₦airaland Forum

tswitch:
Hello All.

I registered GRE in November for my ward using Affordable test and just came back to check this thread after his ETS account was blocked due to pending payments (for the second time).

I contacted AffordableTests again based on ETS prompt and he blocked my number on Whatsapp.

Payment was made into a GTB account when the HighStreet Mico Finance bank account he gave didn't go through.

Account: 0037065259
Name: Omoyele omonira jude
Bank : gtbank

I just checked the details and this same name is on nairaland and found he is the same person @YelGold.

Jude or whatever you call yourself now that I know how to get you in Ibadan/Ife your scamming days are numbered.

kemmystree2015:
Quite a number of schools have waived GRE for fall 2020 due to covid19. ETSU waived for me and they sent an email stating so

Vanplato:
Hi, I applied to Stevens institute of tech for Msc in chemical Biology, my admission letter came in last Monday, I have been mailing them about availability of GA positions but they ve not been replying o. Don't know what to do for now. Have they been replying your mails?. Others who have some information regarding this can contribute Biko.

LagosismyHome:
This is standard school and not a red flag

Princekenuk:
Please I need more schools that are waiving test requirements as a result of covid-19?

Shuayb0:
Do you know if they offer GMAT waiver?

Pepperoni001:
I was offered admission last year and I was told categorically that they don’t fund international students.

Mo ya look away

Northeastern:
Texas Tech is being proactive here.

You can be in your house in Nigeria and be performing GA duties and getting paid.

No GRE or TOEFl? No problem.

mikeayus:
Hello..I just submitted an application for ms analytics for fall 2020. What's up with you?

Cc rkarang I would like us to connect since we applied for same course bro..cheers

mikeayus:
Hello guys...good evening, I submitted application for ms business Intelligence and analytics to Stevens institute of technology and shortly after..I discovered they waived letters of recommendation for me on the portal. I just submitted an application to Rowan university today and they too have just waived one letter of recommendation on my application portal. I'm beginning to wonder why this and if anybody has experienced such here...my experienced ogas in the house..pls shed some light. Thanks

Cc justwise fairheart imperiouxx lagosismyhome

thekingofafrica:
I have a question, my school is asking me to submit my SOA, what’s the minimum money that should be available, secondly, can I make use of two account statements belonging to two individuals, myself and my uncle.

Evans211:
The importance for Toefl cannot be overemphasized. However, we are in similar situation. If you really need to meet up with priority deadline in January, look fo schools that waive English proficiency exam... submit your application and along the line, if you still have interest to write Toefl, you can still write for future sake. Although your GRE, GPA and most importantly, your SOP and LOR should stand out; that will speak volume.

I applied to to 2020 fall admission

BGSU
Texas Tech
University of Kansas (priority deadline is Jan 7)
Kansas State University (priority deadline is Jan 7)

Most schools is January basically... don’t sleep on it please.

I am till considering applying to George Washington state Uni And Cleveland state University..

Goodluck to us.

Princekenuk:
Calm down and worry less. Get more list of schools that waived TOEFL. Do your research well, there are a good number of institutions that waives TOEFL for Nigerians. Get admission first. Avoid those insisting that GAs must submit English test. You just need to apply to say maximum of five schools. You will get them.

At worst they'll demand English test after giving you Admission and Assistantship. They will recommend you enrol in an English class before kick starting your studies. They aren't witch hunting you. Understand their own stand. You gonna teach their students over there. So you got to have a good command of good English-speaking ability.

rkarang:
So how’s admission process going? TOEFL is really giving me huge concern.

I don’t have the financial resource for it, I can only squeeze myself to take it.

As such, I narrowed my sch search to schs that waive TOEFL for Nigerians but then the emphasis schs place on TOEFL for GTA is a huge concern.

tegipraise:
Thank you Nairaland Family for inspiring me greatly with your knowledge and experiences. I am a silent reader and I studied this thread like a bible with a jotter and pen from Part 13. I enjoyed both the life transforming knowledge and all the quarrels and arguments

Visa Approved on the 24th Oct and Passport collected 28th Oct 2019

Graduated with a degree in Microbiology, 2015
Refused study visa 3 times in Canada and the last refusal was March 2019.
This was my first application to the US, University of New Haven. Masters in chemistry for winter 2020
No Gre
No TOEFL
No IELTS
Sponsor: Uncle with different surname
Interview time: 6:45am. Lagos,

I got to the embassy around 5:25am, I saw lot of people already, some even dressed like they just woke up from sleep and some looked like they were just going to greet the VO who is their relative hahahahaha, NOTE: please you must dress well and look smart, imagine you are going for an interview in a bank, how will you dress? not necessarily suit which looks too formal and common. I wore a well starched collarless coffee brown long-sleeves tucked in my light brown chinos trouser with a suede brown shoe. Please don't cut your hair a day to interview, do it like 3 days to, the looks is different. I even did facial massage, use cucumber to remove eye bags and i will drinking lots of water to have white eyes and hydrated skin. I prepared all round sha. I went in well equiped.

After I did all the bio metrics stuff, I finally entered the interview hall, I was consciously looking for the black american ladies people talked about here but I didnt see them. All VOs were white male. I was interviewed by a young VO in window 1, the window by the entrance door and he approved 4 persons before me but questioned them alot.

VO: Good morning
Me: Hi Good morning, good to see you (cheerfully)
VO; Good to see you too ( with a surprise look)
VO; passport and i20
Me: sure (gave him). He typed for few mins
VO: Where are you going to
me: I am going for a research masters degree in chemistry with conc. in drug discovery chemistry at the UNH, Connecticut.
VO: why this schoool
Me: A lot of reasons made me choose UNH but for the purpose of this interview I’ll enumerate just 4;
Firstly, I am very keen and interested in research; and I have a passion for cancer treatment, the chemistry department is currently conducting a research in collaboration with Yale University Scientist and cancer center. This research is focused on laboratory synthesis of natural product and their analogues, polyoxygenated and heterocyclic compounds for the design of drug molecules like antibacterial and anticancer chemotherapeutic agent. The motivation is to discover and develop new approaches, new vaccines and new drug delivery systems and integrating them with experiment into chemical materials like green catalyst and cancer drug to improve survival rate of adult diagnosed with leukemia. (cut in)

VO: How many university did you apply to
ME: Western Illinois University, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

VO: who is you sponsor
ME: my uncle
VO: what does he do
ME: He is a renowned financial economist and the chief financial officer and partner of the bleep and treasurer of the bleep bleep.
VO: do you have your reciprocacy fee here?
VO: yes i do
the rest was history

I noticed the VO kept reading my D120 form in his system, NOTE: what you fill in your D120 form is very important and it determines your approval or refusal already, the interview seems to, just come and confirm perhaps with evidence what is on your D120 form. Please fill your form online yourself like i did and screen shot or write important information like dates and figures on a paper so you wont forget after you had submitted your form.

Mehn I fasted and prayed oh, even took 14 days to my interview off work. Miracles are real, if not for anything it boosted my confidence and i was alert. I knew who ever will interview me will approve me.
Dont talk too fast or too slow, demonstrate with your hands and use a passionate expression on your face like I did for study of cancer, because its killing our people everyday

Prepare your transcript and act it like home video. I felt like an actor rehearsing for a shot.

God is the ultimate joor, nobody can tell me otherwise. Its my experience.

REMEMBER: Pray it into existence and work it into existence. God bless you all.

wickyyolo:
Thanks to Walspring. I paid my SEVIS fee and got my confirmation in less than 24hours.

What i like about him is his transparency also his fees is very affordable.


Thumbs Up.

sholaball:
Hello guys
I was offered Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA) in Chemistry at Western Kentucky University (WKU) for Spring 2020. I'm to resume next year Jan 20, 2020 in time for my GTA orientation. I'm yet to receive my I-20 form; I would be sending my financial statement (one account used for Treasury bills and another savings acct) next week Monday.

I would like to meet anyone who schools in WKU or in Kentucky. I pray and believe it will end in praise for us all.

snip09:
Hello Nairalander,
If your dream is to come study, please don't give up on it, Michigan is a nice state so is America, it's getting cold little by little but i'm being told by winter i would really know and understand what cold looks like, lol...
Resumed this fall and for anyone considering Eastern Michigan university, Ypsilanti, you could shoot me a mail, it's not bad here...
God bless our hustles.

Kaykay07:
How did you register for d exam?

fairheart:
I have sent the GRE study materials to those who dropped their emails.
Study hard and make yourself proud.

tunz93:
Please i need the GRE materials
odunsbaba@gwmail.com

solihp:
The last post I promised, long post alert

Things that might have helped me during this admission process

During my application process, there were somethings I wished I knew while reading previous transcripts of others and that is why I have decided to be as detailed as possible in my profile so it could be of help to those going for Spring and fall 2020 and beyond that.

I graduated in November 2018 and I decided to apply for my Masters in December, that was extremely late you might say considering the fact that GRE is almost always required for my proposed course of study, but one thing that helped was that I had been following both the GRE and this thread for months before I graduated, but don't be like me if you could help it, prepare far ahead.

So I had to register to write my GRE exam in the first week of February, prepared for less than two months combined with researching the schools I wanted to apply to.


The most important thing is to know yourself, Statistics is my background and I have always loved Mathematics so it made the preparation process abit easier. But I would suggest you prepare for at least 3 months.

Because I wanted to write GRE in February, I was limited to schools that had their priority deadlines around January 31, February 1 and 15 and March.


So I will give some points that helped me and explain them:

Get in contact with the graduate coordinator/director even before you apply: I can't emphasise this enough, before I submitted my application, I emailed all the graduate directors, told them my profile and that I was going to write GRE in February and asked if I could still meet up to be considered for graduate assistantship, I went ahead with some of the schools that replied me. This helped so much that I had a feeling two schools already decided to admit me and were only waiting for my GRE scores, immediately I finished my GRE exam, I reported my unofficial scores to them via email, my official scores got to them on February 18th which was past 6 out of the 7 schools' priority deadline. I got my first admission few days later and another one few weeks later. Unsurprisingly, they were from the two schools I kept in contact with their graduate directors (GD) the most.


Please follow-up on your application: Sometimes, you wonder why you haven't heard from some schools months after you submitted your application. So I had a particular school that I didn't hear anything from around 1 month after my official GRE score got to them, i emailed the director. Guess what he told me?, he said it was indicated that something was missing on my application even when it says completed on the application portal, he told me he would help me check what was missing the next day.

When he checked, he realised there was nothing actually missing, he reviewed my application and sent my admission letter with funding that same week. So what if I didn't draw his attention to my application? Please follow up biko.


You can ask for more funding: When I was admitted into GSU, I was given full tuition waiver and 5k stipends, I got in contact with graduate students in the school and I was told there was no way the 5k stipends would sustain my living expenses. I was even more motivated when I saw on grad cafe that someone admitted few days before me, a masters student but different concentration in my department was offered 10k.

I wrote a fanimorous(don't mind the incorrect English) to the GD, telling her how the school was my top choice, how I am grateful to be admitted and offered scholarship but that I needed my stipends to be increased.

It wasn't easy o, I had to send plenty plenty reminders, she told me the highest they could offer me was 5k, I sent more emails. Later she told me, okay wait till after April 15th, if some people reject their offers, we can offer you more.

After April 15th, I sent her another email, then ending of the month, they finally said they can increase the stipends to 10k and sometime in May, I got the updated admission letter. I am sure when the GD sees me in August, she would be like, so this is Solihp that almost finished me with emails, lol.

Look at how she said she couldn't offer more but later told me to be patient, persistency paid off. Of course, it won't always work, American University that I fell in love with their curriculum, cost of attendance was around 64k and I was offered partial tuition waiver and stipends worth 19k, I sent email to the GD, he told me point blank the award is a merit based scholarship and that was the highest they give people, Washington DC living cost that was expensive, I just waka pass jare. So it won't always work but there's no harm in trying, just be polite about it.


Communication is key: Communicate with the schools you're applying to, for instance 5 out of 7 of the schools I applied to automatically waived English Proficiency test for me since Nigeria is an English speaking Country. For the remaining 2, I sent a letter from the registrar's office of my undergraduate school stating that my degree was taught solely in English Language and the compulsory requirement was waived for me.


Always remember that the admission committee tends to look at your overall profile, so try to work on things that can enhance your profile, write GRE, write TOEFL too if you have the means, write nice statement of purpose. For undergraduate, don't give up on yourself quickly, some schools assess your GPAs for the last two years of your study, so please finish strong.


In summary, prepare ahead, write those standardised tests, it would help your chance of being admitted, keep in contact with the GDs, etc. I wish you all the best. Here is my finalised offers in details.

American University (admitted into both Biostatistics and Statistics programs with 19k scholarship)

George Washington University: (admitted into both Biostatistics and Statistics programs, no funding)

Villanova University: ( Admitted into Applied Statistics program, no funding)

Michigan Technological University : ( Admitted into Statistics, Mathematical Science, and Data science programs, no funding)

Bowling Green State University : (I was admitted into their Applied Statistics program in February ending and funding didn't come until first week in June, full tuition waiver and stipends worth 13k)

University of Iowa: Waitlisted then rejected

Georgia State University: (Admitted into Biostatistics with full tuition waiver and stipends worth 40k)

Fall 2019, yes we made it

I was intentionally explicit about everything, this is my own way of giving back to the thread and I hope it would help someone in the future. All the best