Table of contents with descriptions:

  • Part 1: how to maximize success in applying to undergraduate programs. This part is made for high-schoolers who are about to apply or have already started applying to undergraduate (Bachelor’s level) programs at universities.
  • Part 2: how to use your university years to the fullest. This part is made for current university students (both in undergraduate and graduate programs) who want to know how to what to do and how to productively use their university years to maximize their future success in applying for graduate/postgraduate programs and jobs.
  • Part 3: how to maximize success in applying to graduate and postgraduate programs. This part is made for current university students who are about to apply or have already started the process of applying to graduate (Master’s level) and postgraduate programs (PhD level).

Part 1: how to maximize success in applying to undergraduate programs

Part 1.1: before applying to undergraduate programs

Although everything that has happened during school years matters, the last 3 years of high-school is the time that will truly define your success in applying to universities. Even though the focus of this course is on applying to universities abroad (mainly in North America, South-East Asia, and Europe), some tips shared here are also relevant when applying to some local universities in Kazakhstan (such as Nazarbayev University which follows international education standards and accepts IELTS and SATs which will be talked about extensively in this course). Also, while the focus of this course is on students who study in Kazakhstani national education system and will receive Kazakhstani school diploma, much of the information and tips from this course will still be relevant to those studying in international programs, such as IB.

Make sure to start thinking and discussing with your parents about applying to universities abroad as soon as possible. One of the very first things to discuss should be “what do you want to study?” or “who do you want to become in the future?”. It is perfectly fine if you are not sure what to study or what major to choose in university, but you should at least start narrowing down your search. A first thing you can decide is whether you prefer STEM or non-STEM profession. This can be decided based on your personal interests (for example, interest in playing LEGO could indicate potential for Engineering, while interest in trading could indicate potential for Business). I would highly recommend taking personality or professional orientation tests too (there are a lot of such tests online) which can help you in decision making process. Next, you can look at your school grades to give you idea of what you are good at. If you have good grades in math and physics and bad grades in biology, a career in Mechanical or Civil Engineering may suit you well, while a career in Biomedical Engineering or Life Sciences may not. There were studies that demonstrated correlation between performance at school in certain subjects or skillsets and what specialties a person ends up being good and bad at (Frontiers, Academic Commons).

After you have basic understanding of what subject or area you are interested in (for example, Engineering, IT, History, or Performing Arts), your next step should be finding the universities that you would like to apply to and study at. The first question you should ask yourself is whether you want to study in Kazakhstan or abroad. This focus of this website is mainly on universities abroad, plus a few universities in Kazakhstan (such as Nazarbayev University) that follow international education standards. If your decision is to study in Kazakhstan, the best source of information on admissions are your teachers who are usually very familiar with the process. For most of the Kazakhstani universities, you will need your final school grades and take “EHT”

Part 1.2: understanding university admissions

When applying to foreign universities, a first question that may come to mind is what the admission committee is looking for in applicants and how they decide whether they should admit you or not? Foreign universities (Europe, North America, Singapore, international programs in China) typically look at 3 big aspects in their applicants: international test scores, school grades, and a holistic component (personal statement/statement of purpose, essays, short-answer questions, past experiences and awards/achievements). In Anglophone countries test scores typically include English language tests (IELTS/TOEFL), general college admission tests (SAT/ACT), and subject specific tests (AP). make sure to start preparing for tests as soon as you decide which universities and programs you would like to apply to. You should ideally give yourself 2 years before the deadline to start preparing for tests and working on applications. So, if your school has 12 grades, typically the deadlines for applying to universities will  be in the middle of grade 12, which means that you should start preparing in the middle of grade 10 (if your school has 11 grades, then it should be middle of grade 9). But again, this is a conservative estimate, and there are a lot of people who only decide to apply to universities abroad much later and still end up getting into their dream universities (my school had 11 grades, and I personally decided to apply to universities abroad only in the middle of grade 10, and shortlisted universities only in the beginning of grade 11, giving me merely 6 months to prepare for and take tests and work on applications – this is not recommended as I ended up being able to take SAT test only once before applying to some universities. Even though my subsequent SAT attempts have resulted in a better score, I was only able to use it for universities which had application deadlines later). 

I personally benefitted from taking SAT multiple times, as my first attempt resulted in 1360 (780 in Math and 580 in Reading-Writing), second attempt resulted in 1450 (780 in Math and 670 in Reading-Writing), and third resulted in 1480 (800 in Math and 680 in Reading-Writing). As you can see, my Math was good from the beginning, but my Reading-Writing was not good and this is what I was focusing on most of the time (my poor English at the time was a big factor, and improving my general English has helped a lot with this SAT section). In case of IELTS, however, my results did not improve a lot, since on my first IELTS attempt I received 7.0 (8.0 in reading, 7.0 in listening, 6.0 in writing, 6.0 in speaking), while in the second attempt one month later I got 7.0 again (7.5 in reading, 7.5 in listening, 6.5 in writing, 6.0 in speaking). Looking back, one thing I would have changed is to take it two or three months later instead of only one month later to spend more time preparing for it, and focused most of my attention on writing and speaking. I would have also considered making one more attempt at IELTS, perhaps 3 months after my second attempt, as I was continuously working on my English which may have given me a better chance of scoring higher. In general, however, I knew that my test scores were good enough as IELTS was above minimum for the universities that I was applying to, while SAT was somewhat above average of admitted students based on my research (I would suggest shifting your focus completely to SAT as soon as you get IELTS score that exceeds the required minimum by around 1.0), and for this reason I did not have a big motivation to make more attempts at these tests and instead focused on other parts of my application. Sadly, however, I wasn’t able to send my best SAT score to one of my reach universities as the last two attempts were taken after the decisions were already made. 

Holistic component is as important as other components because it gives you an opportunity to not only showcase your achievements or experiences that are not simple grades or test scores, and also to get the admission committee to know you as a person. It may consist of only a personal statement/statement of purpose, or it may also include things like writing an essay on a certain topic (usually a question about describing one of your past experiences or questions with philosophical undernote), and even ask for letters of recommendation from your teachers. Sometimes you have an opportunity to choose one topic among multiple topics for your essay, or even make your own topic (universities in the US usually do both).

Part 1.3: completing applications and applying to undergraduate programs

After you have decided about which universities to apply to and what to study, you should create applicant accounts in all your universities and start filling the applications.

Most of the applications are quite straightforward – you only need to fill your personal information and 

Part 2: how to use your university years to the fullest

4 years is a lot of time. The vast majority of people come out of university as a different person compared to when they came in. Some go through little change and don’t do much at university, while others undergo a ground-up transformation and come out as a totally different and a much more successful person. While you can simply go with the flow and “just study”, there are several things you can do that will completely transform your university experience and will let you to come out as a 10000x more successful person in the end. 

Part 3: how to maximize success in applying to graduate and postgraduate programs

Applying to graduate (Master’s level) and postgraduate (PhD level) programs shares many similarities with applying to undergraduate programs. Also, graduate and postgraduate applications tend to be very similar and may even share the same application system (in other words you can submit a single application to both Master’s and PhD program). However, one notable difference from undergraduate applications can be that you will need to write both personal statement and statement of purpose, which should be different and you should try to avoid duplicating the same information. As for international tests, you will likely still need to take language test, such as IELTS/TOEFL in the case of English (although for some universities this requirement is waived if you studied in an English-speaking country or a university with education in English). Universities with English-based education also typically require to take GRE, which is a test that has many similarities with SAT in that it also consists of Quantitative Reasoning (similar to Math section in SAT) and Verbal Reasoning (similar to Reading and Writing section in SAT). However, unlike SAT, GRE also has a mandatory Analytical Writing section where you have to write two essays on given topics. While you can still take some in-person courses to prepare for GRE, I personally realized that there are a lot of English-based online courses with excellent quality and that are cheap, such as Gregmat, which provides one and two-month long prep plan. The only thing that I used to prepare for GRE was a one-month prep plan from Gregmat and I ended up scoring 327 (164 in Quantitative Reasoning and 163 in Verbal Reasoning) and 4.0 in Analytical Writing. I would personally suggest spending more than one month preparing for GRE and taking a two-month prep plan from Gregmat, and also spend one entire week just to practice Analytical Writing. I personally did not spend a lot of time practicing Analytical Writing because I had only one month of preparation before taking GRE, and from doing a few practice essays I repeatedly got 4.0 which was sufficient for universities that I was applying to (however, for many non-STEM programs Analytical Writing can be quite important and aiming at 4.0 may not be sufficient). 

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