myUface Blog

A number of users are asking, “What happens after December 31st?”

Well, for those of you who have completed your application, two things will happen:

• first, we’ll review your application.  We may contact you with a few minor suggestions or questions.
• second, we’ll contact universities on your behalf, sending them your information.

After that, hopefully, a university will take interest in your application and will move towards offering you a spot in their class.  Remember, though, that universities may not be interested in your application, especially if you require 100% financial aid.

For those of you who have not completed an application by December 31st, that’s OK!  You can keep working on your application until it is complete.  At that time, we’ll go through the same process with your applications.  There is a definite benefit in being a part of the first groups of students to have their applications sent to universities, and if you can finish by December 31st we encourage you to do so, but if you don’t finish by the 31st you shouldn’t give up!

The days before the New Year are important ones for international students and for U.S. universities.  So much work has gone into preparation – the students are preparing to send their applications to universities; the universities are preparing to sort through applications, looking for the best students to fill their incoming class.

The holiday season is like one long, final moment of peace before the hectic pace of application season.  So as you work to complete your own applications, remember to take a few moments this holiday season to relax as well.  In January things will really begin heating up . . .

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!

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.

On your myUface profile, there’s a space for a “Personal Statement.”  You may be wondering what you should write here.  The answer is simple.  Write a short statement about three things:

1. Who you are.
2. Where you want to go.
3. What kind of education you are looking for in order to get where you want to go.

The “Personal Statement” is not an essay, and so you should not feel pressured to write something long or structured.  The Personal Statement is something that universities will look at, however, when they first glance at your profile.  You want it to be an accurate advertisement of yourself as a candidate.

Things to include in your Personal Statement:

1. What you’re interested in studying
2. What your career plans are, if any
3. Any information about yourself that is especially interesting or unique

Things to avoid in your Personal Statement:

1. Any statements that are not true
2. Trying to show an interest in everything
3. Anything that does not relate to your field of study and career plans (for example, “I really want to study at a university near the beach so I can get a good tan.”)

We want to update our current users and welcome our new users, and this short podcast seems like the perfect way to do it!

Here at myUface we just announced that we would send the information of students who finish their myUface application by December 31st to U.S. universities, for free.  This is an excellent opportunity for you to market yourself to a number of U.S. universities, and we encourage you to take advantage of it.

But this is not the only deadline that matters for international students, of course.  Every scholarship program, every university, every consulate has hard deadlines that you as an international student must meet, or your dream of studying abroad may not occur.

Tragically, every year hundreds – if not thousands – of talented international students miss out on great educational opportunities for the simple reason that they wait until the last minute to fill out their applications.  As a result, they miss deadlines, or submit poor application materials.

Conclusion?  One of the most important pieces of advice we can give you is this:  DON’T PROCRASTINATE.  “Procrastination” means putting off doing something important and doing something frivolous instead.  Generally speaking, we procrastinate because we feel nervous about a particular task, and rather than face that nervousness, we find something “easy” to do.  We tell ourselves that we can always do the more difficult task later.

Of course, the truth is, every day we wait to do that important task, it becomes harder and harder.  Soon, we find ourselves running out of time, and a task that would have been easy is suddenly difficult – or even impossible.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!!!  In May, we posted a list of some online information about procrastination and how to fight it.  You may find these resources useful now, as you look ahead to approaching deadlines.  Most importantly, realize that the easiest solution to procrastination is to JUST DO IT – just start working on what needs to be done.   I know it can be hard, but the results of hard work are worth it!

The way myUface works is simple. You create an online application. Universities search our database and find students (like yourself) who fit their needs. Then they contact you.

But we’ve got another way of helping you contact U.S. universities. If you finish your myUface application by December 31st, we’ll take your information and send it to universities ourselves.

That’s right – your application, sent to universities in the U.S., for free – BUT ONLY IF YOU COMPLETE YOUR APPLICATION BY DECEMBER 31st!

So get working on those applications!  And remember, we’re here to help.  Ask us questions about the application, we’ll answer them.

Want to know more about myUface?  GO TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS