Transcript for:
Insights on Fulbright Nehru Masters Fellowship

so hello everyone uh welcome to the panel discussion on writing a successful application for the full brightness masters fellowship program this session is designed to provide an overview about the fields of study eligibility and application process of the master's grant the panel discussion will focus on some of the vital components of the application such as study objectives personal statement university preference and reference report we will discuss the selection criteria to provide you with deeper insights for developing a strong application this one hour session will also include q and a so please post your queries in the question section and you know of this platform this go to webinar platform great so we are all ready to start uh i will uh start with providing an introduction about the usf stuff and also the uh the panelists for today so my name is sudarsandhas and i work as a senior program official at usif i have been associated with this organization for over of 16 years and i have with me today gayatri sinhal gayatri administers the masters fellowship program and also with me uh suranja nadas suranjana thanks for joining us today suranjana is from mumbai gayatri and i we work at the usf delhi office but i am really pleased today to introduce you to our panelists for this program we we have three panelists and uh all three are fulbrighters we have oculus barrier oculus is an ips official and he is a 2020 pullback neheru masters fellow oculus is currently on an mpa grant at columbia university the second panelist for this evening is gotham sundares gotham received the fulbright nehru masters fellowship in 2021 and he is currently pursuing his ll.m at stanford university we have practice received the fulbright mehru masters fellowship in 2019 and she has completed her mph from howard university thank you so much achilles gotham and pratisha for joining us today you have all gone through this election process and you have been successful your insights your guidance will be immensely helpful for the prospective applicants thanks again for joining us today so uh i will give an overview about the fields so for the masters we have 11 fields if you can see that on the screen and i would suggest all of you to take a close look at the fields because if you see that if we receive applications beyond these fields which do not yes i can see it now thanks guy 3. so if you receive if we receive applications which do not fit into any of our fields then your application will not be considered and the fulbright hero thank you yes i got it and the fulbright masters fellowship program is up to two years and the funding is for up to 80 000 that's a cap for us the application deadline is may 16 2022 so i must alert all of you that this is a very strict deadline and you must submit the application well in advance don't wait till the last minute now i would like to highlight the eligibility requirements and request all the applicants to review the eligibility criteria very carefully because if you do not fit or you do not meet the eligibility requirements your application will be rejected from the academic point of view you must have an equivalent of a u.s bachelor's degree that means you should have either a four years bachelor's degree from an indian institution or a master's degree if you have a three years bachelor's degree and you do not have a master's degree then it is a must that you should have a full-time postgraduate diploma in addition to your 3 years bachelor's degree in addition to academic requirements you should have three years of full-time professional work experience and this should be paid work experience and that is a must to apply for the fulbright nehru masters fellowship program you should demonstrate experience of leadership and community service because the master's fellowship program are designed for change agents the leaders who can bring changes in the society so you should be a leader in your field and you should have commitment for the community service public service and that is an important criteria of the master selections and if you have another ticket from the us university or you are enrolled for a degree program in the u.s you are not eligible to apply if you are employed it is required that your application should be routed through proper channel but please review the detailed information about this if you are on a contractual position or if you are on a short term you know position it may not be required so please review the criteria regarding this next place guy 3 how to apply this is a very simple process you have to complete your application online visit our website usif.org.in and go to the masters fellowship page and how to apply under the how to apply column you will come across submit an online application the link is there you need not to note it down from here as you see on the screen so if you click that you will be taken to the desired site of the application we have developed the applicant instructions for the master's applicants which will be which is available on our website and i request all the applicants to review the applicant instructions very carefully before starting your online application the applicant instruction provides lots of insights and guidance about the application process not only that it also gives guidance on each question so if you read the applicant instructions it will give you lots of information about how to come up with a strong application you are you have to complete an online application but in addition to that you have to upload several documents full brightness applicant annexure is one of them the applicant annexure is an important component of the application you can download the applicant on extra from our website from usif.org.in complete it and upload it on your online application the applicant of an extra will have several questions including the field in which you are applying it also asks questions about your role as a cultural ambassador your future plan your ability to network and also to be a to be a leader in your field the master's employer endorsement form is another component of the application if it is applicable for you if you are in a permanent position or if you are with a government job that might be applicable for you so you have to complete the master's employer's endorsement form and include it as a part of your application the application is a lengthy document and you have to actually upload many things to ensure that you do not miss any component of your application we have developed an applicant checklist so i suggest all of you before submitting your final application to take a look at the applicant checklist that we have developed to ensure that you are covering all the components of the application the application deadline is may 16 2022 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds it's a very rigid deadline if you are delayed even by a second your application will not be considered in fact you will not be in a position to submit your application because the online application site will close exactly at the deadline so i suggest once again to take it very seriously and some don't wait till the last minute submit your application a few days before the deadline creating your online account it's also simple you have to log in to the link that is given on our website for the online application the application to create the application you have to give your email address your past name last name and date of birth and you have to complete a few simple steps and your application will be created you will have an id as well as a password you can use that to log in multiple times to your application online application and work on it the online application has several components as you can see this landing page it has country information personal information contact information academic and professional information academic materials so you have to complete all these components of the application you need not to do it at one go the system allows you to complete it in multiple login settings two things i would like to highlight here that when you are developing your application as a part of the preliminary questions you must feel you must choose india as a part of your program country sometimes it happens that in case because it's a drop down menu in case you choose any other country that starts with ai like indonesia or israel your application will be rejected because will not be in a position to the india commission will not be in a position to see your application and note that you are applying for the academic year 23 24 so you have to choose 23 24 from the drop down menu next please guy three i would like to highlight here the issue of plagiarism please note that the fulbright applicants are expected to be original so when you are developing your application you have to express yourself in your original thinking in case you are borrowing some ideas or some text please give proper citation note that we have a zero tolerance or no tolerance policy for pleasure regime if plagiarism is detected at any stage of your application even after your selection your application will be rejected so ensure that you are giving proper citation and you should express yourself in original thinking and as a part of this application you have to give this plagiarism agreement that you follow the best practices academic integrity when you are developing your application these are some of the things that i would like to highlight but i would also highlight here is that you know the application has several components study objectives and personal statement are two extremely important factors of the application and today's panel discussion focus on these two aspects along with several other things like university preference and reference report i'll here invite my colleague gayatri gaither can you please speak little bit more about study objectives and personal statement and also take the views of our panelist on this over 253 thank you sudarshan so to talk about study objectives as sudhashan said that this is one of the important essays in the fulbright nehru masters application so study objectives as the name itself indicates it basically talks about your field of studies so one of the fields out of 11 that you have chosen you are basically talking about that specific field of study it is important to highlight the significant of your proposed study plan to india and the us you should also interview your previous professional experiences as well as academic accomplishments and your future career goals to your study plan let's hear from our grantees akhilesh and gotham about specifically about this essay akhilesh what were the three points that you kept in mind when you were writing your study objectives um thank you sudhurshan and gayatri and i just briefly wanted to acknowledge some of my fellow fulbrighties ishwar and harsh and archana who i spoke to to get some ideas about this before coming to the panel uh i guess i would start with the idea that the prompt which asks for your study objective is uh in my understanding a series of questions so to me it's good to actually break down that prompt uh into its different constituents and begin with writing your perspectives or answers to the individual parts of the prompt um i can go deeper into this later if we have time but after you are able to sort of address every aspect of what the prompt is asking about uh you can then go on to sort of synthesize uh what you feel uh in all of that and i would suggest that you do uh this writing over a period of multiple days on um in time slots that you write the best instead of trying to do this all together in in one day maybe that works for you but this is how i did it and it really helps to refresh and come back to it uh later second uh like guy just mentioned it is really a narrative of uh sort of your professional experience and your education culminating into the course uh that you want to do and i would say you should touch upon but don't dive too deeply into the theoretical underpinnings of your background and how it relates to your course um the the next point i'd like to say is you know this would really add value this is not something i was able to do to my satisfaction but i would really advise this is to really go out to these university courses um across the board for instance colombia has a public portal where you can look at all of the programs and the courses that it offers including 54 credits averaging maybe around five credits a semester so you'll be taking about 20 courses in all if it's a two-year course and so you can look at what each of these courses are offering it will give you a better idea of what's out there and how it aligns with your study objective and last and i'm going to end with this and hand over to gautam is that editing and finish is extremely important simplify be jargonize and write as clearly as possible i would say conveying substance with simplicity should be the aspiration thanks thank you akilesh got them over to you what was your strategy of writing these study objectives sure uh thank you gayatri and uh i think uh achilles has covered a lot of the important points so i'll uh talk about some of the structural things which i kept in mind uh i think you know just as a first step when approaching the study objective i think it's important to sort of give the reader a general understanding of uh the technical aspects of the issues in the field that you're working in just to provide the reader you know an understanding that you are you do have expertise in the field and you have done a certain amount of work i think it's also important at the same time to sort of provide an overview of the scope for social impact that can be achieved through your work and why there is a sort of a social impact element involved and as a second step you know you really i i think uh when i was looking at it i i wanted to ensure that i could get into the specifics of the study objective in terms of the problem uh to be solved you know and how this uh problem is actually solvable through research work and through your study in the us so i think it's important uh and this is something that i did uh you know just to draw parallels between the us and india and to identify at a theoretical level how things are done differently and to sort of detail out what you think you can transplant from the u.s system that you know will have that positive or transformative impact in your uh specific field in india so i think you know it's it's it's just as important to sort of justify why your study in the us and why your study objective sort of pertains to the us uh because you know as a candidate for this specific uh scholarship you're you're sort of overcoming the implicit uh burden of demonstrating why the us is important as opposed to you know why you can't just conduct this postgraduate study in india or in another country like the uk so sort of following on from that i think you know it may be useful to sort of demonstrate your familiarity or sort of sense of connection with prior work uh by us professors and scholars and identify you know how this study will help address that uh sort of existing gap in india and and that's something that i did in my study objective just to sort of cite an example there i i sort of spoke about an age-old debate between uh bankruptcy scholars in the us which sort of highlighted the so different schools of thought on this issue and and i i think it's also important to sort of tie in where you land in terms of uh in in terms of you know the debate and and your ideological uh perspective so i i chose a certain side of the debate and talked about how india can benefit from uh you know the policy considerations that underlie that side of the debate so that that that's just the sort of structural framework that i followed thank you gotham this was extremely um useful so let's uh move on to the second essay which is the personal statement so personal statement is uh basically a narrative statement of who you are you can in this essay you can talk about your personal interest your specific experiences and events of your life it is significant to focus not on the impact of these experiences rather than just listing them i would like to ask pratusha and gotham as to how did they develop their personal statement so uh pratyusha how did you go about preparing your outline for the personal statement yeah thank you gayathri um so i think before i actually lay the outline i think i resonated with one of those things that akhilesh mentioned right at the beginning that i also went through multiple drafts i went through about 10 to 12 drafts if i remember correctly and over a period of about uh four to five weeks i would keep coming back uh to my drafts and um the outline i managed to put together more or less in the first week but i think it went through a couple of changes towards the end when i was um restructuring things around um so what i ended up finally doing in my case is i started with uh with the challenge uh for managing data in in the public health space because i come from a background in economics and i wanted to pursue public health and at that time i was doing some work in that area so i chose to uh use an excerpt from an interview that i had conducted recently which illustrated this problem and uh using that i basically made a case for my interest in a graduate program in public health i stated my previous academic training my work experience and my skills to support my application for a graduate program in public health and how i could leverage the fulbright network scholarship the fellowship to be able to do this and then i spent the body of my personal statement i divided that into about four paragraphs i think and these four paragraphs were basically uh on my internships and work experience but they were used to substantiate the statement that i had made previously that my academic training and work experience and skills support my application so i devoted about one paragraph each to each of these work experiences and i made sure that the first sentence from a particular paragraph always connected in terms of idea and thought to the last sentence of the previous paragraph because that continuity was important for even the reader and this is something that i uh learned about when at my time in harvard and i wish i had known it before which is always start maybe by telling your reader what you're going to tell them then go on to tell your reader what you want to tell them and then end by telling your reader what you just told them so that way uh because your application is just going to be one among several that someone at fulbright is going to scan and read through so you really have to make it stand out and also help them recall uh what they just read so i think yeah got them over to you thank you pratyusha yes gotham please uh share your experience of developing the personal statement sure sure and uh thanks pratyusha i think i sort of resonate with a lot of uh what you said especially sort of front ending the uh sort of emphasis of the personal statement uh so you know when when i was looking at creating the outline i was really looking at sort of crafting a narrative that connects all the dots like pradosha said you know uh all the experiences and events that have sort of led up to where i am and and also highlight the reasons for my research motivations and the work that i want to do and i think the personal statement although it's it's it's about your personal experiences it also links back to the study objective in some way and this is your opportunity to really talk about why the study objective is important to you at a personal level so you know i i took that as the base but i sort of focused on moving beyond the technical aspects and went through a sort of uh process of introspection like pratyusha did over a series of many weeks where i sort of uh you know i i try to uncover the key elements of my professional and academic life that sort of made me motivated to do the kinds of work that i wanted to do and to work towards policy change in my area of work so structurally i think my outline was divided uh so the division was two fifths uh towards these motivating factors and experiences from the past and from sort of my undergraduate law school experience and the other three fifths were sort of focused on specific issues that i encountered in my current work that i was talking about in my study objective and how i looked at those issues through sort of the prism of you know the experiences that have shaped me in the past and i also think it's really important to use the personal statement as a means of sort of highlighting you know once personal responses and reactions to some of the uh issues that you're talking about in your study objective because you may be highlighting an issue but it's also important to tell the selection committee uh how you're thinking about it and how you're reacting at a personal level so i did that on the kinds of issues that i was talking about in the policy making landscape and how i felt those were unfair and imbalanced and how i reacted to that and i think this really gives the selection committee sort of an idea about how you know once thinking from an individual at an individual level rather than simply from a purely objective or theoretical framework so i just to sum up i think the personal statement can really be used as a means to sort of introduce the committee to who you are as a person and can really be used as a sort of differentiating factor to show uh the committee that you're really serious and motivated uh to effectuate change and you haven't you haven't only identified an issue but this sort of issue resonates with you at a uh at an individual level as well thank you uh gotham and pratyusha now in fact this brings me uh to the next question and something you know which over the years many applicants have expressed challenge with is how do you uh you know ensure that your content in study objectives is not overlapping with your personal statement like you know when you're talking about study objectives how do you ensure that you know you're not elaborating too much of that even in your personal statement so how do you keep them separate yet you know they align with each other so let's hear from akilesh and pratyusha about how did you ensure that you know these are different yet they both talk about you as a as an applicant so occulation what ways was your study objective different from personal statement uh thank you gayatri uh just uh building off on what pratisha and gautam have said a personal essay as the name suggests is two degrees more personal than your more formal study objective uh from my uh perspective and just as um the previous speakers mentioned this is more of a uh of a statement where your achievements aspiration and personality take a narrative form if it has to be a good story which somebody picking up would want to read in in one go um typically your formative years which have influenced the individual you are and how it fits into your professional experience uh comes here and this is exactly where you stand apart uh as someone who's had a challenging past and a potentially enviable future and i would hazard a guest here to say that in terms of everything that sudharshan mentioned so far fulbright is possibly looking for future leaders in their respective domain that being like the guiding principle and just to add the icing to the cake not taking anything away from what uh pradesha and gautam have mentioned so far like for me the icing is it's to create an aha moment for the person who's evaluating you uh you know but there's also this thin line for for not overdoing it so that balance is very important and compared to this the study objective is a more rational fit for the course or the program that you're applying for um and that really ties into what we spoke about about the study objective before this um the only thing that i would need to add here is you know it's very important to don't check uh what what you're looking for both in the personal statement and and the study objective like what you say and how you say it is is very very important so that i think would be my answer thanks thank you akhilesh what is what was your experience of writing these two essays and ensuring that you're covering everything and yet they are different yeah thanks kaitlyn i think uh akhilesh explained that really well um but i think the challenge is more with the the study objectives essays so i'll just focus a little more on that about structurally a little bit um so i can given i can walk you through how i uh how i went through it which was i focused on why the graduate course that i the graduate school course that i wanted to do was relevant for the current health care challenges in india so that was basically my my initial hook and the skills that the graduate program would help me build so whereas in um in my personal statement these did feature they were they were mentioned but it was more about how like my personal journey led up to this this realization that i wanted to do this but with my study objectives i started head-on with just what the problem is and why this graduate program is going to help me work in this space i briefly mentioned my academic background and work experience in this essay as well but that was just one paragraph as opposed to four paragraphs in the personal statement and instead i elaborated on some of the work that i've done the research work that i've done how it ties into my future aims and goals i cited an instance from my personal experience where lack of evidence for instance was a serious constraint to decision making and how i think a graduate program would train me and help me to build more evidence-based uh policy making in india so i would i understand that that challenge is there and it's not about these two being completely different essays they are very related essays but what you're focusing on in each of them has to be different thank you pratyusha i'm sure you know these suggestions and their own process of writing the application would have been very helpful uh as many of these applicants start writing or as they are preparing their different drafts some of them may be on the seventh draft some of them may be on their 11th draft so great so thank you so much and then let's move on to the uh next section on university preferences the application form asks the applicant to list three to four universities in order of preference now there are often a few applicants who have already done their research and they know where they want to go however many applicants are still exploring the most suitable programs according to their career goals so acculation gotham what was your process of shortlisting the us university uh your university preferences or based on your experience what guidance would you provide to the prospective applicants so one of my guiding uh principles into this was i really was focused on doing a two-year course uh so that really became a focus area and and because it was a two-year course uh i guess practically the the financial part of it became important because uh an average typically for a two-year course uh the fulbright funding would amount to about the two-thirds of the tuition costs which means that you would definitely need to get some financial aid from the college that you're getting and so that was definitely a guiding principle practically um from a subject viewpoint i would say a detailed exercise to map out the courses reaching out to professors and most importantly speaking to some of the alumni um i think it's after coming here that i realized that this process is much more frequent and common than we realize from back home so i would recommend just going on out on linkedin or just google searching for alumni from these colleges and writing to them stating uh your interest uh i would think that more people would respond than not and this would really help to understand what the course is about and how the experience was um my last point was uh especially on the point of the fulbright uh course do reach out to fulbright alumni both successful and unsuccessful applicants uh based on what their thoughts and process were on the study objective personal statement and university shortlisting i think that can really help in understanding what approach one should take thank you thank you akilesha gotham how did you go about shortlisting your courses for llm sure uh so i i think the process for me was uh slightly different because i already held uh admissions from the year before i uh applied for fulbright but i think the general principles still apply and really help me in my uh fulbright application i think you know it's really important uh to sort of when you're mentioning preferences because you are usually asked by the selection committee about your university choices so it's really important to sort of research and look into what the university has to offer in your field of interest and different even within law i know that different applicants sort of prioritize different universities based on their uh specific uh specialization but i think it's also important to sort of look i look at the alignment of the of what the sort of uh uh of the research and sort of political ideology of the university with you know the the sort of problem that you're trying you're trying to solve i think uh each each u.s schools seems to position itself differently on the ideological spectrum so you really want to do your research there so that you can present a viable case uh you know about how this aligns with your uh with your research and how this can and and how this has actually had a significant impact on your decision i think other than uh professors and courses like akilesh mentioned i think it's also important to sort of research uh the work being done by the research centers at at the specific university and the kinds of publications being put out by some of the primary academic journals i think that also really helps in building on sort of giving that holistic perspective to the committee about why this university stands out the most and how and the fact that you've researched and and given uh sort of uh and given given enough justification about you know why your research makes sense within that academic setting so uh those were some of the factors that i took into consideration thank you uh gotham uh and i just want to add that even though the original ii application like the online application doesn't make it mandatory for the applicants to state their university preferences however if you look at the specific instructions for indian applicants we have clearly stated that please do you know mention your university preferences and as uh gotham also mentioned that it does give you know an idea to the selection committee members as to why you have chosen these courses what are you you know planning to pursue in the us and if you look at the university preferences question it asks you to even provide a rational of the specialization that you intend to take so do do mention your university preferences because that gives more information to the selection committee members uh you know even though we are essentially asking questions to two panelists but uh feel free you know if you have any points to uh add this is specifically for the third panelist yes okay let's uh move on to the next section which is on the letters of reference so every applicant will be asked to submit three letters of reference uh we highly encourage that one of the letters from should be from your academic institution from where you graduated and two letters can be from your professional contacts however uh it's not mandatory that you have to submit uh you know a letter of reference from your academic institution especially you know if if you're someone who graduated maybe a decade ago then and if you feel that you know your uh your professional contacts may be more recent and more relevant to your application feel free uh to do that it's just that you know some of the us universities uh prefer to have a letter of recommendation from your academic institution now in terms of you know uh you should be very careful in choosing your referees who should be these referees who can write a strong recommendation letter for you in addition to that uh make sure that you know you have provided them enough information about you so that they can write a a strong and a more detailed recommendation so say for instance uh prepare your recent resume and share with them if if you get an opportunity to talk about your study plan study objectives why are you applying for the fulbright narrow masters fellowship with your uh referee so reference letters are highly imperative to your fulbright application now uh let's hear from pratyusha and gotham as to what factors did they consider by selecting the uh referees uh pratyusha over to you yeah thanks guys so um like i3 mentioned um i so what i did is that my first reference was someone who had taught me in my undergrad um so um my professor who taught me economics but also who specialized in economics of healthcare i thought that was especially relevant given that i was going from a background in economics to studying public health so i requested him for a reference letter and he'd known me for over five years then could vouch for my academic background my second reference letter was uh from the head of a quasi-government organization that i had worked with at the start of my career um so uh this person also knew me for about two and a half years when i had requested for a reference letter but i had actively worked with him for about seven months when i was directly reporting to him for a few projects and the idea was that he could vouch for my ability to work in a fast-paced demanding unstructured environment and uh so i requested him and my last reference was from a professor at johns hopkins who was one of the lead investigators in a research project that i was working on at that time he had also known me for about two years at that time and he could vouch for my research skills and extensive field work that i've done over those two years um so yeah i requested for one letter from someone from a completely different background so that was the idea got them all the time yes gotham please thank you uh yeah i i i sort of agree with that and uh just just as a matter of principle i think when i was looking at getting these reference letters i was looking at both professional and academic because i think you know for me that made sense and it felt like the application was sort of a culmination of both those elements to bring together your study objective as well as your in in the academic sense as well as how you plan to progress this uh professionally and in terms of who i approached i thought it made sense to approach people you know who could really attest to my personal motivations and how i view sort of view the world and include those elements in their uh reference letters so i i approach people whom i've whom i've spoken to about these issues in the past and and not strictly professionally but also in terms of you know how i feel about these policy issues and the kinds of change that i want to sort of effectuate through my research so uh from for the academic letter i approached a professor who taught me over uh three different years in law school because we really had that close association and he could really sort of attest to my ability to excel in a challenging academic setting and i i know that that's also something that the selection committee values in terms of just being able to sort of perform in that setting and uh for from a professional standpoint i think you know it's best to get letters from seniors and mentors who know you closely as opposed to simply some something designation or uh status based uh you know i i approach people who i've worked with for a sustained period of time and i think it's really uh sort of the personal elements even in these professional letters that make a difference in terms of the kind of value that the recommendation letter will have i also sort of selected uh selected uh referees who had uh studied atop u.s institutions so that they could sort of attest to the fact that uh you know that experience would align with my capabilities and also help me uh grow as a researcher and a scholar so i i got reference letters from two different uh partners in my law firm from two different practice areas who i had worked with closely for five years uh by that point and that really sort of uh i i think uh uh because of that that really highlighted some of the personal elements of my research objective and and what i was trying to do thank you uh gotham and pratyusha for sharing some of these very important points when the applicants are selecting their referees uh i just want to add that it is always you know good to reach out to your referees now i would say immediately if you haven't done till now because give them ample time give them few weeks to write your recommendation uh letters and as i said you know provide them with all the tools so that they can really write a strong uh recommendation for you any additional points that uh akhilesh pratyusha or gotham you want to share you know based on not just writing your application but based on your fulbright experience uh anything that you would like to share with our uh participants today uh i just wanted to add a point particularly on the the referee bit especially for practitioners and that's the world that i came from and we typically can embark on a study leave only after seven to eight years so that's quite some distance from our graduation time but i would really emphasize on having an academic referee with preferably with someone who's with whom our parts have crossed during a professional time because academic referees also have an intuition for what kind of a reference letter really translates into an admit and what doesn't something that uh an insight that a practitioner may necessarily not have and also ultimately because this is an academic program uh there needs to be someone authoritatively speaking to our academic prowess um and i know that may be challenging for somebody who's been in the practitioner field for a while but that's something that we have to find and just a point if there's a doubt on whether or not you should reach out to a particular referee i think you should actually reach out if if they say uh you know if they are uncomfortable with it they'll say no and then you can move on but but please do reach out uh i think that's something that i would like to add thanks thank you akilesha any other points that protrusion gotham want to add not just related to reference letters but anything you know in the application or based on your fulbright experience uh sure i could go uh first uh i i i think you know uh one thing that i would like to mention is that you know even as a through the process of this webinar i think you know the the process of applying may seem uh really technical and daunting but it's really not and you sh and i don't think you know one should really think about it so strategically i think it's important to sort of include an honest reflection of uh one's motivations while applying and you know what one's driven to do at a personal level i personally didn't think i would make it through the first round because i thought you know this uh people from civil services would probably be a better fit but uh it turns out that you know if if you sort of give enough background and give enough detail about why the work you're doing is uh is important to society then that's what really counts more than anything else so i would say don't worry too much about the strategy and just put down you know uh what you really feel uh in your essays yeah i totally second that uh gotham that's uh yeah that's very well put i think the only other thing uh gayatri that i would like to mention to everybody is that um this is something i i learned while writing my essays and i also experienced while i was in the us uh in india we tend to use the passive voice a lot that because this happened to me that this experience happened to me whereas in the u.s there is a greater emphasis on the active voice that i brought this change about or i realized this right so um it's a very small thing but it makes a big difference in terms of how what you've written is perceived and how you speak later on is perceived so even when you're writing your essays this could be something that might just add a bit of value so that's the only thing i wanted to mention thank you so much uh i now request uh sudarshan to uh summarize the discussion by also talking about the selection criteria thanks gayatri i think that was an excellent analysis of the type most important component of an application study objectives personal statement study objectives versus personal statement university preferences and reference reports let me just take little more time of talking about the selection criteria and which will be actually considered when the referees and the selection committee members read your application these are the factors that you should always consider when you are developing your application the first thing is academic credentials and professional ability which will be evident from your academic records but the professional ability is something where you have to demonstrate your leadership factors your impact factor and your application should actually reflect these things your professional ability in bringing changes your professional ability to demonstrate leadership in your field the other factor that the reviewers or the and the selection committee members consider is to the need for the program why you want to go to the us at this point in time that justification is very important what you have done so far what exactly want to achieve in the us that justification needs to be done sometimes it happens that we preview many things and we do not express it in the application note that this application will be initially read by two independent subject matter experts so please keep in mind that you have to justify that why there is a need for you to go to the u.s outcome and potential impact it said that once a fulbrighter you are a fulbrighter for the lifetime it's not just you go to the u.s for one year or two years come back end of the story no you will be actually seen as a leader who can bring changes in the coming years so what is your plan in next five years or seven years that is extremely important how you can implement the learnings from the us back in india in fact in the application you have there is a question where you have to specify that what what is your goal in the coming year so outcome is also equally important as a part of the fulbright fellowship program motivation seriousness maturity leadership these are the other factors that the reviewers and the selection committee members take into account when they read your application and also if you are shortlisted for interviews they will be judging you from these factors also it's not another visit to the u.s it should be you should demonstrate your motivation and seriousness why you want to pursue a master's degree in the u.s the other factor of this election is ability to contribute as a cultural ambassador note that if you are selected for this fellowship program for the fulbright masters fellowship program your grant will be funded by both government of india and the government of usa that means you will be seen as a cultural ambassador of india to the us so how you could play that cultural ambassador role in the us that is an extremely important factor and there is certain weightage in this election process for the cultural ambassador role note that in the u.s you will be not just confined to the classroom you will be meeting people from all walks of life fulbright program operates in 160 countries so you will be getting a chance to meet fulbrighters from various parts of the globe and also you will be meeting political leaders community leaders they will be asking questions about india so you should be ready to project india objectively beyond your personal bias or ideological commitment so the cultural ambassador role is one of the important factors of this election criteria the other factor is communication skills which should be evident from your application writing and your verbal communication if you are shot listed for interviews and as you know our panelists today highlighted that you should review your application five six seven ten times before submitting it because your application must be as per the guidelines are specified in the question the last selection criteria is commitment to community and national service you should not be self-centric fulbrighters are again and again i'm highlighting our change agents so how you are committed to the community and national service that is something the committee members take into account so if you have done anything related to social change or if you have done something related to education awareness environment cultural education you should specify those in your application it can be at a very small scale does not matter that how big is it but it is more about your commitment to the community to the national service so i suggest all of you to keep these factors in mind when you are developing your application i think we will stop here our presentation uh you know more or less covered all the desired points but this is the time to take the questions so i request my colleague surandhana to read out the questions and we'll be happy to address those over to we have many questions actually and uh most of them like uh the questions like eligible eligibility criteria and certain things those are you know listed on our website so we will not touch upon those questions because the detailed instructions are already there on the website uh we're going to take uh we we need to be time sensitive so we are going to take a few pertinent questions so uh i can see that there is a question directed to achilles so uh kushagra has asked how can one organize additional funding for two years public ad or public policy programs as the cap for fulbright is at um 80k and two and you know for two years one might find it difficult so um do you have any uh suggestions or input for that so sorry typically the process the fulbright process hands hold hand holds your entire admission process going ahead so after you've listed out these uh colleges uh they they will go into uh you know the admit process and the admits will come back the second important process is the financial aid uh that comes back from these colleges and i'm going to again hazard a guess here and say that if you've made it to the full right there's a very good chance that you will get some kind of funding from the university that you're going to and and that's how your four college uh sort of package is also made with the help of the fulbright advisors so more often than not you will receive some funding from the university having said that uh you know that's how you balance your college options you know you go for some which really align with your aspirations but you might not get a funding from but some colleges which are sort of maybe relatively middle in the rankings and yet you're assured of much better funding so uh to be sure once you make it to full right there is a very good chance that you will get uh some additional scholarship from the colleges that are that you get admitted to thank you thank you the second question that i'm taking uh i would uh like gotham to address that akriti has asked how much uh do you touch upon sensitive topics that you may have experienced in your personal while you write your personal statement you know for example working with trans people or marginalized population so would you like to um give some tips got them uh sure uh i think uh you know that uh on on that point there's no bar as such i think uh the the panel is sort of uh the selection committee is inclusive in all respects and and sort of understands all of these issues and is willing to sort of uh dive deeper into these issues in your application as well as the interview so i also touched about uh touched upon a few sensitive topics i think what's what's also important is to sort of tie this into uh the type of work that you've been doing how you feel about this and and also what you plan to do in the future to address this so i think as long as it all ties back into that and builds that sort of narrative i think those are important things to mention and will really sort of highlight uh not only why the work is important but why uh you're you're the right person to do it so i i would say definitely include uh those points and also tie them in uh well with the rest of your narrative i think uh there is some internet connection um with surangina so let me take this question uh so sudarshan this is one of the participants is asking that he is a deputy director information and public relations with the governmental mizoram and he has been working in government media for last 12 years so even though communication journalism category would be the most suitable keeping in mind his experience however he's inclined to apply for public administration so what is your opinion i mean he's asking would this be a bad bet absolutely not you can apply for the public administration as a field because public administration is seen as a very broad concept it will include communication it will come include many other areas but for as far as you can demonstrate the impact factor at the policy level or at the uh you know ground level you can always come and apply for the under the public administration part but keep in mind again your future plan that is the reviewers and selection committees always keep in mind when they will read your application or they will interview you so what is your future plan what is your future goal in next you know five years or ten years and how a master's degree program in public art will help you to achieve those goals and also you have to demonstrate that you have enough academic and professional background to pursue this course at the desired us university so we are open-minded the reviewers and the selection committee members are also reviewing the applications from a larger perspective you are technically you can apply for this but as i highlighted that what is your future plan why you want to do this course and how you can implement those if you can demonstrate that your application could be a strong one thank you sudarshan i would like you to address this question so one of the prospective applicants says he is looking into a change in his major of study from his undergraduation is this recommendable is it recommendable to change major in the u.s academic culture i asked this specifically to you because you mentioned about you know you have a background in economics and how you wanted to apply in public health yeah thank you guys um i think um in my experience um i found people were very open to the idea of changing majors i i don't think there is a uh any perceived bias in that case but um if you are changing majors you need to be able to substantiate by showing the work that you've done in that space so although i had i was making a move from economics to public health i was able to demonstrate that i had done work in the space of tuberculosis though from an economic i had used my economic training to do it but i had worked on a tuberculosis project for three years and had also worked uh prior to that in other health projects um so i was i was able to show an interest it was not just a a whim or a fancy it was something that i i had a sustained interest in and that is why i wanted to apply uh for public health and i think that's something on the fulbright website also if i remember it they mentioned that whichever area you're applying to you need to demonstrate that you've had maybe three years of experience or some work experience in that particular area so if you're changing majors i don't think that's an issue as long as you are able to show some some reason or backing for it thank you pratyusha uh sudashian uh i would like to ask this question to you maybe we can take just one more before we uh wind up the session so uh we we we have an applicant who uh is saying that most of the selected candidates for fulbright are from well-off background professionally so what are the chances for a candidate from village to get selected for the fellowship i am so glad that this question came up and you know this is what i would like to highlight that fulbright stands for diversity fulbright is a merit based program this election happens completely based on merit but i will give you little bit of statistics to prove that how we have achieved diversity completely based on merit fifty percent of our finalists are women eighteen percent of our selected candidates are from the underserved areas like jammu and kashmir northeastern part of india bihar uttar pradesh we have seen that around 18 of our nominees are from religious minority we do not ask this question in the application but we have done our in-house analysis study and we found that 18 percent again around 18 percent of our nominees are from the religious minority we have seen some of our top nominees are women completely on merit basis so the selection committee the reviewers do not see where you are from you are from mumbai delhi or from a big metro city you are from a big institution or you are from a small institution does not matter what matters as i highlighted this election criteria objectively objectively the selections happen and also we are looking for leaders in their field who can bring changes there could be persons who are working in the small cities villages but they are doing phenomenal work in bringing changes in people's lives they are probably more suitable for the fulbright near masters candidates rather than the people who are from big cities but they are just confined to their you know classroom or their you know four walls of their work space so i would like to assure you that it's a completely based program but at the same time we just look at the criteria which i have stated nothing beyond that so stay assured whether you are from a small city or from a big city this election happen will happen completely on merit basis and i would like to highlight that just one more point that if there is a tie between two candidates then it happens frequently that a person is from a big city has lots of exposure the another person is from you know village does not have much exposure and they have equal score in that case the committee will select a candidate who does not have much exposure over two guy three thank you sudarshan uh one last question before um we wind up um so this question maybe you know one of the panelists can answer is it okay to get a recommendation letter from a co-worker or is it mandatory for an applicant to have a letter from someone who you have worked under so basically your supervisor i personally feel that my co-worker knows me better than my supervisor who would like to take this question on the reference letter any of the panelists um i i would say that there is it's it's very clearly stated in every application process that a colleague's reference letter will work as well as uh you know if it really speaks to your work much better than your superior or the head of your organization that's probably an equally good choice of a reference letter to make um i would say that the person would need to really zone out and speak of your work from a strategic level or more of what you have done for the organization from a macroscopic viewpoint or from a domain based perspective i think that would be very important even for a colleague and if you think your colleague can speak to that by all means please go ahead and have them request them to write the letter thank you yeah yeah i just thought i should also caveat that for the law school applicants i think uh you know because fulbright directly forwards your uh reference letters to the universities uh i don't think law schools permit uh co-worker uh uh or colleague reference letters so i think you know applicants for law programs may need to keep that in mind and necessarily get one from a superior or supervisor in the organization okay thank you so much uh gotham that was also very useful uh so before we formally wind up i just want to share with the participants that usf will conduct another mentoring session sometime mid-april so please keep an eye on our website and social media handles for these updates so i request uh sudarshan to uh please provide the closing remarks then we'll wind up the session thank you very i'm i'm so delighted that we could manage to hold this panel discussion this is past of its kind you know i have been associated with this organization for over 16 years we just hold information sessions so this is first of its kind panel discussion and i am sure the prospective applicants must have gained a lot from this i take this opportunity on the behalf of the fulbright commission in india to thank pratyusha gotham and achilles for being a part of this panel discussion i am delighted that you know you brought lots of insights said your experience that is really greatly appreciated thank you so much once again i also thank all the participants today i can see there is a big number more than 150 attending and i can see their level of you know participation from the questions so i wish you all the best and please you know take it seriously start your application if you have already not done right now and you have any question always write to us reach out to us we'll be happy to guide you in the process you can reach out to either of these panelists and also the uh you know fulbrighters and alumni they will be happy to guide you once again i wish you all the best in your application process thank you once again to all of you have a nice evening and bye bye thank you everyone bye thank you bye