The Best University in India
The Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Technology ր Kharagpur are the best universities in India according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The ARWU is published by the Institute of Higher Education at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and several indicators of academic or research performance are used to establish the ranking, these include highly cited researchers, articles indexed in major citation indices and staff winning Nobel Prizes.
The Top-2 universities in India
There are two Indian universities in the WordҀs Top-500 universities (2008): the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Technology.
1. Indian Institute of Science (IISc)
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was established in 1909. It was J.N. TataҀs dream to create an institution that would contribute to the development of India and it occupies nearly 400 acres of land in Bangalore, generously donated by the Maharaja of Mysore.
2. Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)
The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when a committee was set up to consider the setting up of Higher Technical Institutions for post war industrial development in India. The IITs are engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education.
for more visit University Ranking News.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Some National Press
You'll find me quoted in the Fall 2009 issue of Newsweek/Kaplan's Finding the Right College for You issue. Reporter Catharine Skipp interviewed me back in the spring about the College Board's new "Score Choice" option. She wanted to know how it would affect the population I work with-- low-income and first generation students. Of course, it's irrelevant to them, and I said so: "It's a silly, ridiculous thing for the College Board to do." One more way to tweak its earnings and look like it's doing kids a favor. You can read the article here or buy the whole issue for $11.95. I found it in the checkout line at the grocery store. (It's also available on the web here.)
If you're one of my friends or relatives and don't need any help with colleges, you can find me on page 29, bottom of the second column and into the third. By the time you read it your groceries will have been bagged and you'll have avoided any more "news" about the Gossleins. Enjoy!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Random Pleasures
Surprise! Harvard, Princeton, and Yale top the U.S. News university listings again, with Williams atop the liberal arts college list. IҀve suggested for a number of years that the perennial ӀwinnersԀ simply be retired and let the rest duke it out each year (no offense to Duke) so we can get a real contest going.
If weҀre stuck with the rankings, letҀs make a cage match out of рem! Instead of a constant set of characteristics that give rise to virtually identical hierarchies each year, change things up so thereҀs some real suspense, like there is on the WWF or American Gladiators. Forget all this genteel bickering, or Ӏreputation rankingsԀ filled out more or less at random, letҀs get some chairs, boards, barbed wire, and beer and get a real contest going. If youҀve seen Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, you know what I mean. Have colleges clash over stuff that matters: the square footage of their student centers; the pounds of tomatoes served in the dining hall; the average height of the faculty; the most expensive textbooks; the acreage per student. These are all concrete elements that can be objectively measured. For that matter, letҀs include the amount of concrete on each campus. Have college presidents batter each other with rolled-up copies of The Chronicle of Higher Education until thereҀs only one left standing (presumably the one who used the issue with the Almanac tucked inside).
Whether or not people actually use the rankings in any biblical way, the main impulse seems to be to eliminate randomness from the college selection process: If you look at all the factors and set them up rationally, youҀll have the ӀperfectԀ match!
This, we know, is totally impossible. Any time college counselors get together, we talk about how we came to our alma maters more or less by accident, not design. We took our tests, sent in some applications, and chose one of the ones that chose us. We seldom did doctorate level research before deciding where to apply; yet we managed to emerge as decent human beings.
I applied to Amherst because my counselor tossed out the name in passing one day. IҀd never heard of it but since it was a bus ride from New Jersey I went up and fell in love with it: it looked like what I thought college should look like. And luckily, they accepted me. (Another story.) When an Amherst professor once challenged me about why I had chosen Amherst, I couldnҀt say anything that he didnҀt counter with a variation of, ӀBut plenty of other schools have good teachers and classes. What makes Amherst unique?Ԁ I was annoyed at the time but the exchange has stayed with me because the reality is I could have been just as happy anywhere else.
We fool ourselves if we think we can eliminate randomness from college choice, or, indeed, from many of the choices we make. TodayҀs Chicago Tribune has a story on how some colleges are trying to use social networking to match up roommates. Students can see their future roomies and make decisions accordingly. But jettisoning randomness can make life duller and bring out our lesser instincts. One girl said she asked for a change when she saw the ӀshabbyԀ house her prospective roommate lived in. Another college stopped using extensive matching questionnaires because it just led to peopleҀs being more disappointed when things didnҀt work out.
So if weҀre not going to have collegiate cage matches anytime soon, I suggest taking the rankings and getting some darts. You know where IҀm going with thatŀ
A version of this blog entry appears in the NACAC blog Admitted.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Just the Facts, Ma'am
On the El recently I saw a woman reading a Kindle. It was sleek and cool. She had strapped it into a pink leather case and she looked sleek and cool reading it. I tried to see what she was reading but the gray screen and dark gray letters were too dark to figure out in the bright light of the train. I was curious, but not about the book she was reading, as I often am. I was curious about the device. Sleekness and coolness were what drew me to it.
I thought of Nicholson Baker's article in a recent New Yorker. He talks about the Kindle. It gave me chills: "Here's what you buy when you buy a Kindle book. You buy the right to display a grouping of words in front of your eyes for your private use with the aid of an electronic display device approved by Amazon." Even worse: "You get the words, yes, and sometimes pictures, after a fashion. Photographs, charts, diagrams, foreign characters, and tables don't fare so well on the little gray screen." This doesn't sound like "reading," but more of a "content acquisition" where everything is sacrificed to the pragmatic task of "accessing" the "content provider's" words in order to "process" them.
Stripped of its pleasures, including the tactile and visual, reading becomes a task, something to be gotten through as opposed to something that can offer real satisfactions. Pragmatism trumps delight. The same can be said for schools and school systems where standardized testing has become the yardstick for "progress" and the stand-in for "education. Students in grade school are drilled on test-taking skills instead of reading and writing; they are molded into good "units" so their schools can do well on their own tests. Is it any wonder they hate school?
As we try to get students from disadvantaged backgrounds to look ahead to college, it's important to remember not to "process" them but to "educate" them. That means giving their minds something to expand into and grow on. Stripping education down to its pragmatics, the right answers on the test sheet, makes students passive consumers of data, not thinkers or doers. As with the Kindle, the pleasures of thought, of ideas, of detours, of visual imagery and inference, of "what ifs?" seem all to have been drained away so students face a gray screen designed just to deliver the basics so they can "perform." I can't imagine how dreary that must be to anyone with the slightest spark of intelligence and I can see why students are bored to death.
Recently I gave a talk to a grade school faculty about ways to engage students in the college process. The school is located in a poor section of town, with groups of young men hanging out on nearby street corners. The student body is nearly all poor and African American; the school hopes to set them on a path away from poverty and crime into a successful life. They already take their 4th to 8th graders to a different college campus each year to give them an idea about what college can be like and what they can have if they try.
Although these experiences may be impressive for the kids, I spoke to the faculty about creating an imaginative environment as well so they could ingest the spirit of college, not just the bricks and mortar. It's not enough simply to carry 4th graders to a college campus, they need a reason to be there. As a rule, 4th graders don't plan ahead ten years, but they can react to stories and ideas. I suggested teachers talk about their alma maters' mascots and have students write stories about them. I asked them to use their students' imaginative capacities as a way to plant seeds for college rather than focus on the pragmatics of how much more they'll earn with a B.A. Without a wishful, idealized basis, students won't get the pragmatics later on.
Imagination precedes pragmatics, as anyone who was read to as a child knows. We imagine things before we understand them; we fantasize before we realize the reality that surrounds us. But these early constructs sustain us even after we discover that fairy tales aren't real or Wilbur wasn't a live pig. To grow up without fantasy is to grow up in a poverty much longer-lasting and brutal than physical poverty because it cannot be recovered later in life. For students who are growing up in the depths of poverty, imaginative and exciting schooling may be the difference between success and mere survival. We need to fantasize in order to think about creating a world that can suit us. Out of this comes the motivation to invent, challenge, go beyond "right now" to the future.
Trying to help schools orient their low-income, first-generation students toward college, I want to add complexity, not strip it away. The Kindle, along with test prep, online education, and more-but-less activities like emailing and twittering, strips words and concepts of their beauty and elegance, impoverishing them. We make words just units of data, and that is a great shame. We need to set our students' minds on fire, not tame them, and I believe any student of any background can be brought to the liveliness of mind that will support him through college and beyond. But it can't be done if authors are merely "content providers" and teachers are merely "data processors."
The more I work with underserved students and their teachers and counselors, the more I see that education without imagination is deadening, not enlivening. Only by addressing the ineffable can we help our students rise above their daily lives to conquer the world in their own ways.
I thought of Nicholson Baker's article in a recent New Yorker. He talks about the Kindle. It gave me chills: "Here's what you buy when you buy a Kindle book. You buy the right to display a grouping of words in front of your eyes for your private use with the aid of an electronic display device approved by Amazon." Even worse: "You get the words, yes, and sometimes pictures, after a fashion. Photographs, charts, diagrams, foreign characters, and tables don't fare so well on the little gray screen." This doesn't sound like "reading," but more of a "content acquisition" where everything is sacrificed to the pragmatic task of "accessing" the "content provider's" words in order to "process" them.
Stripped of its pleasures, including the tactile and visual, reading becomes a task, something to be gotten through as opposed to something that can offer real satisfactions. Pragmatism trumps delight. The same can be said for schools and school systems where standardized testing has become the yardstick for "progress" and the stand-in for "education. Students in grade school are drilled on test-taking skills instead of reading and writing; they are molded into good "units" so their schools can do well on their own tests. Is it any wonder they hate school?
As we try to get students from disadvantaged backgrounds to look ahead to college, it's important to remember not to "process" them but to "educate" them. That means giving their minds something to expand into and grow on. Stripping education down to its pragmatics, the right answers on the test sheet, makes students passive consumers of data, not thinkers or doers. As with the Kindle, the pleasures of thought, of ideas, of detours, of visual imagery and inference, of "what ifs?" seem all to have been drained away so students face a gray screen designed just to deliver the basics so they can "perform." I can't imagine how dreary that must be to anyone with the slightest spark of intelligence and I can see why students are bored to death.
Recently I gave a talk to a grade school faculty about ways to engage students in the college process. The school is located in a poor section of town, with groups of young men hanging out on nearby street corners. The student body is nearly all poor and African American; the school hopes to set them on a path away from poverty and crime into a successful life. They already take their 4th to 8th graders to a different college campus each year to give them an idea about what college can be like and what they can have if they try.
Although these experiences may be impressive for the kids, I spoke to the faculty about creating an imaginative environment as well so they could ingest the spirit of college, not just the bricks and mortar. It's not enough simply to carry 4th graders to a college campus, they need a reason to be there. As a rule, 4th graders don't plan ahead ten years, but they can react to stories and ideas. I suggested teachers talk about their alma maters' mascots and have students write stories about them. I asked them to use their students' imaginative capacities as a way to plant seeds for college rather than focus on the pragmatics of how much more they'll earn with a B.A. Without a wishful, idealized basis, students won't get the pragmatics later on.
Imagination precedes pragmatics, as anyone who was read to as a child knows. We imagine things before we understand them; we fantasize before we realize the reality that surrounds us. But these early constructs sustain us even after we discover that fairy tales aren't real or Wilbur wasn't a live pig. To grow up without fantasy is to grow up in a poverty much longer-lasting and brutal than physical poverty because it cannot be recovered later in life. For students who are growing up in the depths of poverty, imaginative and exciting schooling may be the difference between success and mere survival. We need to fantasize in order to think about creating a world that can suit us. Out of this comes the motivation to invent, challenge, go beyond "right now" to the future.
Trying to help schools orient their low-income, first-generation students toward college, I want to add complexity, not strip it away. The Kindle, along with test prep, online education, and more-but-less activities like emailing and twittering, strips words and concepts of their beauty and elegance, impoverishing them. We make words just units of data, and that is a great shame. We need to set our students' minds on fire, not tame them, and I believe any student of any background can be brought to the liveliness of mind that will support him through college and beyond. But it can't be done if authors are merely "content providers" and teachers are merely "data processors."
The more I work with underserved students and their teachers and counselors, the more I see that education without imagination is deadening, not enlivening. Only by addressing the ineffable can we help our students rise above their daily lives to conquer the world in their own ways.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Any interview for UK student visa?
The UK Border Agency in the new TIER-4 POINTS BASED SYSTEM, also called points system, has not mentioned interview as one of the basics for UK student visa. So a student does not need to go through any interview for UK student visa.
But the case is not as simple as it sounds to be. The British High Commission abroad may call a student for interview if it is required to make the final decision. This means that the visa officer has the authority to call a student for an interview and ask the questions that has puzzled him/her.
However, to avoid the problems of an interview, a student should apply for visa with a complete application with nothing missing or confusing.
So try to make sure that you provide all the information needed with all the relevant documents to the British High Commission abroad so that the ambassadors might find your case easy to follow and thus you may receive an earlier decision.
Never try to deceive or confuse the ambassadors by providing false information or your visa will be refused. Bear this in mind that if you are failed to provide all the documents needed, you will not be called by the High Commission to complete your set of documents. They will refuse your visa without asking for the completion of documents.
As I have told you that it is the discretionary power of ambassador to call a student for an interview but even at the time of interview a student is not allowed to submit new documents.
If you want to know the requirements for UK student visa then click hereŀ..
For information on appeal against UK student visa refusal click hereŅ.
For administrative review click hereŅ.
Puzzled about the role an education consultant/immigration lawyer click hereŅ.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Do I need health/travel insurance?
A student is allowed to travel to the UK without any insurance but even then it is recommended that each and every student should have health insurance certificate before he/she starts the journey. To say more clearly, the UK Border Agency does not ask for any sort of insurance certificate with the application for student visa but it is very reasonable and sensible to insure your health before you leave for the United Kingdom or any other country in the world.
So if it is not mandatory then why should a student have an insurance proof?
Suppose, unfortunately, a person travelling abroad gets seriously injured while he is all all alone. What would happen to him if he cannot pay for his own treatment because in some countries, treatment could be awfully expensive? Do you think he should come back to his motherland and after getting the treatment should once again move towards his destination? If you think so then you are completely wrong because when he comes back, his visa might get expired and this is the second great loss. What a pity if a person comes back with wounded limbs and broken heart.
If you think the case is serious then you must say that it is better to get insured before leaving ones motherland because the insurance cost you only a few dollars (suppose 100) but it could be of worth more than US$ 50,000.
When you travel to or living in a far-off country you are alone to face any sort of threat. Any sort of casualty may happen to you and there would be no one to help you out. But if you have health insurance then the company that has provided you the insurance certificate would be there to help you and cover up all the costs that are related to your injury without claiming any fee because you have already paid them when you were in your home country.
When you want to receive an insurance certificate that would cost you only a few dollars but when you have received it, believe me that this certificate could be used to cover up to thousands of dollars to treat you in case of any injury. In many cases an injured person would be able to receive up to 30,000 Euro to cover the health expenses. A health insurance certificate is not only valid for travel to but within the country you are going to live in.
It is valid up to some specific duration and that is up to you whether you want to have it for 3/6/12Ņ..months or only for a few weeks.
Not only for UK but you can get an insurance proof for any country of the world.
There are various insurance companies scattered throughout the world, so you can easily visit a branch located in your locality for more information.
Wishing you a safe journey!
For UK student visa requirement click hereŀ
So if it is not mandatory then why should a student have an insurance proof?
Suppose, unfortunately, a person travelling abroad gets seriously injured while he is all all alone. What would happen to him if he cannot pay for his own treatment because in some countries, treatment could be awfully expensive? Do you think he should come back to his motherland and after getting the treatment should once again move towards his destination? If you think so then you are completely wrong because when he comes back, his visa might get expired and this is the second great loss. What a pity if a person comes back with wounded limbs and broken heart.
If you think the case is serious then you must say that it is better to get insured before leaving ones motherland because the insurance cost you only a few dollars (suppose 100) but it could be of worth more than US$ 50,000.
When you travel to or living in a far-off country you are alone to face any sort of threat. Any sort of casualty may happen to you and there would be no one to help you out. But if you have health insurance then the company that has provided you the insurance certificate would be there to help you and cover up all the costs that are related to your injury without claiming any fee because you have already paid them when you were in your home country.
When you want to receive an insurance certificate that would cost you only a few dollars but when you have received it, believe me that this certificate could be used to cover up to thousands of dollars to treat you in case of any injury. In many cases an injured person would be able to receive up to 30,000 Euro to cover the health expenses. A health insurance certificate is not only valid for travel to but within the country you are going to live in.
It is valid up to some specific duration and that is up to you whether you want to have it for 3/6/12Ņ..months or only for a few weeks.
Not only for UK but you can get an insurance proof for any country of the world.
There are various insurance companies scattered throughout the world, so you can easily visit a branch located in your locality for more information.
Wishing you a safe journey!
For UK student visa requirement click hereŀ
Should I contact a lawyer if my visa gets refused?
It is not recommended by the UK Border Agency to contact either a lawyer or an educational consultant in any case. But if unfortunately your visa gets refused, The British High Commission will clearly inform you about the reason behind the refusal. So you can check the reason and try to wash it out with proper explanation, if you can.
You should know that when a certain visa gets refused, the case is reviewed by a visa officer within 24 hours and even then if the problem is there, the applicant will receive a written explanation for the refusal decision, from the embassy/high commission. If you are given the right to appeal against the refusal of your visa then you will also receive the notice of appeal for your visa. This notice of appeal means that you are eligible to appeal against the refusal of your visa. This notice contains guidance for the student on Ӏhow to appeal against the visa refusalԀ. More about appeal against visa refusalŀ..
In some cases there is no right of appeal but even then another option called administrative review is available. It means that you can apply for a review of your application without any fee, but all this must be done within 28 days from the date you receive the refusal notice. More about administrative reviewŀ..
So you donҀt need to contact any lawyer if you are clever enough to understand and handle all this but if you think you are puzzled and there is no way out then a lawyer may be a good option for you because a lawyer related to immigration is a very competent person and deals this types of problems skillfully. All you have to do is to look for a skilled lawyer and not a fraud, as there may be dozens of sharks pretending to be an expert lawyer. So be cautious in the selection and believe me you will win your visa if all the requirements are fulfilled.
What I personally recommend is that you should go through this site and believe me that you will find all sorts of information so that you can do it by yourself without contacting any educational consultant or lawyer for immigration (immigration lawyer).
For new UK study visa system click here
For visa requirements click here
Wishing you best of luck!
You should know that when a certain visa gets refused, the case is reviewed by a visa officer within 24 hours and even then if the problem is there, the applicant will receive a written explanation for the refusal decision, from the embassy/high commission. If you are given the right to appeal against the refusal of your visa then you will also receive the notice of appeal for your visa. This notice of appeal means that you are eligible to appeal against the refusal of your visa. This notice contains guidance for the student on Ӏhow to appeal against the visa refusalԀ. More about appeal against visa refusalŀ..
In some cases there is no right of appeal but even then another option called administrative review is available. It means that you can apply for a review of your application without any fee, but all this must be done within 28 days from the date you receive the refusal notice. More about administrative reviewŀ..
So you donҀt need to contact any lawyer if you are clever enough to understand and handle all this but if you think you are puzzled and there is no way out then a lawyer may be a good option for you because a lawyer related to immigration is a very competent person and deals this types of problems skillfully. All you have to do is to look for a skilled lawyer and not a fraud, as there may be dozens of sharks pretending to be an expert lawyer. So be cautious in the selection and believe me you will win your visa if all the requirements are fulfilled.
What I personally recommend is that you should go through this site and believe me that you will find all sorts of information so that you can do it by yourself without contacting any educational consultant or lawyer for immigration (immigration lawyer).
For new UK study visa system click here
For visa requirements click here
Wishing you best of luck!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Work in the UK while studying
The UK is considered to be one of the costly states in the world. That is why most of the international students need to work in the UK while studying.
The UK allows the international students to work because the students are the cheapest workers thus helping the economy of the country by not only paying huge amounts of fees to the universities or colleges but also provide cheap and easily available labour force
If a student is admitted to a course lasting more then 6 months then the student is allowed to work for 20 hours a week. However, the employment must not be taken as full time. A student can only work as a part time worker but there is another option to work for full time on Saturday & Sunday of every week and if the student does not want to work during the semester times then there is an opportunity to take a full time job in the vacation for three months in a year.
Exceeding the limit of 20 hours a week during the semester times may cause serious problems to the student as this is against the laws of the UK Border Agency and this may result in the cancellation of visa and once the visa is cancelled than there is no other option but to leave the country.
More clearly, a student may be deported if found working in the UK for full time without any permission.
However, a student may work for more than 20 hours a week if the job is a part of the course of study.
But if a student has completed a degree course in the UK then it is legal to take some full time job. For this purpose the student must show proof of a completed degree course in the UK, a valid work permit and crystal clear immigration history
Students under 16 are not allowed to work as this is against the child labour policy.
The UK allows the international students to work because the students are the cheapest workers thus helping the economy of the country by not only paying huge amounts of fees to the universities or colleges but also provide cheap and easily available labour force
If a student is admitted to a course lasting more then 6 months then the student is allowed to work for 20 hours a week. However, the employment must not be taken as full time. A student can only work as a part time worker but there is another option to work for full time on Saturday & Sunday of every week and if the student does not want to work during the semester times then there is an opportunity to take a full time job in the vacation for three months in a year.
Exceeding the limit of 20 hours a week during the semester times may cause serious problems to the student as this is against the laws of the UK Border Agency and this may result in the cancellation of visa and once the visa is cancelled than there is no other option but to leave the country.
More clearly, a student may be deported if found working in the UK for full time without any permission.
However, a student may work for more than 20 hours a week if the job is a part of the course of study.
But if a student has completed a degree course in the UK then it is legal to take some full time job. For this purpose the student must show proof of a completed degree course in the UK, a valid work permit and crystal clear immigration history
Students under 16 are not allowed to work as this is against the child labour policy.
Monday, August 3, 2009
College Access Counseling
To see what I've been doing over the last two years, follow this link to my newly designed website: College Access Counseling. I've had the pleasure of developing a comprehensive college counseling curriculum (say that three times fast) for Scholarship Chicago and creating a professional development series for college counselors in Chicago area charter schools. The big challenge has been to take what I've learned from my days at Amherst and as a college counselor and make it accessible to the adults who work with students from low-income and first generation college backgrounds.
Working for myself has also been a challenge, really, but so far it's been rewarding. I keep saying I've been more lucky than smart, but as I've learned how to present myself I've started to create my own luck. That includes promoting my work more! So if you're a school or community organization that works with underserved kids and wants to help them think about college, you know where to reach me.
Working for myself has also been a challenge, really, but so far it's been rewarding. I keep saying I've been more lucky than smart, but as I've learned how to present myself I've started to create my own luck. That includes promoting my work more! So if you're a school or community organization that works with underserved kids and wants to help them think about college, you know where to reach me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)