Therefore , if you feel that you do not have good preparation, you must make up a reschedu ling decision with enough time at hand. Selecting practically unsuitable universities: You should select only those univ ersities that best matches you. A common strategy is given below. Here n is the number of schools you're planning to apply in total. If n =2 Medium = 1, Low = 1 or 2 Medium ranked schools If n =3 Medium = 2, Low = 1 or 3 Medium ranked schools If n =4 Good = 1, Medium = 2, Low = 1 or Medium = 3, Low = 1 If n =5 Good = 1, Medium = 3, Low = 1 or Good = 1, Medium = 2, Low = 2 If n =6 Good = 2, Medium = 2, Low = 1 or Good = 1, Medium = 4, Low = 1 For higher n, divide number of schools as: 30% for Good, 20% for Low and rem aining 50% for medium ranked schools. It is very important to choose practically suitable schools (you may see people with 1450+ GRE score, who wasted one year or semester only because of applying t o Harvard, MIT and Yale universities, and ignoring medium ranked schools). University codes and Departmental Codes: It is very important to know about the GRE and TOEFL codes of the university where you want to send your score. Sometim es from the names you may get confused. For example, Texas Tech University and T exas Tech University Health Sciences Center - these two have different codes. Ag ain, Texas A&M university and West Texas A&M university - are also different. Pl ease pay special attention to this, and directly ask the coordinator the code nu mber before sending the score. Ignoring two weeks of inactivity: The last and first weeks of the year (from Dec 23 to Jan 07) are vacation time in the USA. Many schools have their deadline of application during this time. You may need to contact or write to admission coo rdinator, and the person may take vacation during this time. This is critically important for application materials sent in the last moment. Therefore, keep suf ficient time at hand while sending your paper materials.

Writing every single faculty of the department: Many of the faculties are friend s to each other and may share the information about emails they receive from pro spective students. If you write that "I have visited your web site and your rese arch field seemed very interesting to me, and I want to join your lab", when two faculties come to know about this same email, you may lose your credibility. So , what to do? Be very careful in selecting the professor, and don't write to eve rybody. Over praising yourself: The professor may call you and ask some questions. It is important not to praise too much and pretend to be very knowledgeable and skill ed with laboratory techniques. We know something, and at the same time we do not know lot of thing - this is the driving force of our entering to MS/PhD program s. Being extremely quick in responding: Your prospective professor may write back o r call to you and refer some of his papers for reading and then letting him know your decision. In such condition, if you respond quickly and express your eager ness to join in his projects immediately, you may prove yourself not serious in reading scientific papers or decision making. Sending LORs without sealed envelop: The LORs are confidential statements, and t hey need to be sent in a confidential way. Some people consider that it can be s ent without envelop while others think that it is important to maintain its conf identiality and send in a sealed envelop. To be in the safe side, try to collect it in a sealed envelop with the the signature of the issuing person on the mout h of the envelop (across the opening line). Unusually high bank statement: You need bank statements in two phases - firstly when you apply to university (no matter whose account you use, but it is importa nt to show sufficiently high money), and secondly during visa interview (this ti me it should be either your or your parent's or of someone very close to you; bu t the amount may not necessarily be very high since you have financial support m entioned in I-20). If you show unusually high bank statement during the visa int erview, the consular may consider something fishy in it. Any erratum in visa sticker: It is possible that the visa issued to you may have some typing mistake (e.g. misspelled name or wrong gender etc.). If you leave a ny mistake ignored, you are likely to fall in deep problem later on. You must ca ll the embassy to inform them about it, and they'll fix the problem. Ignoring the entry date mentioned in I-20 form: You will see a date mentioned in the right side of your I-20 form, before which you must enter USA. If you fail to arrive USA within that date, the immigration officer may refuse you to enter the country. Since you have to take two different aircrafts to come to USA from Dhaka, please keep in mind that the transit may be sometimes unthinkably long. S o, keep some time at hand and arrive USA at least a week before the date mention ed in I-20.

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