myUface Blog

Several myUface users have asked if they can write their own essay rather than using the questions on the myUface application.  The answer is yes.  However, I wanted to provide a few cautionary words:

First, although it’s perfectly fine to use your own essay question for the myUface application, if you’re applying independently to a university, always use their question.

Second, if you’re going to use your own question, don’t use just any question.  Give some though to your question as well.  For undergraduate applicants, you want a question that will reveal who you are as a person, and what your aspirations are.  Possibilities include:

• What are you most proud of?
• What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome in your life?
• What would your friends tell us about you if we asked?

For graduate applications, you want a question that not only tells us about yourself but also tells us about your knowledge of your field of study.  Possibilities include:

• How will your study of _____ impact your career and society?
• What are the biggest challenges facing practitioners of _____ in your country?

Good luck with your essays, and remember, we have a load of essay writing advice on the blog:

http://www.myuface.com/blog/2009/09/09/how-to-write-an-essay-for-university-applications/

A few students have asked us some questions about what exactly myUface provides for free, and, in order to be completely clear, we wanted to clarify exactly what it is myUface does.  We don’t want to mislead anyone!

We will send your application to appropriate US universities for free.  We will do our best to find universities that are interested in you as a student.  We will not offer to pay for your U.S. education, however.  We are not a sponsored program, and we are not a scholarship site.  There are definitely costs involved with studying in the US – application fees, travel to the university, room and board, tuition, etc.  myUface can offer advice for reducing these costs.  myUface can try to find universities who will offer you financial aid. However, we do not offer financing ourselves.  Only help finding ways to study.

Again, our service is free, but not the university itself unfortunately.

Once we have your application, we will find the best opportunities for you given your personal needs.  If you have absolutely no financial means, we can work with you to identify fully funded programs for you to apply to.  For instance, in some countries the US Government offers a fully funded 1 year undergraduate program.

Also, if you are in one of the countries that offer an “Opportunity Grant”, you can apply for up to $10,000 in funds to help you pay for things like testing, application fees, travel.

Here you can find an archive of our advice on finding financial aid.

As always, feel free to ask any questions you have.

The myUface application asks you the following question (question #3 under “Academic Questions”):

What type of program are you interested in applying for?

Choosing the type of program you are interested in is important. myUface can help you get into a short term program, a community college, 4 year undergraduate program or 1-2 year grad program. We also ask that you choose a major or focus. Based on this information, universities will decide whether or not you are a good fit for them. Please don’t forget this! Also, it’s important that you describe in your writing why this choice is important for you and your future. If you choose to study ESL, for example, then how will studying English help you in your future?

Today we have good news to report:  in the two weeks since we’ve announced the myUface site and tried to spread the word about it, over 200 students from all over the world have signed up and started an application.

Now, you may be wondering, Is this really good news? After all, if there are more students, doesn’t that mean more competition?

The answer is no, and here’s why:  the more students that sign up to myUface, the more universities in the U.S. will be interested in our database.  The more universities are interested, the more the database will be searched.  The more the database gets searched, the higher the chances that your application will be noticed by a university in the U.S.  So, 200 applicants is good news for all of us.

That’s one of the things we hope distinguishes myUface from other student placement sites (aside from the fact that myUface is free for everyone):  here, we’re trying to build a community of students. When one member of that community wins, we all win.

Tomorrow we’ll talk a little bit more about our two hundred applicants and what needs to happen for them to get their applications ready for U.S. universities!

In this video we walk you through the process of opening a myuface.com account and application.

How to Open a myuface Application on Vimeo.

We’ve had a few questions about how to use the myUface application, and I wanted to answer them here.

The first question is simple – so simple that we overlooked it:  How do I use the application?

This is such a good question that I’ll make a video this weekend taking you through the application step by step.  For now, let me give you a brief overview:

You’ll need to create a student account, which you can do from the main page. After that, you will be sent to an application. You simply need to fill out all the information on the application. This will probably take a long time, but when you get tired you can close the application and come back later, logging in with your user name and password, and starting the application right where you left off.

The second question is, how do I login when I come back to myUface? This is a good question because, as many of you have discovered, we kind of hid the login button in the upper-right corner of the site.  We’ve now added a login button in the center of the home page as well.

Please, keep these excellent questions and comments coming – it’s the only way we learn how to make the site better!

Three excellent questions today from a myUface user about one-year programs:

1. Are there any full scholarship programs for one-year study in the U.S.?
2. If so, can I transfer from my current university to a U.S. university, and then return after a year’s study?
3. Would a one-year program be non-degree or degree?

And answers, from us:

1. In general, there are very few full scholarships for one year programs.  If you are looking for a full scholarship, a one year program I would suggest you look into the Eurasia Undergraduate Program (we have some information about this program on our site or you can google it).  This program offers a limited number of fully funded opportunities to study in the US for one year.
2. Transfer credits.  This is a generally a tricky issue from both sides.  If you are hoping to study at a US university for one year, return to your home institutions and graduate with diplomas from both universities, this will likely not happen.  As a very general rule, you would have to study for at least 2-3 years in a US university to be able to accrue enough credit to get a diploma.
3. Almost all one year programs are non-degree.  However, there are certificate programs you might look into that are roughly one year.

A number of the hundreds and hundreds of students who have visited the site in the past few weeks have asked whether they can use myUface to look for postdoctoral fellowships.  I thought I’d take a moment on the blog to answer that question.

Sadly, the answer is no.  It’s not that we wouldn’t want to help students looking for a PhD – it’s just that our experience working with PhD candidates is pretty much non-existent.  We don’t want to say that we can do something, only to have good candidates sign up and find that we can’t in fact help them.

However, I do want to be of some use to such candidates, so I did some basic research.  Here are the results:

findaphd.com is a clearinghouse of PhD opportunities in the UK. There are also a lot of interesting links on this site, and a number of PhD scholarships are advertised there.

This site has got some good general advice about pursuing a PhD.

This wiki has the very basic step by step guide to applying to PhD programs in the U.S. It’s for science applicants, but I think the advice would apply to any subject.

Gradschools.com has a lot of information about individual graduate programs, and while it’s targeted more towards Master’s students, it will at least give you an idea of the right institutions.

Also, after having read quite a bit online, I think I can say that, yes, it’s very much possible to find a fellowship or scholarship to pursue your PhD. I’m sure such opportunities are competitive, but they also seem to be fairly abundant. For example, here’s a fellowship for PhD research through the American Association of University Women.

You can find answers to more questions at the myUface Help Section.

Over the past week we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of new users visit the site.  I wanted to take a moment and share with you some resources we have that may be of interest to you:

First, we have two myUface guides:

1. The Advantages and Disadvantages of a University Education in the United States
2. Looking for a University in the United States

You can donwload both of these guides (for free of course) here.

Second, you should check out our Series:

1. Should you study in the U.S.? A comprehensive and honest guide to the benefits and disadvantages of a U.S. education (April 2009).
2. Looking for a U.S. University – All of the information you should consider in selecting a U.S. university – including some things you may not have thought about (May 2009).
3. Finding Financial Aid for your U.S. Education – Need help paying for a U.S. education?  Here’s a guide to how to look for and secure financial support.  It’s not easy, but it’s worth a try (June / July 2009)!
4. Preparing For A Visa Interview – A three part series on the misconceptions many students have about student visa interviews (July 2009).
5. Universities in the Fifty States – we look at what it would be like to live as an international student in each of the fifty states.
6. Writing Essays for University Applications – full of advice on how to write, edit and submit an essay with your university application.

The myUface site tracks the completeness of your application automatically.  When you log in, you can see the percentage of questions in the application that you have answered.

Now, you don’t necessarily have to answer 100% of the questions in order to have a complete application.  Some questions won’t apply to you, after all.

Below is a checklist of four things you need to do in order to have a complete application:

• Answer all applicable questions on each page of the application and on the profile
• attach a resume or CV
• attach an essay
• attach a recommendation or recommendations

When you’ve done those four things, your application is complete.  But you’re not done yet.  You still need to press the “SHARE MY APPLICATION” button under the “APPLICATION” tab.

Be careful, though – once you press this button, your information will be viewable by universities.

As always, remember to ask questions.  The first place to stop for information is the myUface Help Section.