Profile Evaluation Request - Guidelines
Time is precious! Yours and ours. Let us make the most of it.
Seniors and moderators who respond to profile evaluation requests are full time students or employees with day time jobs. After a long tiring day, they come back to this platform out of sheer empathy for newbies. They want to make upcoming students lives easier and wants to ensure that newbies don't make the same rookie mistakes that they did.
Hence it is important to provide them information in precise and correct format. The golden rule when passing information is to always remember to whom we are giving that information to and for what purpose.
A good profile evaluation request title can be:
Fall 2018 | MS | CS | Data Analytics | 160 Q | 157 V | 4.5 A | 3.7 GPA | XYZ UNIV | 3 Yrs Exp | 2 Research Papers
This kind of title explains everything in a simple glance to get a basic understanding of your background.
One should always fill all the sections in their profile section, especially all intended univs to apply and work experiences. They help us understand your relevent experience and area of interest. Without knowing that and the efforts you have put in to know about each university in the list, we will be repeating the same advice which may not be worth for you.
Eg: A 320 GRE score with 0 yrs work exp and EE background should apply to different univs than same GRE score and work exp but CSE background. There are a ton of factors that can influence admission decisions and they vary from univ to univ.
Few of them are:
- Some univs prefer high undergrad scores
- Some prefer exceptional GRE scores
- Some value work exp a lot
- Some ignore profiles with backlogs
- Some univs grant admissions just to encourage diversity
- Some univs value research experience
- Some completely ignore your previous work experience
- Some univs need entertain referrals from existing students
- Some univs value LORs and SOP a lot
- Some univs question educational gaps
Almost all univs for sure consider a mix and match of options from above list. Which univ values which factor is something only an alumni or current student or someone with practical admission experience can tell you. Hence it is important to fill all information accurately.
A lot of students tend to ask us just to suggest univs without researching anything. We DO NOT encourage spoon feeding. The reason is, as a Masters aspirant one needs to be clear on what he/she want to achieve. Bachelors can happen by chance but not Masters. One need to have a clear picture on where he/she want to see himself/herself post their master's. So please do basic research about univs, courses and professors and come up with specific questions. It is those questions that have the potential to trigger a discussion and invoke interest of seniors.
If you are not aware of what all universities are good for your scores, try our features like UniSuggest, Admit Trends and read about universities listed on their websites. That helps you understand education requirements of each university better.
When requesting to compare univs, always limit yourself to 4 univs at max. That allows for a healthy comparison. If you ask more univs to be compared it gets harder. At the same time, if out of the 10 univs requested if 2 are IVY Leagues and 2 of them are low range univs, then the comparison really doesn't make sense.
A lot of times, students financial status also matters when it comes to evaluating profiles and suggesting univs. Like if a student is completely dependent on funding then there is no point in suggesting private univs to that students where funding chances are very bleak or none. Hence that information is important in your profile evaluation request as well.
Some students are very research oriented. So they should not be suggested to apply to industry requirements driven univs. Hence mentioning research interest is important.
Some students have health concerns to goto cold conditions and some students prefer univs where they can explore culture and diversity. Hence it is important to mention all these details or else you will end up receiving wrong suggestion.
We know sending an application is a costly business hence we don't want to give wrong advices. Hence sometimes we keep mum instead of giving wrong advice and ignore profile evaluation requests that don't have adequate information.
Finally, it is important to tag seniors at least 2-3 and max of 5 so that they know someone out there is awaiting their valuable advice.
We hope these guidelines will help you make a good profile evaluation request and make the most out of it.