College Counsellor Tour Application: Fill & Download for Free

Talk to your teachers; even go to a principal if required. Let them know that you are applying for international studies and explain their application process.If they refuse to help you out; let your SAT or ACT score speak for itself. Work extra hard to do well in the SAT as it will create the basis of tour application (assuming that your are applying in the US)You can incorporate the way your school changed its marking system to prepare students for IIT- JEE. In fact many universities will give you special space on their applications to explain a bad score. So don't worry; western countries are not as obsessive about grades as we are in India. You can explain your side of the story; just be honest and write a believable piece.Consult a counsellor if you can.Once again, focus on scoring well on the SAT or any other standardised test you might be taking. That score means much more than high school gpa, with variations in each university. Check out the profile of universities to see the average gpa of previous classes to get a clearer picture of how important this is. Besides, you still have one year to build a better and more impressive college application!All the best :)

Warning; Super Long Answer: About 3300 words. Read only if interested and if you have the time and patience.Question: What influenced and inspired your choice of career.Answer:I can’t put my finger on what exactly it was.I did not plan anything initially. My career was guided by fate/luck/circumstances and my own tendency to allow myself to drift and trust my luck to carry me to the best destination.Here is a mini autobiography:I passed my matriculation exam in 1966 from a good English medium school with Distinction. My favourite subject was English. I loved writing and my essays in school were hand-picked by my English teacher and read out to the entire class. I toyed with the idea of doing BA (journalism) and joining Times of India, my favourite newspaper at the time but my mother's shocked looks and my friends ridiculing me made me drop the idea like a hot potato."Arts? Yuck! Those courses are for girls whiling away their time before getting married! Do you want to end up teaching English in the same school! Be a man! Blah blah blah"Under peer pressure and also parental guidance, I chose to do science at a fancied college (Elphinstone College in Mumbai) and spent an entire year postponing my career decision. I had several options open and was glad to simply bide my time.IIT was the buzz word then.Everyone was busy preparing for it. Coaching classes were having a field day. I did not attend any, but went for a crash one month course at the end just for getting that extra confidence.I believe that I had done well in the entrance exam but it was not good enough. I did not make it.My mom was determined to make me an engineer. Middle class families those days, never looked beyond CA/Medicine/Engineering. They of course preferred an IAS but they realized that the number of selected candidates was very few and the competition was from all over the country from students of all disciplines and felt that CA/Medicine/Engineering was a safer option to try.Having missed IIT, I tried for the "next best" option. I applied to a few regional engineering colleges (now called NITs) and also BITS Pilani.At REC Trichy I was offered Electrical Engineering and at BITS Pilani, where I just made it, I was offered the least fancied branch that is Civil Engineering.Tamil nadu was ablaze at that time The anti-Hindi agitation was in full swing. Stations were being burnt. Hindi signboards were being defaced. Colleges were closed. So I chose Bits Pilani.My mom and dad would have none of that. They wanted a 'Chemical Engineer' Son not a Civil engineer messing around with Sand and cement!I consoled them and told them (just to placate them and allow me to go to Pilani) that the course was of five years and the first two years was common to all and that I would do well and seek a change to a better branch in the third year when we would start our actual studies in the allotted branch of engineering)Reluctantly they let me go. I joined BITS Pilani in July 1967 after hearing a lot about the reputation of BITS and once I arrived there, I fell in love with the campus, hostel life and the facilities for extra curricular activities and the curriculum. One humanities subject was compulsory for all engineers each year and I chose to do courses in English and Advanced English, Indian history and culture, Public administration, Economics, and Industrial Psychology as electives in addition to my engineering subjects. This was a bold innovation by BITS Pilani at that time. No other college had this system in place.It was supposed to produce a "well rounded" personality and not a human automaton.My parents kept asking about my progress in getting a branch change. I kept stalling. I loved my life there at Pilani so much that I was becoming indifferent to what my major was. I then told them in my third year that I could not get my branch changed and I was liking my subject and would continue. They were disappointed but they left me in peace after that.I passed with distinction in Civil Engineering as my major, and also enjoyed a cosmopolitan Campus life, made many friends, improved my spoken Hindi, and got exposure to life in North India after 17 years of childhood and boyhood in Mumbai.In 1972, I came back to Mumbai and was offered two jobs. One was a poorly paid job as a sub editor for a technical magazine (Indian Concrete Journal) and another was for a Road Construction company as a supervisor. I rejected both. While waiting for better opportunities, I thought seriously about post-graduation. I had not had my fill of campus life. There was no Gate exam then and I was selected by University of Roorkee (now called IIT Roorkee) for a two year master's programme in Structures.I proceeded to Roorkee and was soon armed with a Master's degree in Structural engineering after another happy two- year stay in the Roorkee University campus. This time my morale was better. My scholarship (Rs 250 per month) enabled me not to depend on any remittances from parents. It was enough to meet my needs.What next? Everyone was appearing for all sorts of competitive entrance exams. Upsc, Hindusthan Steel Ltd and others, Services Selection Board etc. I appeared for the entrance exam conducted by HSL and passed with flying colours. They selected me for a company called MECON which was the new name for HSL's Central Engineering and Design Bureau and later launched as an independent company called Mecon, head quartered at Ranchi and reporting to the ministry of Steel and Mines. It was perhaps the largest consultancy organization in the country with about 2600 engineers of all disciplines and specialized in consultancy services for the Steel plant projects which were valued at several hundred crores of rupees.This happened on its own. I had no hand except to apply, pass the exam and wait. I simply accepted what came to me. Those days, jobs were scarce unlike today.They posted me at Bokaro Steel plant and my posting lasted 2 months. It was supposed to be an exposure to the steel plant structures. Mecon had opened a new office at Bangalore and after the training period, I was asked to march to Bangalore and report at this new office. This was in Oct 1974.So my arrival at Bangalore was not planned but simply fated.At Bangalore, without offering me any choice I was posted in the Structural section which dealt with total consultancy services for steel structures for Heavy Industrial Buildings. I joined at the junior-most Executive level as a Graduate Engineer Trainee and worked my way up and was involved in Analysis, Design, Drawings, Technical Specifications, Tender Scrutiny, Project Reports, Software development, Inspection and site supervision of Steel structures for Industrial Buildings, Commercial buildings and also Defense Establishments.I served for 28 long years and the last 6 years were as head of the same department that I had joined as a trainee in 1974.Those were the best years of my professional life. There was high job satisfaction and the kind of projects I was involved in were the envy of my friends. The pay was moderate but not bad. Considering that my wife worked in a bank, we had enough to lead a decent life. I could save well, educate my children well and also invest in a house in Bangalore and own a two wheeler and later a car. Life was smooth and incident free, job security was ensured. I got to tour extensively in India and was also sent on short postings to some places abroad including places like Korea and Finland.My lack of any planning for my career had in no way affected me.God had taken care of me till then.But….Nothing is permanent. In the late nineties, the company was facing bad times.Our core competence was no longer in demand. The steel Industry was going through a recession. We started accepting jobs from other sectors which paid a lot less and for which we were not suitable at all because our overheads were heavy.We started doing distasteful jobs at fees that were less than our expenditure simply to cut losses. To save money, perquisites were cut. Facilities taken for granted earlier like LTC, hotel and travel accommodation entitlements, loans for house building, cars medical and hospitalisation expense reimbursements, etc were all held in abeyance or reduced. I was no longer enjoying any job satisfaction. I had outgrown technical design work after being promoted to the position of Deputy General Manager and was saddled with administrative and non technical responsibilities.I was unhappy. After all these years, going to the office in the morning was a torture.From out of the blue the government introduced VRS . (Voluntary Retirement Scheme). I was the first to apply along with several colleagues. The company accepted the applications of many of them but sat on my application for a whole year and finally refused to release me but they would not put it in writing.The details are tedious to relate here but it finally ended in my submitting my resignation at the age of 50. I had 8 more years of productive service still left and had to forgo a lot of retirement benefits.Okay, till now, God planned for me.Now I had to plan for myself!During my service I had been receiving several offers from Head Hunters and HR consultants to leave my company and join the private sector. I had been spurning them.I now decided there was nothing to lose and accepted an offer from a new Management and software consultancy company, as the GM of a newly created division that was being set up to capitalize on a new business opportunity that had opened up in India consequent to the advent of the internet.This was Knowledge process outsourcing/ Business process outsourcing.The internet made it possible for many US companies to get many kinds of work done in India at low man-hour costs and delivered over the net. Medical transcription was among the earliest of these new businesses.Soon American Steel fabricators, Architects, and contractors found it expedient to off load their drawing preparation work, and other time consuming and laborious works to India where man hour cost was 1/7th of what it was in USA. After a few initial hiccups, the parent company in USA and the back end center in India would soon establish an equilibrium and the business flourished.I was taken on as GM and posted at Electronics City in Bangalore and I set up a team of 8 engineers and 22 draftsmen and headed this department and worked on this new business for 2 and half years and got a thorough exposure to this business, and its pitfalls, loopholes, sources for bagging assignments, quoting correct prices for executing assignments etc. how to chase payments, identify poor paymasters, good companies that pay on time, the tools, resources and software needed and the optimum manpower needed to run the business for a particular turnover and how to word a contract agreement fairly and safely, what kind of projects to avoid, however tempting the price, and what kind of projects to accept even if it meant compromising on our price, what kind of time schedule was feasible and which to turn down because it was not feasible.The work was of course not creative. That part was retained by the US Client. They offloaded only the grunt work, which took 90 percent of the time, to us, to keep their costs down. They paid us just half the price they would have to pay in America to get the job done there. We charged at least twice the price that we would have charged Indian customers for equivalent assignments in India. This was win-win situation for both. The time difference, around 12 hours made it possible to keep the project going on round the clock. We contacted each other on Yahoo/Microsoft messenger and later Skype in the mornings and evenings and there was heavy traffic in Emails, uploading and downloading of drawings and documents.They paid me twice of what I was getting in Mecon. But the working hours were long. I was constantly required to be online and in emergencies I would be asked to be available even at unearthly hours like 2:30 am!As I said before nothing is permanent. In this case too, the business soured after some time. Other companies too jumped in and the competition was so intense that our prices had to be reduced. Overhead costs rose, since this was an ISO company. Cost cutting, salary delays, extended working hours for the same salary contributed to mass resignations and I was left to find solutions. My requests for additional software licenses, better hardware, and new software that could greatly improve productivity were all turned down. After two and half years I realized that this business could not operate much longer with so much of overheads and restrictive procedures due to our being an ISO certified company.The time had come to plan my own career move. I believed I still had about 10 years of ability to work in me. I was in reasonably good health.I offered my resignation and decided that I would get into this business for myself, and not work for any one.This two and half year stint had given me an excellent exposure and I was brimming with confidence and simply raring to go.What was re-assuring was that I was at an age when all my debts were cleared. The house and car had been paid for. My daughter was married and settled in Usa. My son was in college with his career plans all chalked out and any funds he might need were kept safe and secure and reserved for him. My wife had opted for VRS from her bank and she offered to help me.I took the plunge.After all these years of contacts with American customers, I had a few who trusted me implicitly and they gave me small jobs initially and later larger and more ambitious assignments after I had convinced them that I was equipped with staff and software resources for handling them.Two trusted senior staff from the previous company I worked for did not want to continue there, after I left and resigned to throw in their lot with me. We recruited 12 new hands, fresh from college at salaries 10 percent more than what the open market was paying to freshers at that time. I initially rented office space close to my house while I modified my 2000 square feet house and demolished internal walls, and built an additional small hall on what was previously my terrace and soon set up an office in my own house and shifted my staff to my house. I moved my family to my newly purchased apartment a short distance away.At last! I was an entrepreneur! I gave jobs to others. I did not apply for jobs anymore! I was my own boss something I had not dreamt about a few years ago.The business ran well till 2008. I cleared all the loans I had taken for setting up the business and for buying hardware(19 personal computers, and two laptops) Software (8 Autocad licenses and 6 Tekla licenses) and two MS office licences and all the standard office furniture and fittings.Income had stabilized. I bought one more apartment as an investment and rented it out. I paid myself a decent salary starting with the salary I resigned on and soon drawing twice the salary. I enjoyed the luxury of having a driver and a live in maid at home and got my wife on board as a Co Director and paid her a salary and got all my non technical work done by her (like HR, recruitment, accounts, administration, supervising cleaning , purchase of office requirements and acting as counsellor for the employees most of whom were girls in their twenties. She also handled all contacts with my auditors and took care of paying all the taxes and handling payroll, leaving me free to concentrate on project execution, quality control and delivery on schedule and also training the newly recruited staff.My plans seemed to be working.My venture had stabilized. I was free from liabilities. I was feeling like a pilot who had finished the pre-flight formalities and had slowly piloted the plane till the end of the runway and had turned around was preparing for a take off and then soaring over the skies!Then Fate came back to taunt me!The 2008 sub-prime crisis in USA struck suddenly!My one fundamental mistake in marketing policy which was always haunting me at the back of my mind and which I had been ignoring finally caught up with me. This mistake was putting all my eggs in the American basket. I never pursued Indian Clients, or Australian clients. Indian clients paid far less but work during difficult times was assured. I did not pursue Australian clients since they paid far less than the Americans and they asked for more work and my team was less familiar with their codes of practice and were completely at home with the American specs and codes.The sub-prime crises in USA brought several projects to a halt. The Construction Industry in USA was seriously affected. My clients frantically called to cancel contracts. Some paid a token amount for work already done as compensation. Others did not pay at all and said they would pay if they were paid by their customer who pleaded that he would pay when the bank released the funds for the project. I was left dangling at the bottom of the food chain. I could not tell my staff that I would pay their salaries only if I got paid. I kept the boat sailing somehow by putting in some of my own emergency funds but I realized it was a losing battle. The crisis, I knew would last at least two years, may be even more, and I did not have the capability to rough it out unless I was willing to pledge all my immovable property assets. My wife firmly vetoed that idea.Then another personal disaster struck me for which I was totally unprepared. A sudden heart attack followed by angioplasty, then severe internal bleeding due to drugs taken post angioplasty which caused me to fall unconscious, and be rushed back to the ICU, followed by a severe attack of some strange kind of arthritis which kept me in bed for six months, totally unable to walk, all hit me in quick succession between 2010 and 2011 and I knew I was licked!A good Samaritan turned up in the nick of time. He was a big entrepreneur running a bigger business with a greater turnover in Andhra Pradesh. He sold his business and moved to Bangalore and wanted to do something smaller. He sought me out through mutual contacts and bought out my company at Par. I was glad to offer it to him. This happened in 2011 and fate has been kind to me after that!I am now leading a quiet retired life. I help my old organization when they invite me to conduct campus interviews for recruitment and for conducting orientation training of the new recruits. I divide my time between living in USA and Bangalore.Regards and best wishes to all Quorans and thank you for your patience in reading this long story.GV

America - I can offer a personal 1969 window into UK/US culture differences!The US has provided three of the most mind-altering experiences of my life.——2019 My test drive of a TESLA Model S. There's nothing I can add to what has already been written about that object of my desire. It made my BMW 535 seem like a tractor…——-1981 American Beatrice! Luckily for both of us, that even greater object of my desire had the good sense to be very uninterested in me. 'Why doesn't someone as intelligent as Peter make something of himself?' she asked a mutual friend.I had quit teaching [Wearing a black academic gown every day.] English Language and Literature in 1978 and was earning about twice as much in Germany driving trucks and buses to finance 4-5 month travel holidays.She was right. Weird.——- And …1969. My summer in the US. The land of the future, V8 muscle machines, the finest swimming team in the world under James E. Counsilman. I'm often a bit hazy about what I had for lunch today, but constantly amazed at the vividness of my culture clash recollections of that summer of 1969 as a petrol-headed, sailing/swimming-mad freshman at Durham University.Details such as….Continental Airlines - the return ticket cost £109 when my first rust-bucket car cost a pre-decimal £22 10 shillings. My first experience of the smoothness of a jet aircraft and good quality hot steaks, after the vibromassage of British turboprops and cold plastic British European Airways pseudoflesh..[Wikipedia says Continental was famous for its lavish cuisine then. I enjoyed some of that.]New York!A New York airport coach had a separate four-cylinder engine for climate control. Smooth rear engined power! Especially impressive after the British front engined weakmobiles. Later, even in 1976, I was to pass my UK bus test in a 51 seater with stick shift, unassisted steering and only 76 horse power…A pathetic piece of junk!Watching a Harley Davidson accelerate - the world seemed to go backward.A New York hotel room with triple door locks and brutal bars on the windows.A pair of New York policemen using their truncheons like yoyos as they swaggered down the street.I could afford a helicopter ride over the city!Then, in Florida the buses I travelled in would REGULARLY be hauled down from about 90mph to a standstill - for disused railway level crossings - on flat lands with visibility in all directions showing there was not a train in sight.Employment Culture.I was at Poyntelle-Rayhill summer camp for nine weeks; first as a junior counsellor.I encountered teachers, fully engaged school teachers, with no income over the summer months.I was talking to a counsellor at breakfast; at lunch, he was gone - fired - no warnings, no notice, just gone!Then Ed F. was fired from the teen Camp Lewis and Mitch, the Assistant Waterfront Director, replaced him.I took his place! I had a loud voice and competition standard swimming abilities.As a nineteen-year-old foreign student, I was in charge of the whole waterfront whenever my boss Mike S. was away, allocating duties to people more than twice my age, responsible for water safety, supervising swimming instructors, checking equipment, the lot!UNTHINKABLE in the UK or Europe or Asia!What was equally amazing was that everyone was OK with my promotion; they followed my instructions - no problems.Overnight, I had so many more 'friends'….. No extra money though,It was a Jewish summer camp.Food.Unlimited! Defavourised, chemicalised - just like UK in 1969 - except for the burgers and marshmallows. Fake cream? Check. Overcooked Veg-mush? Check. Supersweet Cereals? Check, Plastic 'meat'? Double Check. Brown-water coffee? Check. Cottonwool flavour white bread? Check! Just like homeBut there was that crime against humanity - root beer…..However, I fell in love with chocolate malteds, hamburgers, and later, steaks [not in the camp]; came back to UK many pounds heavier, and many seconds slower in my races.In the UK I was used to sort of admitting to being a non-drinker - I was a weirdo in Brit university drinking culture. I went out with some colleagues at Poyntelle, and said apologetically I didn't drink, only to be told the minimum drinking age was twenty-one!Language, Manners, Education, and Culture.As an assistant counsellor to Paul S. - one of the best guys with kids I've ever seen. I'll never forget him telling me, '“New York cops are people who can't even get into college.” In 2019 I've been pretty impressed with the intelligence and articulateness of many police contributors to Quora. In 1969 my perceptions of US college education took a jolt.I introduced the children to manners at the table. Monday was Yiddish day, Tuesday, French, Wednesday German, Thursday Italian, Friday Spanish, Saturday English, Sunday Free choice. But no one got anything without 'Please' and 'Thank you' in the 'Language of the Day'.People were open-mouthed when I kept saying 'Could you pass me/tell me/ help me with the … please?' Gimme..' seemed to be expected.I nearly caused an accident as a passenger in a car by asking the shocked driver 'I have to catch a bus at 7-30am. Could you knock me up at six? How was I to know that 'knock me up' meant 'get me pregnant' in the US?!Even weirder was when I told them that I had been to a secondary school where teachers wore academic gowns every day in lessons, I was even expected to wear an undergraduate gown to lectures at my university, also every day. {many students didn't bother.] At my grammar school [Meaning very academic fee paying institution with ten applicants for every place] I had been known as 'Ackroyd' - at university [never called a 'school'] I was Mr. Ackroyd to my lecturers and professors.The camp director was 'Ethel', first name terms were for all.Everyone asked me if my school resembled the school in the film [sorry, movie] 'If''. I had to see it out of curiosity. I then had to admit there were similarities….I took a group canoeing down the Delaware River, assisting Dave S. [Now a retired psychiatrist. Thanks for the sailing certificate Dave!] When we landed, I went swimming. One of the campers later asked me 'What did you do in your break?'I pointed to the rapids and said 'I had fun swimming there'.The camper then exclaimed, 'Wow! If I'd done that, I would have gone round and told everyone.'I thought to myself, 'In England, if I'd told everyone, I would have a] had no more friends, and b] been ribbed [made fun of] mercilessly for my boasting'.But after nine weeks, my accent changed; the camp joke was that I was really fromBrooklyn.Change Time!Every three weeks a new load of students came and went. A military operation.It was 'zoo time' but with the animals on the outside - frantic guilt-ridden parents baying at the bus doors to retrieve the offspring they had so gladly offloaded three weeks before.The camp 'hired' a street in New York - the police literally blocked off an entire street so the convoy of buses could offload, with admirable co-ordination, the kids without mass trampling.I would have liked to have met the father of the most troubled and troubling camper we had ever experienced - New York's most famous and published child psychologist.Kindness.Fourth of July - it was my first free day - - I was hitching to anywhere just to see the local sights. I waited less than five minutes before a fancy car pulled up. Next thing I knew, I was part of a family party, teaching 'rugby songs' to the extended adult family gathering. [Note - rugby songs are not for the prudish…]Suddenly it was noticed that one of the sons had disappeared, and so had the wife of another son! A hunt was about to be organised when they both turned up. Shocking to me in 1969, but in 2019?On my days off one of the counsellors then lent me his almost new green Volvo automatic sedan! Me, a nineteen-year-old student!In England, that just doesn't happen even now, in 2019. A Brit will more readily lend out his wife!I was able to tour round the beautiful green lakeland area of Pennsylvania/New York State area, went riding [on horseback - in UK there is no other sort.] I was offered a job for next summer, as an instructor [I had been riding since I was five.]Culture shock. The manager talked about his horses, saying, 'That's a $250 horse, that's a $400 barrel racer…' Brits do not do that! We talk about a horse/dog's/cat’s temperament/abilities/attributes but NOT monetary value…I drove to a touristic village, Woodstock - but at the wrong time! I never got to that mind-blowing 1969 first ever rock festival. At the camp, there was no access to news and I had no idea that history was being made there while I worked, such a short distance from the camp! I missed out on the mud, the drugs, and Jimi Hendrix.There was no TV except for one imported specially to watch The Moon Landing. I saw something achieved with less computing power than that in my cheap 2018 mobile phone. Unbelievable!.A $90 'bonus' [The dollar was about $2-40 to the British pound!] paid for my air ticket to Tampa, Florida. home of the Ehlerts, a retired relative and her husband.She wrote that they would also 'send' me to friends, a Miami couple. I could help out by mowing the Miami couple's lawn. The husband had been a manager of a petrol [sorry, gas] station. He had been crippled and paralysed by a gunshot from someone robbing his station.I was saddened by the cause of his injury but really shocked by the reactions of people I told this to. TO THEM HIS INJURY WAS AS NORMAL AS A TRAFFIC ACCIDENT INJURY MIGHT BE IN THE UK!!!!!On my return, I received a very friendly handwritten letter from Ethel A., the director. Red paper and white ink! I was offered a job at Camp LewisI have never been back to America.I discovered values I never realised I had. My social values are NOT very American.