Work Experience Evaluation And Grading Criteria (Generic Form: Fill & Download for Free

Background (based on 25+ years on graduate studies/admissions committee at three universities, and deep engagement with academic systems worldwide):Every committee is different - some allow for a good bit of subjective call, others go by straight quantitative criteria (in reality, quantitative criteria form a baseline- not meeting a key criteria of minimum required courses in the subject, minimum GRE and minimum GPA or class standing will result in rejection, and for those who remain, subjective criteria may be appliedCommittee composition may play a role; in a reasonable number of cases, professors from the respective part of the world (primarily because they may know the quality of the institution, can interpret communications skills better, etc.) would make a recommendation or a decision based on subjective criteriaWhen I see a decent application from an unknown university (i.e., not from IITs/BITS/IIITs/good RECs), I have to look a little deeper. And I ask a question, what do you have that others do not. It is not possible to compare GPAs across different institutions but I may take notice if you in the top 10% in a mediocre institution (and usually decline if you are bottom 50 to 75% depending on various factors). If you have done good, competitive internships and the outcome of your internship project is exciting (e.g., you did something meaningful software development utilizing a state of the art technology), and a reference letter from your mentor shows excitement about your work, you would deserve my interest. As Arjit says, demonstrated hackathon experience, winning a coding competition, or a GitHub account with a decent submission, can indeed impress. I seldom find an Indian applicant with a noteworthy conference or journal publication (be sure to put a copy on your homepage; I would like to quickly scan - journals and conferences that accept every submission do not count), but if that is the case, I will be impressed and might even set it aside for funding (usually I find such cases only from a few countries such as China and Iran - their resumes are on average much stronger). I also look for good programming skills (students who cannot program well have to take prerequisite courses and often do poorly compared to those who have a good data structure and programming knowledge -- here good job experience can be a basis for you to demonstrate you know decent programming.And yes, I do read the SOP, just to check if there is something special or if I have missed out on anything. I try to assess if it was written entirely by the candidate himself (having looked at so many of those, it is easy to find out if it was not written by the applicant). If I think it is, then it will give me important cue about communication skills (even if CS is a technical field, communication skill is very important both for graduate studies and for future career success; and good MS students do a thesis, for which they need good English language skills). I basically look for two things: has the candidate customized the SOP to our department or is it a generic SOP (in which case, I am not interested). To write a well thought out SOP, you have to study the Web site of the department, from there on you have to get a sense of which areas of CS this department is good at (this requires looking at the web pages of its labs/centers that may be well funded with lots of funded Ph.D. and MS students as well as the home pages of either highly successful or relevant professors, and more importantly find a match between your interest, background, and future plans with what unique things the department has to offer (special courses, labs, faculty, alumni success). Such background reading and putting it in the context of your desire to join the department will take a lot of time- but if you are not willing to spend that time, why should I (department) be willing to choose you over others you can express better why they want to join us? Something interesting about why you want to pursue your graduate studies at our department would serve you well. Routine reference letters (often drafted by applicant himself or herself) from a lecturer do not get looked at, but if you won a programming contest, a reference letter from your mentor might make an impact. There must be something unique about a reference letter, written by the person signing the letter, for that letter to be taken seriously (talking about which class you took, what grade you got, that you were an obedient student, etc. are utterly useless and waste of time).I generally advise against using agents and consultants who advise you on where to apply and help you write your application including SOP. Most of them do not look after your interest-- they get paid by both by you and the universities they refer (some give them give the commission to send students to them!). SOP written by them would do you more disservice than help.For most students who believe they are hard working (have solid work ethics), have good preparations (e.g., in programming), and have investigated which areas of CS they want to learn more about, instead of simply going by university or department ranks, it may be better to look for hidden gems: departments with research strengths in the CS areas that interest you (this is usually demonstrated by research funding- and even if you may not get funded to start with, you can learn more when there are good research groups in the areas of your interest) or special educational emphasis (e.g., our department has Cybersecurity program and "Big and Smart Data Science" certification-- the latter is, for example, good for preparing for a career in the hot data science or big data areas). If you believe you are very good but are afraid you cannot get into a top university, read [1].While I am at it, let me also write a bit about financial assistantships.Usually financial aid decision is made in a separate round (to maximize your chances, make sure your application is complete in all respects by early to mid February):some universities (including most private universities) count on tuition from international students, so do not expect any funding from them (e.g., USC);among those who do fund GTAs (large state universities have more GTA positions because grad students participate in teaching labs and grading undergraduate classes), local/US students get priority as usually they also have good communications skills (plus in most cases, undergrad education in CS is a lot more solid even at mid-tier US universities than most highly regarded south Asian universities (for more about it, see pointers at [2]),few places have departmental GRAs for top international students (this is usually cyclical-- e.g., our Engg college got $1million special fund, so for Fall 2015, 8 MS applicants got GRAs (they are required to find a faculty advisor who will guide them to do an MS thesis), andif you are very good and smart about starting to work with well-funded research labs, you may get professor funded GRA (usually this is available after first two semesters when you would complete the majority of the course work- while you are focusing on coursework, you may not have time to do research, hence no GRA, but you may still take a course with the professor you want to work with and start working in his/her research group- this will improve your chances of getting funding; again see [2]).For more on how I select my students: What do professors actually care about in selecting research students?[1] How do I get over the idea that only top graduate schools are worth attending? I'm an undergraduate in a STEM major at a respectable university. I’d like to pursue graduate school, but it’s not likely that I will be accepted to a top school.[2] Prospective tab at http://aiisc.ai/amit/students/

Thanks for the A2A.From the description you provide, you will already have completed the most competitive program at your school by the time you graduate. Admission officers will record this achievement in some way early on in your evaluation. Every study that has been deemed credible demonstrates that academic program combined with GPA provides the best prediction of success in university classes. Of course, as you no doubt know, highly selective schools will look at far more than your academic program and perfect grades. If I had to guess I would say be your standardized testing is strong too. All told, academically, you have what it takes to get a close read at any highly selective university or college.I am, however, going to address some things that might affect the decision whether you want to take the self-study APs or do something else instead. I know what I am going to write is politically incorrect, but that does not mean it might not be worth thinking about (or responding to, for those who disagree).You attend a small private school that has a strong reputation among colleges and universities. That is the good news. But it is also true that you attend a small private school in a posh community. By this I mean that you are going to be held to higher standards because of your privilege (unless you are on a scholarship and low income.) If you read the comments by many in education today, including those in admission, the label of privilege is applied to students in ways that make it clear that there is at least modest disdain and in some cases outright hostility to students who are perceived to have an unfair advantage over those who do not have the economic class or educational background to attend private school or enroll in private test prep, or a host of other things that almost all cost money. Your zip code and school are not necessarily going to curry favor among all admission officers. There are far too many counselors that throw the term privilege around as though it were a fault to live in a community and family with substantial resources. Orwell might well have written about this were he alive today.In addition, you are in a couple of other bad demographics. You are in New Jersey and you are a female. I grew up in New Jersey and loved it, so I am not putting down the Garden State, but the reality is the population density is high and there are not nearly enough highly selective colleges, either public or private, to fulfill the demand. There are many great secondary schools across the State; as a result, a lot of students from New Jersey end up applying to the same set of selective schools. If you are not aware, geographical diversity is a factor in admission decisions. It is not a huge factor but it certainly does come into play in highly selective admission where even small factors end up counting for a lot. You are, therefore, going to be competing with the top students in your State (and to a similar degree, to the students in your secondary school too, as many colleges evaluate applicants within individual secondary school groups In other words if 10 students from your school apply to the same university the school will, if it is very highly selective, not offer admission to many of them no matter how good the schools—see the acceptance rates to Stanford and the Ivies for magnet schools like Thomas Jefferson High Schools for Science and Technology –what many say is the best school in the US, for some data to support this claim. U Penn, for example, initially evaluates applicants within their school group. Selective colleges want to make sure they do not offer to “too many” students from one particular school.It’s also true that females, on average, outperform males in the classroom in secondary school. Most colleges have “goals” (they would never have exact quotas as this would lead to lawsuits) in terms of the male/female ratio that they wish to enroll even if it means being more selective for female applicants. The discrepancy between the selectivity expected from males compared to females is particularly true of some small liberal arts colleges, but it is also true of some of the highly selective universities. (Of course, this is not a topic you will ever hear about in an college information session, so you will have to do some sleuthing to find out the different acceptance rates between men and women. You might ask this in an information session, but if you do don’t give your name. I am sort of kidding….)I wish I could say what I have written above is the end of the discouraging preface to my answer to your specific question. But the stats that have been reported in the NY Times and other places are compelling in what they demonstrate. Asian students have to have better numerical academic credentials than any other group, by a long shot.Things have improved a bit at the Ivies after lawsuits were filed, but the acceptance rate, and enrollment figures compared to the overall performance of Asians at top secondary schools around the US (and the world), the percentage of Asians should be much higher (see the percentage of Asians at the U Cal system, for example, since these schools are, by law, not supposed to use race in admission--nearly half the students a Berkeley and UCLA are Asian). [1]Given the stats and the research there is, at the very least, some unconscious bias against Asians. This sad fact will not change any time soon. There is very little advocacy for Asians within the secondary school or college admission communities. In fact, there are many in the profession who believe there are too many Asian at magnet secondary schools and places like UCLA and hope to use “holistic admission” in order to alter the racial composition of the schools. Major media rarely cover this issue. Because of the vague criteria that fall under the rubric of holistic admission, it is very difficult to to prove overt discrimination. Readers are taught to never write anything down that would hurt them in court but the underlying message is clear at least to some who have read for highly selective schools. But even when there is a story that details how schools subtly discriminate there is no public outcry I do not see the courts siding with Asian applicants and then awarding damages to them --something I have commented on in Harvard Magazine.Therefore, given that you are going to be held to higher academic standards, it may be to your advantage to do the extra APs in order to help you rise above the “typical” Asian student who is at the top of the class and taking the toughest courses the school offers. It shows you have gone beyond the norm of exceptional performance and courses. Or it might not.I will finally get around to your question with just one more digression. Given your last name (the one who asked me to answer this question), you have at least some Chinese heritage. I mention this since you may not be aware that in the Mainland there are hundreds of students taking AP exams who have never taken an AP course. This is due, mostly, to the fact that the schools the students attend to do not offer APs. The typical AP choices for these students in China doing self-study are Calculus, Science (Biology, Chemistry, or Physics) and American History. I have always been surprised at students in China who study for a couple of months during their final exam period of a very rigorous junior year and then earn a 4 or 5 in American History. (It would make an interesting research paper to find out what the average AP US History score is in China. My guess would be the mean score is higher than the average score in the US. The College Board is not wild about Chinese students taking APs without being in the classes, especially when they earn high scores—it undermines the description of the AP as the equivalent of a full semester college course. And it affects the income College Board brings in for the course materials etc.)I mention this because there will be some admission people reading your application who will lump you in with this group of students and assume you are taking these exams in order to show you are hard working, smart, and have standardized proof of specific subject matter There is a lot of suspicion that transcripts out of China are not accurate and there is good reason to believe this. Many admission readers are jaded when it comes to reading applications from China for a whole set of reasons, both justified and unjustified, that I won’t go into here. (I have written a lot about this elsewhere). But as to your case in particular, while you may not be judged guilty by association, you also may not be credited for taking the APs because you love to learn, in part because of the Asian bias and in part because of the China bias.If it seems I have discouraged you from taking APs on your own let me see if I can at least make a case for why you might wish to take them and how they might be recognized as a positive factor by the schools you hope to attend. More than a decade ago the meme that made its way around the information sessions and marketing materials of highly selective schools was “Love of Learning”. Every selective college school foregrounded this attribute as the quality that helped students to stand out among bright students with good numbers.Mount Holyoke College is looking for smart, ambitious women who understand the value of a liberal arts education and who are driven by a love of learning.As is typical when a meme filters down and across to a large audience, however, it became a formula rather than a useful descriptive term for individual students to describe themselves outside the numbers. The term has, nevertheless, changed the experience of almost all the students’ lives who hope to get accepted to highly selective schools.Figuring out how to game a way to demonstrate Love of Learning became “the way to get in”. One common approach to demonstrate LOL was to pile on AP courses; coursework and grades are, as stated above, the best predicators of academic success and are easy to quantify for admission officers. For example, at one highly selective university I know of, the readers ‘ evaluation form included check boxes for which AP courses the student had taken along with the scores earned on any completed prior to senior year. These data points featured prominently the decisions that were made. Therefore, those students who wished to gain entry to the most selective universities and colleges began to take on much heavier academic loads in terms of APs and even post AP classes such as multivariable calculus and organic chemistry. At the same time, the College Board was promoting the AP program by increasing the number of APs offered in a range of subjects while also encouraging all schools to be a part of the AP program. It is no surprise that more and more students starting taking APs, and doing so at an earlier point in secondary schools. It used to be very rare to see students in any AP classes in 10th grade. Now it is not unusual in students that send the vast majority of students on to 4 years schools to see students with 2 or 3 in 10th, 3 or 4 in 11th and 5 or more in 12th. Students with 10 or more APs, once almost unheard of, are a part of the top 5-10 percent of any given secondary school class in wealthy suburbs or good private schools.There has been pushback, however, by colleges who say that the students are jumping through hoops instead of doing what they are passionate about .(Passion is a relatively new meme but it too may have passed its sell by date. Passion slowly gave way to “grit” about 4 years ago, but this term now seems to have largely disappeared too in favor of the deliberately vague duo of “overcoming obstacles” and “community engagement”.With applications going up each year and the competition getting such that fewer than 10% of students are accepted, those who wish to stand out are willing to do what they think it takes to get in to the top ranked schools, including loading up on an increasing number of APs. Recently, There has been some blowback about students taking too many APs and there is some data that suggests beyond a certain number (5 or 6) they do not increase the predictive value for academic success. A report last year out of the Harvard graduate school of education, Turning the Tide, recommended that admission offices look beyond things like APs and that students should not pile them on. While this is a nice sentiment it is not pragmatically realistic. 2It is unlikely that students will get penalized for taking more than 5 APs and unless the student does not do much except study having more APs is more impressive than having just a few—if you are in the toughest subgroups vying for admission.I mention this as you will be compared to the white and Asian kids who go to these high schools and who have taken 10 or more APs. Of course, it’s not as if Asians are all interchangeable cogs, but given the fact that schools get 30,000 or more applications for a few thousand spaces applications it is hard to distinguish the minutiae of individual students in the way that schools often tout as their holistic methodology. Your having upped your AP count will assure readers that you are not a slacker taking “only” 7 APs. If this sounds like hyperbole, I have seen comments by readers at a competitive university who have written “only 6 APs” in their evaluations, and that was over 5 years ago. The competition has only increased since that time.I have spent a lot of time on what I would call the macroscopic view of how the admission process works with respect to APs and groups of students. What I have written applies to the thousands of students who fit within your demographic profile. But now let me spend a little bit on how you might take the APs and help yourself significantly as an individual.First of all, before I would give you a definitive answer to your question, I would want to know a lot more specific information about you. It is easy to give advice in general terms ,but you have experiences and circumstances that do not fit into the generic descriptions I have given. For example, if you had a choice between self-studying for the APs or taking some MOOCs (Massive On-line Open Courses) instead, I am not sure yet how I would respond. You could take MOOC coding classes if that was an interest you had—something not offered on any AP exam. There are thousands of great MOOCs out there. But some in admission are cynical about these because they think students may be gaming the process by saying they have taken them. Certificates might help dispel this preconception and they may be less expensive than the AP test fees.Or maybe you have the opportunity to do some sort of activity (I hate to name any specifically as some readers would assume the ones I name are the ‘right’ ones), that would permit you to develop one of your talents or interests be it academic, the arts service etc. Or is it possible you could do some research in a field that you have an interest in. Or maybe you cold do an internship to find out more about a potential career field. Only after talking with you and seeing what options you have and what things you are interested in would it make a lot sense to give you specific advice that will help you develop skills that will help you not so much as an applicant to schools but as a person who really is interested in learning.On the other hand, in this age of private counselors taking on students as early as grade school, things have gotten way out of hand as far as shaping children into the mold of the successful applicants to highly selective universities. I would advise you to step away from the hype and do what I advise all students to do when making choices about programs, colleges, and lots else—go Buddhist. The Buddhist saying, first thought, best thought applies here. If you really love learning, then show it. The APs might be one way, but you will also need to get some back up. I hope your college counselor can underscore this in the recommendation letter and I hope that your teachers will support this too. In addition, your essays may be opportunity to demonstrate your love of learning in concrete ways (do not say “I love learning”—demonstrate it in the story you share). In other words, your application should have support for your love of learning that extends far beyond the APs. If you do this, then all the negative things I have mentioned above will pale into the background. Now that Love of Learning is not mentioned nearly as often as it used to be, your demonstration of it in your application may be a welcome thing (it would be for me if I were reading your application).Finally, I would also say that you should try to make sure you interview at the schools that offer them. If you have a genuine love of learning you can get this across in an interview. I have seen this hundreds of times over the years. It is not that hard see the academic fire when a student begins to talk about something they really love.You should also know that almost no matter what you are going to get into a good university. Your hard work has already paid off. If, however, you define good as top 10, then you are in for a lot of stress and possible heartache, but if you expand your list a bit you will find that what have accomplished will be rewarded.Best of luck.***********************************************************************************************1. This problem is especially prevalent in Ivy League colleges, shown by a complaint filed by the Asian-American Coalition for Education (AACE) against many such schools. This complaint claims that Admissions officers “often treat Asian-American applicants as a monolithic block rather than as individuals, and denigrate these applicants as lacking in creativity/critical thinking and leadership skills/risk taking.” (AACE v. Yale, Brown and Dartmouth) The statistics prove that the applicants are entirely capable, after the Department of Education started investigating Harvard, admission rates jumped from 10.8% to 16.1% (for Asian applicants). The same effect was shown at Princeton after a student complaint, with rates jumping from 14.7% to 25.4% (Douglas Belkin, 5/23/16)2.The following report offers specific recommendations for reshaping the admissions process in each of the following three areas:RECOMMENDATIONS FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SERVICE The admissions process should both clearly signal that concern for others and the common good are highly valued in admissions and describe what kinds of service, contributions and engagement are most likely to lead to responsible work, caring relationships and ethical citizenship.1 Promoting more meaningful contributions to others, community service and engagement with the public good.2 Assessing students’ ethical engagement and contributions to others in ways that reflect varying types of family and community contributions across race, culture and class.3 Redefining achievement in ways that both level the playing field for economically diverse students and reduce excessive achievement pressureRecommendation #2:Awareness of Overloading on AP/IB CoursesAdmissions offices should convey to students that simply taking large numbers of AP or IB courses per year is often not as valuable as sustained achievement in alimited number of areas. While some students can benefit from and handle large numbers of AP/IB courses, many students benefit from taking smaller numbers of advanced courses. Too often there is the perception that these students are penalized in the admissions process.

I did my M.Sc. in Electrical (Power) Engineering 2018–2020 batch. I will give a detailed experience broadly classified as study experience, living experience, money expenses and suggestions to incoming students.In the beginning, I thought why the person specifically highlighted the experience for an ‘Indian’ student and not just any student or any generic international student. But then, perhaps since the education system, lifestyle and cuisine varies from country to country, the answer is expected such that it covers the transition of someone with an Indian background to that of an international one.Study Experience:My background: I did my Bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from India. In TU Delft, I was in the program - Electrical (Power) Engineering where I chose compulsory courses from both Smart Grids track as well Power Electronics and Machines track. But my final year project was in Power Electronics and Machines track where the thesis was about design, modelling and optimization of machines.Work load: Unlike India, where the semester system (6 months) is followed, a quarterly system is followed (3 months). Considering time interval for exams, results and some holidays, 1 quarter lasts 2.5 months during which you have to study 3–4 courses. Usually lab courses are part of the main course. So overall, I felt that there were too many courses. For instance, a semester system might have 5 main courses. A quarter system for the same duration now has 6 to 8 courses. Some of the courses I felt were too irrelevant for the program. For instance, a course on measurements was mostly about calculating and eliminating noises in micro electronic circuits which is completely irrelevant to power engineering students. Overall, I felt that 15 credits worth of courses (which contributes to 3 months of study time) were totally not useful for my program.Quality of courses: Many of the courses are of high quality. You will end up with remarkably higher skills and knowledge after you finish these coursesStyle of exam: Exams are of the following types (for the courses I undertook or know from another person). In all exams, the faculty member who taught you evaluates the exam. Which means it is not going for ‘external evaluation’ like state public universities in India. Sometimes, teaching assistants also evaluate the exam. But in case of dispute, the final authority rests with your faculty member.Closed book descriptive exam: This is same as the exams held by most colleges in India.Open book descriptive exam: You can take the book with you. But that is for exams with huge design procedure and formulae.Assignment plus written (paper / digital) exam - Some courses have assignments throughout every week or every two weeks that have 20% to 60% weightage with the remaining weightage given to end exams. In digital exam, you have to type instead of writing. Assignments can be group or individual. I personally felt this was the best type of testing. In courses with this of type of assessment, I was able to study systemically and do well.Assignment plus oral exam - Some courses have assignments throughout every week or every two weeks that have 60% to 90% weightage with the remaining weightage given to oral exams. In oral exams, your faculty will ask you questions directly. Sometimes they give you paper to answer in case of equations. This is exactly same as viva exams for labs in India. Usually, I find oral exams harder because unlike written exams, you have no time to think. Any delay that occurs because you were thinking will adversely affect your performance if the faculty thinks so. In one oral exam I attended, the faculty gave time to think and answer and I was able to do well. In another oral exam, it was like rapid fire where I was expected to immediately write and derive expressions and I ended up creating a bad impression. So it totally depends on who is asking and how fast you are expected to respond.MCQ Exams - This is same as entrance exam type in India.Structure of courses: Some courses are organized extremely well. In a given number of hours, you can study systematically, gain enough understanding and pass with good grades. Also some courses are extremely disorganized where you spend hours without any direction. It depends upon who your course instructor is. Your faculty has the authority to organize course, choose the type of assessment and your final grades. Usually I have noticed that when it comes to organization of courses, courses belonging to a track are organized in a similar manner. I mean suppose there is track - ‘X’, if one course is organized well in X, then most other courses in X are also organized well. Similarly, if one course in another track - ‘Y’ is not well organized, then other courses under Y are also not well organized. So perhaps, there is some sort of a head for each track who is responsible for regulating courses, assessment and grading methodologies.The Master Thesis - In my program, the master thesis consists of a long research project worth 45 credits (out of 120 total credits). Note that 37.5% of your entire CGPA depends upon this.Out of the total 120 credits, first year has 60 credits and second year has the remaining 60 credits. If you get less than 30 credits in first year, you may be deported back to India since you are no longer meeting even half the study requirements. In order to start the master thesis, you must not only finish 60 credits but also these 60 credits should include credits from the mandatory courses of the track you selected.The master thesis comprises of a research project you are expected to work ‘independently’. Basically among a broader topic, you are expected to form some research objectives, find ways to achieve that and arrive at the final outcome. You will get 30 minutes of weekly assistance from one supervisor who is a faculty in your department.You can also do your master thesis at a company. Usually I observed that among my classmates, those who took a company project instead of the university research project ended up getting paid for their work (from the company), completed it faster and also received job offers.Often company projects are at different locations and you might have to relocate to that place. Maybe the money for breaking present rental contract and shifting would break even with the internship like salary. But time and job offers appear as pros in case of company thesis. When it comes to quality of research, the university research projects may have a slightly better quality owing to a higher starting level of difficulty. Once again, all this is from a small sample space of 10–15 students I know.2. Living experienceGetting a place to stay - University arranges accommodation for students depending on a first come first serve basis. If you are late to pay fees / not interesting in university arranging your accommodation, you can search for a place yourself. Accommodation are of the following types.a. Studio - You live alone in a tiny apartment -> kitchen and bathroom included. Depending upon your age and rental contract, you may be eligible for rental allowance. This is expensive if you don’t get a rental allowance.b. Shared - You share bathroom or kitchen or both with others. If you are searching alone (without university assistance); when it comes to gender, ‘all male’ and ‘mixed accommodations’ are available a lot. But ‘all female’ apartments are rare to find. I also felt this to be socially unfair. When there are a lot of ‘all male’ apartments, shouldn’t there be ‘all female’ apartments too? Or maybe there aren’t enough girls seeking accommodation.c. Couple - There are options where you can live with a husband or a registered partner.There are many rental scams. So please use only reputed sites when you are looking for an accommodation. Finding accommodation on your own is difficult - especially if you are a single (unmarried) woman searching for an ‘all female’ accommodation. Please make sure that you have someone (relative or friend) to temporarily stay with for a few days or weeks in case you run out of accommodation - either your rental contract is over or you have to shift to another location because of some internship.(I understand that the Netherlands is very egalitarian with high safety standards for women. But also, I presume that most Indian female students are unwilling or not modern enough for a mixed accommodation.)Food - Unless you know to cook, food can be very difficult. When it comes to Indian cuisine - all raw materials from different types to rice to spices can be obtained in Indian/ Pakistani/ Bangladeshi shops or even shops like Albert Heijn here. I personally didn’t find food to be a problem. I cooked Indian food regularly. If you have to eat out urgently and if you are very specific that the food should be vegetarian, most shops have one vegan option. But eating out is expensive. Even fast food is relatively expensive.Lifestyle and comfort- Weather was a problem for me. It was very windy and I found cycling very difficult when wind speeds exceeded 30 kmph. Winters were harsh and cold and I had dry skin problems.The quality of life (except weather) is high. Food is hygienic. Tap water is very good. Roads and public transport are excellent. Winter clothes are affordable here. Please don’t buy them all the way from India.I found most people to be polite. I didn’t face any direct racism in the university or from the general public.Socializing- There may be events in university where you can eat together, meet representative from companies and have a chat with your faculty. Also there are cultural events in college. When it comes to events specific to Indians, Diwali is celebrated as Diya with a venue that uses university facilities. Also, state wise you can form groups and find common rooms in accommodations to celebrate. Example, Malayalis celebrate Onam in the form of Potluck. Socializing is going to be difficult if you are a teetotaler as you will find most Indians who don’t drink alcohol in India drinking it here. But events like Diya don’t serve alcohol.3. Money and expensesHouse rentFor renting a studio the cost varies from €550 to €850 per month. If you have rental allowance, depending upon the breakup of rent, cost can come down by €100 per month or even more. For example, if your studio is €600 per month, then eventually you may end up paying €480 per month. For shared accommodation, the overall rent may range from €450 to €600 per month depending upon the space and quality of accommodation. Couple accommodation costs between €700 and €800 which is €350 to €400 per person.Living expenses: Health insurance and travel charges may totally comes to €60 per month. This is given that you stay close to university and don’t have to travel much. Note that dental insurance is not covered under general health insurance.A single meal at a restaurant may amount to €8 to €10. Fast food costs €3.5 to €6 per meal. Cooking reduces cost per meal to €2 to €3.I cooked most of my meals after buying raw ingredients suitable for Indian cuisine. Weekly, I ate 2 meals outside (like Subway). My total food expense came to €150 per month.Overall, I estimate that the total cost of living in NL for an Indian student (including rent, food, insurance and travel) will amount to €500 (too stringent) to €800 (somewhat lavish). €650 per month was ‘comfortable’ for me. If you live in a medium size independent house, eat out and have parties every weekend, you may end up spending more than €1000 per monthTuition expenses: Tuition fee in Netherlands is relatively highly expensive compared to most other EU countries. For every month of study delay, you have to pay additional fees for the whole month. After your defense, don’t forget to un-enroll. Even if you unenroll of Nov 1st, you will be charged for the whole month of November. Also if you un-enroll on a vacation period, you have to pay for the whole of that period. If you un-enroll on the day summer holidays, you have to unnecessarily pay for three more months! Be extremely careful with this. Green light -> defense -> Unenroll -> Graduate. For graduation, you need not be enrolled.Overall suggestions for future students:Before you join, please make sure that you know some people who took the exact same course and exact same track. It is very important for you to get a guidance on what courses to follow and what track to follow. Your overall CGPA may improve by 1.5 to 2 points just with proper guidance. Sometimes it may even effect your passing chance depending upon the course. For instance, in one of the (bad) courses I took, the final exam was completely MCQ type. The examiner had asked 5 (out of 20) questions (so 25% of total marks) directly from a past exam which he hadn’t uploaded in past year exam section. Those students who knew good contacts (such as immediate seniors) had access to that exam questions along with solutions. They ended up getting above 8 while many just passed or narrowly failed. Now of course, all courses are not like this where past year exam matters. But you need to know which course is good and for that a trustworthy network is needed. Overall please avoid courses with MCQ exams as it just a matter of chance. Written descriptive exams and assignments are more fair.Also please don’t choose a track just because you are interested in it. Suppose you like track X, but it happens to be disorganized then your whole study is ruined.Ideally if you start in September 2021, you are supposed to finish by Aug 2023. Every month after that will cost you more tuition fee. And also, you have the additional task of finding another accommodation. Even though your course gets overs in Aug 2023, your rental contract will end by July 2023. So even if you finish on time, you still may end up searching for another whole month’s period of accommodation. Also short stay accommodations are hard to find. Maybe you have to take a one year contract if you need accommodation from some credible place. Instead, you may go and stay in some friends place if it is for a few weeks or a month. So ideally try to graduate by July. If you want to finish by July, you need your report ready by June. Which means you have to finish your thesis by May. Which implies that the core of your thesis must be completed by April! It takes one month of post processing, one month of writing and more time for your faculty to evaluate.In my batch, I do not know of anyone who graduated by July. Only a few students I know graduated by Aug. Most of my classmates graduated during September to December period. Which means that most of them had a study delay ranging from at least one month to more than three months.When you come here don’t forget to bring a pressure cooker, two spare specs if you wear glasses, calculators of all models (Casio 82, 991-es and 991-ms) and any specific product (say Himalaya shampoo) that you personally need. Different exams specify calculator models and nothing else is allowed. Calculators are very expensive here.Try to work independently without much assistance from faculty or TAs. Before you start any project, please ask a rubric of the evaluation criteria. Sometimes you may not get that. Ask any senior students if they have one. It is extremely important that you have a rubric that states how you will be assessed right from the beginning of the master thesis/project, so that you will know what to do.Finally, remember that every small decision you take is irreversible and will have a huge impact on your wellbeing since you are an international student who is paying a massive amount of fees. Get appropriate feedback and advice from trusted seniors and friends before you make any move.