Nice Post columbia10admit..
I'd myself paid up one of the counsellers you mentioned in your post and I never used her services. Well, I actually stopped taking help from em after I realized that I was the one doing all the real work.
I think columbia10admit is bang on target with her research on all these "counseling" centers. Do not depend on these experts for your school selection/ interview prep/ or to even help you add some magic content (I only wish there was some) in your essays using their valuable years of counseling experience and research. Of all the places mentioned - Genesis was the most convincing and also the most intimidating. He will play mind games with you, make you feel that you will get no where without him and will tell you that his services come for a price (a good percentage of Liberia's deficit). Take it or leave it!
However, I must say that he probably was the best of the lot. I know people who have got a lot of admits from good schools and had used these consultants. All of these places will expect you to sent em write ups for various essay topics and then they'd use that content to create essays for you (at times cliché ridden, and full of grammatical errors). The quality of the essay will vary depending on how early you have provided your inputs (never expect quality for essays that you demand a night before the deadline). It will also depend on how hard you push your counselor/ essay writer, how many revisions they undergo and how informative your comments are. After you receive the essays you'd probably have to remove all the clichéd content and make it error free (your GMAT verbal prep should come in very handy here
). Well anyway, the point I am trying to make here is that if you want results from your counselor, there is a lot of hard work involved! Hence I'd chosen not too long ago, to revert back to my writing skills ( Self- belief is the key here
), my couch and a warm mug of coffee.
and what I'd learned from the application process is that :
No one can write better about yourself than you! Write and then get it refined/ critiqued by a good friend if you wish. Start as early as possible and get your essays ready by mid October (life gets a lot easier if you do that). put in a lot of research for every school you really wish to get into. Search 2nd yr students out on orkut/ facebook etc and talk to em - this will also help you in your school selection. I'd have probably never wasted my money applying to some of the schools only if I'd talked to people earlier. If you wish to spend money on something, it should be your resume. Make sure it looks crisp, good enough to make someone want to talk to you. Lastly, apply to as many places as you can (I know this is against the conventional wisdom), as you never know which place will give you a free ride, which place will want you to be a part against all odds.... and after all it feels good to be spoilt for choice.
thats a lot of gyan aye?
Hope some of it was helpful!
Quote:
Originally Posted by columbia10admit  hi,
i wanted to put in my 2 penny bit worth here.. was getting a little concerned reading all the posts here.
so go out there, research, network - talk to ppl from PG who are informed and have got admits; talk to seniors.. talk to ppl from schools. you dont need consellors. save that money to app to more schools or to pay for your loan
good luck! |
they were nice!! i was lucky!!) , to make sure i was getting the feel of the school right. to make sure nothing i said sounded irrelevant/stupid or showed that i didnt know the school
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