still-blue

Hi everyone. I intend to apply for PhD Leadership , my CGPA in MPhil Applied Linguistics was 3.48/4 . I heard that this GPA is not competitive enough to get admission in PhD in canada is it so ? Moreover can anyone pls guide me how can I make my profile strong, I have 7 years experience( teacher and lecturer) , one publication.  TIA

I am aware that this is a little bit of an unusual situation.
 I got accepted into a fully funded masters program in a different province for 2020 but deferred to 2021. I anticipated difficulties with completing my honours thesis when the pandemic hit and I also just didn't want to move to a huge city in my country in the midst of the beginning of the pandemic. I basically decided in the last year to drop my honours thesis. My supervisor retired, my method of recruitment was advertising on posters at universities and events which all closed in the pandemic, and I no longer had the funds to keep paying for the thesis credits out of my pocket. It has just become an entire mess.

Before deciding to decline my offer of admission to the masters, I decided to email the program director about my situation. I am coming in with a high gpa, years of experience in the field, a strong writing sample, strong letters of recommendation from my current program director/established academics, but the only thing I would not have is my honours thesis. The director of the program sent me an email basically saying that I could proceed with registering and then "make an argument when the time comes". In her words, "if you want to do the degree, hang onto your spot, and we deal with the questions about your qualifications as they arrive. People know that COVID made everything messy". She said that the faculty of graduate studies usually checks in about qualifications (to see if the conditions in which you were accepted were met) in October, which is a month after classes start.
I do want to do this program and I do not mind waiting until next year to apply again without the thesis on my application, but I would 100% like to try to go this year if I could. Do you all think this might be good advice? Have you heard of this kind of situation? Do you think the faculty of graduate studies would kick me out once I got there for this? I'm not sure if I should attempt to move to another province if there is a chance to be kicked out in October. On the other hand, the program director is implying that there shouldn't be too big of a problem.

Hi, this may be too late as reply to your query but you should apply to KAUST if you have a good CGPA. 
I had applied to KAUST and got a call for both my interviews, i.e, academic and personal. Even though I haven't received an offer yet, but neither my Professor nor the admission staff focused on the University much. Though I had some internships from some reputed Institutes of India (IITs). 
So, you should try and grab an opportunity to do some research internship with a good professor or from a good University. 
Something which is more important is contacting the professor by an email, send him your CV and some research work presentation or something close to it. If you get a reply from his side, this may enhance your chances of being selected. 
Go for it, we never know when an opportunity may knock our door.  
 

Hi. I came to the Grad Cafe a few years ago looking for an answer to this very question. I saw lots of comments about taking a chance even if you are in your 40s but I remember having some difficulty finding any advice on getting into a great program at a great school if you are older.  I was thinking that the older you are the less likely you are to be admitted to the higher ranked schools, but, thankfully I was wrong!! 
Without giving too many specifics, I will say that I got admitted to a top 10 school at least according to the QS ranking (top 15 or so in other rankings). For my program specifically, it was a top 3 school in QS  (other rankings show it between 1-3).
I hope the above inspires others to take a chance and apply. I was 46 when I applied and got accepted so getting in when older IS possible.
I hope this helps others who have the same doubts I had.
Thank you Grad Cafe for inspiring me to take a chance!
 

I have been wanting to blog around here for about 5 years now yet kept on missing the windows...
Not sure which topic I fall under as I am one of the oldest members around here.  As such, I have a different take on the application process and on both life before and after graduate school.  Granted, I have yet to graduate from grad school myself, am currently in an MS program, and will be applying to Ph.D. programs next year, I have been out in the world for longer than, well, a long time.  I also have had to navigate through both undergrad and now an MS program largely on my own with zero help (including financial) from family and/or friends.  I have a lot to talk about.   

I recently completed my MSc. degree in Germany. When I started there was not much real information about the pros and cons of studying here. Generic higher studies websites posted generic higher studies terms , and I did not know anyone personally who had moved to Germany.
I hope my blog post would help out other people with deciding.
About Me : I am from Asia and attended one of the elite engineering colleges in my country for Bachelors. For Masters, I was interested in a course which allowed me to study computer science but was also interdisciplinary. Since Europe seemed to have such courses available, I decided to apply here.
My results : I got into 2 courses. One was MSc. Computational Science in University of Amsterdam (https://www.uva.nl/en/programmes/masters/computational-science/computational-science.html) and the other was MSc. Simulation Sciences at RWTH Aachen University (https://www.rwth-aachen.de/go/id/bnzu/lidx/1) . I finally decided to join RWTH.
I would like to give my opinion about this decision, in retrospect, and also some comments.
The good :
1. Education is free in Germany, even for foreigners. In some states some amount of fees has been introduced for non EU students (around 1500 EUR) which is still considerably less than in other European countries for non EU/EEA students. In my state (NRW) while I was a student, there was no fees for foreigners yet.
2. The cost of living was much much cheaper than Amsterdam.
3. Pretty good and pretty cheap alcohol :D
4. You get a semester ticket which lets you travel in public transport for free, typically in your state and maybe also in other nearby countries. eg my semester ticket allowed me to travel in NRW as well as till Maastricht in Netherlands.
5. The specific course I took had too many non useful mandatory courses. But as far as electives are concerned, we had a lot of flexibility. This also meant lot of flexibility in choosing your thesis topic and department.
 
The bad :
1. Language issues. While my course was completely in English, there were many courses available in German I would have taken if they were available in English, specially from the Math department.
2. In day to day life, living without German knowledge is difficult in Aachen, and NRW in general. It would be much more convenient maybe in Munich, Berlin or Frankfurt.
3. Courses seem too theoretical. It seemed that emphasis was on preparing students for future as PhD scholars, and not preparing for job market. Recently a MSc. in Data Science course has been started and even their courses seem to be too theoretical.
4. Job market is not as good in Aachen as in other bigger German cities as well as compared to Netherlands. Too many jobs, including Software Engineer roles, seem to ask for German knowledge. It gets even more limited if you want to join banks, consultancies etc.
5. Social life : most college events, poetry / quizzes etc are completely in German. This is not the case in Netherlands.
6. Aachen is definitely not as lively as Amsterdam.
 
Few more comments :
1. You should know about the Dutch 30% ruling for expats, if you plan to later take up jobs in Netherlands.
2. It is possible to find industry funded research in both these countries, if that is what you may prefer.
3. Unlike other countries, Germany does not seem to have concept of semester breaks (like a month or 2 break between semesters). I think this is also true for European countries in general. Which means if you would like to do an internship in a different city than yours, you may have to take a semester break and complete the internship.
4. It is normal for MSc. degrees to stretch beyond 2 years. Do not fret to drop a semester and do an industrial internship.
 
Final comments :
In retrospect, maybe taking up the MSc. course in Amsterdam would have been a better choice from study and job perspective, but it also depends on your personal situation. If you do not want to spend too much money on grad school, Germany is definitely a better choice, but try to go for bigger cities, like Munich or Berlin.
Trying to get in touch with older students from your course over LinkedIn may be helpful.
 
 

Hey all!   I am applying for master's in Computational Science and Engineering at TU Munich. The guidelines for the CV dictate that there must be no chronological gaps in it even if one hasn't been in an educational program or gainful employment during the period. In such a case, say I am working on my "work experience" section in the CV and there is a one year gap during which I was taking a break. Then, it doesn't fit in the work experience section, right? Do I then place this under a separate section even though the timeline in the work experience section is now broken? And if so, what do I call this separate section? Anybody been in a similar boat? Please let me know.   Appreciate your help a lot, thanks in advance!