The Impact Of A Junior Faculty Fellowship Award On Academic: Fill & Download for Free

Let me cite some research works and then you can draw your own conclusions. Should you wish to comment and refute this answer, please make sure that their is scientific backing to your claim with journal links and not 9GAG articles. Also, make sure that the comment is framed professionally. Otherwise, I will immediately report and block.For the same contribution made, women usually get less credit in publications[1][1][1][1].“There exist in the production of science inequalities in the distribution of scientific labor, with women more likely to be associated with the “physical” labor (i.e., performing experiments), whereas men are more likely to be associated with resource contributions and “conceptual” labor (i.e.,conceiving and designing experiments and writing the article). Gendered labor roles remained significant after controlling for academic age, discipline, country, authorship position, and proportion of male and female authors. These differences in labor roles may explain some of the disparities in the rates of scientific publication between men and women, particularly in prestigious first and last author positions.”Females need to put more effort than men for the same amount of academic and professional recognition[2][2][2][2].“Our results show that, after controlling for variance at the institutional level, men spend significantly less time engaging in supervised research, are less likely to attribute their time allocation to the demands of assigned tasks, and are 15% more likely to author published journal articles than their female counterparts per 100 hours of research time. Collectively, these findings suggest that gender inequality manifests in the form of differential time-to-credit payoff as early as the first year of doctoral training. The men in our sample were better able to procure or were provided with better opportunities to capitalize on publishing prospects as a function of time spent on research than their female counterparts despite the reverse trend for time spent on research. These results provide convergent evidence for the conclusions of Smith et al. (2013), who found that female graduate students perceive a greater investment of effort to be necessary for success in their academic programs compared with their male counterparts. Although perceived effort and time invested are not identical constructs, it is possible that experiences of discrepant time-to-publication ratios may contribute to such beliefs.”Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors[3][3][3][3].“A series of studies across countries and disciplines in higher education confirm that student evaluations of teaching (SET) are significantly correlated with instructor gender, with students regularly rating female instructors lower than male peers. Anne Boring, Kellie Ottoboni and Philip B. Stark argue the findings warrant serious attention in light of increasing pressure on universities to measure teaching effectiveness. Given the unreliability of the metric and the harmful impact these evaluations can have, universities should think carefully on the role of such evaluations in decision-making.”Women of color face greater risk of gendered and racial harassment[4][4][4][4].“We conducted an internet-based survey of the workplace experiences of 474 astronomers and planetary scientists between 2011 and 2015 and found support for this hypothesis. In this sample, in nearly every significant finding, women of color experienced the highest rates of negative workplace experiences, including harassment and assault. Further, 40% of women of color reported feeling unsafe in the workplace as a result of their gender or sex, and 28% of women of color reported feeling unsafe as a result of their race. Finally, 18% of women of color, and 12% of white women, skipped professional events because they did not feel safe attending, identifying a significant loss of career opportunities due to a hostile climate. Our results suggest that the astronomy and planetary science community needs to address the experiences of women of color and white women as they move forward in their efforts to create an inclusive workplace for all scientists.”Women faculty receive less start-up support from their institution[5][5][5][5].“In this preliminary study of early-career grant applicants administered by 1 organization, junior faculty women received significantly less start-up support from their institutions than men. This discrepancy was significant only among basic scientists and was not explained by degree, years of experience, or institutional characteristics. The limitations include reliance on limited self-reported and administrative data. The representativeness and generalizability of these results to applicants to other foundations or institutions, or to other biomedical investigators, are unknown.”Research articles are less likely to be accepted if reviewers already know that you are a women[6][6][6][6].A difference of 7.9% in the proportion of female first-authored papers following the implementation of double-blind review in BE is three times greater than the recorded increase in female ecology graduates in the USA across the same time period (US National Science Foundation (NSF) ) and represents a 33% increase in the representation of female authors. Furthermore, this increased representation of female authors more accurately reflects the (US) life sciences academic workforce composition, which is 37% female (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/employ.htm). The consequences of this shift could extend beyond publications. If females are less successful in publishing research on account of their gender, then given the current practices associated with appointment and tenure, and the need for women dramatically to out-compete their male counterparts to be perceived as equal [3], any such publication bias impedes the progress of women to more advanced professional stages.A fictitious man will receive better competence rating than a fictitious women for the same CV[7][7][7][7].“Furthermore , both male and female participants were more likely to positively evaluate the research, teaching, and service contributions of a male job applicant than a female job applicant with an identical record. The se results are consistent with previous research that has shown that department heads were signi cantly more likely to indicate that they would hire female candidate s at the assistant professor level and male candidate s with identical records at the associate professor level (Fide ll, 1970). The se results are also consistent with the research on how both women and men evaluate their own work (Widom and Burke , 1978) Candidates and Applicants 523 and the work of others (O’Leary & Wallston, 1982). Indeed others have argued that although most men and women sincerely hold egalitarian beliefs, those beliefs alone do not guarantee impartial evaluation of others (Valian, 1998). The findings from this study support that contention and underscore the notion that women are as capable of gender bias as men are . Furthermore , these findings are particularly disturbing coming from psychologists, who unlike scientists in many other disciplines, would have been exposed to research on gender bias through course work, colleague s, and colloquia.”Women are inferiorly assessed for the same productivity in fellowship applications versus male fellowship applicants[8][8][8][8].“We found that the MRC reviewers gave female applicants lower average scores than male applicants on all three evaluation parameters: 0.25 fewer points for scientific competence (2.21 versus 2.46 points); 0.17 fewer points for quality of the proposed methodology (2.37 versus 2.54); and 0.13 fewer points for relevance of the research proposal (2.49 versus 2.62). Because these scores are multiplied with each other, female applicants received substantially lower final scores compared with male applicants (13.8 versus 17.0 points on average). That year, four women and 16 men were awarded postdoctoral fellowships. As shown by these figures, the peer reviewers deemed women applicants to be particularly deficient in scientific competence. As it is generally regarded that this parameter is related to the number and quality of scientific publications , it seemed reasonable to assume that women earned lower scores on this parameter than men because they were less productive. We explored this hypothesis by determining the scientific productivity of all 114 applicants and then comparing the peer-reviewer ratings of groups of male and female applicants with similar scientific productivity.”Women receive lower grant scores than men after controlling for h-index, funding history, and myriad other potential cofounders[9][9][9][9].“Among 11 624 applications, 66.2% of principal applicants were male and 64.1% were in a basic science domain. We found a significant nonlinear association between scientific productivity and final application score that differed by applicant gender and scientific domain, with higher scores associated with past funding success and h-index and lower scores associated with female applicants and those in the applied sciences. Significantly lower application scores were also associated with applicants who were older, evaluated by female reviewers only (v. male reviewers only, –0.05 points, 95% confidence interval [CI] –0.08 to –0.02) or reviewers in scientific domains different from the applicant’s (–0.07 points, 95% CI –0.11 to –0.03). Significantly higher application scores were also associated with reviewer agreement in application score (0.23 points, 95% CI 0.20 to 0.26), the existence of reviewer conflicts (0.09 points, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.11), larger budget requests (0.01 points per $100 000, 95% CI 0.007 to 0.02), and resubmissions (0.15 points, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.17). In addition, reviewers with high expertise were more likely than those with less expertise to provide higher scores to applicants with higher past success rates (0.18 points, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.28). There is evidence of bias in peer review of operating grants that is of sufficient magnitude to change application scores from fundable to non-fundable. This should be addressed by training and policy changes in research funding.”Women receive equal scores as men when reviewers assess scientific proposals, but lower scores when reviewers assess the applicant[10][10][10][10].“Avoiding bias in grant review is necessary to ensure the best research is funded, regardless of who proposes it. In this study, gender gaps in grant success rates were significantly larger when there was an explicit review focus on the principal investigator. Because of the quasi-experimental study design, these findings offer more conclusive evidence than was previously available about the causes of gender gaps in grant funding. Specifically, this study suggests that such gaps are attributable to differences in how women are assessed as principal investigators, not differences in the quality of science led by women.”The study was triggered by a tweet from Michael Hendricks but I am not able to find the exact tweet.Footnotes[1] Is Science Built on the Shoulders of Women? A Study of Gender Dif...: Ingenta Connect[1] Is Science Built on the Shoulders of Women? A Study of Gender Dif...: Ingenta Connect[1] Is Science Built on the Shoulders of Women? A Study of Gender Dif...: Ingenta Connect[1] Is Science Built on the Shoulders of Women? A Study of Gender Dif...: Ingenta Connect[2] Page on lifescied.org[2] Page on lifescied.org[2] Page on lifescied.org[2] Page on lifescied.org[3] Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors[3] Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors[3] Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors[3] Student evaluations of teaching are not only unreliable, they are significantly biased against female instructors[4] Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment[4] Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment[4] Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment[4] Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment[5] Sex Differences in Institutional Support for Junior Researchers[5] Sex Differences in Institutional Support for Junior Researchers[5] Sex Differences in Institutional Support for Junior Researchers[5] Sex Differences in Institutional Support for Junior Researchers[6] ScienceDirect[6] ScienceDirect[6] ScienceDirect[6] ScienceDirect[7] The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study[7] The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study[7] The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study[7] The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study[8] http://file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/PEERREVIEW_NEPOTISM_SEXISM.pdf[8] http://file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/PEERREVIEW_NEPOTISM_SEXISM.pdf[8] http://file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/PEERREVIEW_NEPOTISM_SEXISM.pdf[8] http://file:///C:/Users/Admin/Downloads/PEERREVIEW_NEPOTISM_SEXISM.pdf[9] Assessment of potential bias in research grant peer review in Canada[9] Assessment of potential bias in research grant peer review in Canada[9] Assessment of potential bias in research grant peer review in Canada[9] Assessment of potential bias in research grant peer review in Canada[10] Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist[10] Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist[10] Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist[10] Female grant applicants are equally successful when peer reviewers assess the science, but not when they assess the scientist

My opinion of KGMU cannot be penned down in a single answer, yet I’ll try my level best to give you an overview of everything about the University. The answer is my perspective of things, as a student whose sole purpose of being here is to ‘LEARN.’ACADEMICS:Being the largest Residential Medical University of India (started from 232 beds and at present there are more than 4500 functional beds), KGMU offers a wide variety of medical courses-The academic framework is formed by a total of 75 departments. As I have just completed my first year of MBBS, I can tell only about the Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry departments. I’ll highlight some of the notable features of these departments.Anatomy- The department is known for its rigorous academic schedule. The best thing about the department is that it provides 1 cadaver for 8 students (till 2018 batch), so obviously there is less crowding on the cadavers. Our Anatomy Department was the first one in the country to accord an MS degree to a postgraduate student in 1940. And it's museum is still one of the best of its kinds in entire South East Asia.Physiology- The Physiology Department has well equipped labs including a functional amphibian lab, sleep lab and chronomedicine lab which to the best my knowledge are not present in most of the other medical colleges. Apart from academics, the department is well known for organizing several cultural fests, symposia, conferences, quizzes etc.Biochemistry- The biochemistry department is recognized specifically for its research work. I feel proud when I say that one of our Biochemistry Professors, Dr Abbas Ali Mehndi has been cited more than 10k times in various research papers. Rest faculties are also doing great in their areas of research. The department has also organized two international conferences in the previous year.Overall all these departments are doing exemplary in every aspect.Besides these courses, KGMU also offers a plethora of clinical trainings including ACLS, ATLS, BLS, ATCN to improve clinical skills of healthcare workers. This year due to change in curriculum, the BLS and some other trainings were provided even to the first-year MBBS students. Surprisingly, many of these curriculum designers are currently faculties in our college.Regular national/international conferences are also being organized at the campus. During the session 2016-2017 about 160 national/international conferences were held at our campus and the number has increased significantly over the recent years. Most of the conferences are not audience-specific so even as an undergraduate you can attend them even without paying their high registration fee. I have attended a few of these and believe me it’s a great learning experience. When you see people much older than you being actively involved in case discussions/paper presentations, I think nothing else can better orient you towards life long learning.This was my first conference and hence I am attaching it here.🤩The achievements of KGMU which cannot be forgotten while describing academics at our University :-Our institute became the first government hospital/university to establish an exclusive Critical Care Medicine Department in 2016.-It is the pioneer institute to start an MD course in ‘Hospital Administration’ in North India.-Our Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (DPMR) is the largest multidisciplinary inpatient tertiary care rehabilitation hospital in entire North India.-Department of Trauma Surgery, established in January 2017 in KGMU, is the first independent trauma surgery department to be established in India. Recently in Aug 2019, the UP Chapter of ISTAC (Indian Society for Trauma and Acute Care) was launched at KGMU and very soon it will be one of the few institutions which offer post-graduation and super specialization programs in Trauma Surgery.-Few of our departments including Surgery, Psychiatry and Medicine are well known for their tremendous number of publications and complicated surgeries. Many of our faculties from psychiatry and community medicine departments have occupied dignified positions in WHO. As some of our Alumni say, these departments of KGMU are still among the best ones in the country.-KGMU is among the four medical colleges of India which are collaborated with ‘Project ECHO’ aiming to improve medical education in India.-KGMU is in the list of ‘Institute of Eminence’ shortlisted by the MHRD.-Every year our college organizes a medical technology event- “Hackathon” in collaboration with IIT-KANPUR. I was a team member in the Hackathon 2019. As a result of the event, our undergraduates grab 2-3 patents annually. After looking at our enthusiasm for the event one of our professors even established an ‘Innovation and Intellectual Property Cell’ to promote med-tech activities in the campus. So now KGMU is among very few of medical institutions to have this department.-KGMU has played an imperative role in the elimination of Japanese Encephalitis from the regions of eastern UP.-Besides all these, KGMU is the major research centre for various WHO, ICMR, DBT & UPCST projects.RESEARCH:I will write a separate answer on this. As per my knowledge, research works at our university are highly funded (to be honest, ‘highly’ doesn’t apply for UG students) and many of the studies are collaborated with medical schools abroad. The annual number of publications of few of our faculties are even more than any decent college’s total publications. I am not providing data as its available on the official site of KGMU.We have a ‘Research Cell’ in our college which promotes high quality research amongst UGs and PGs. It provides funding, awards, fellowships, intramural and extramural research projects.Although medical research at under graduate level is not promoted in India, still here, in my college you can find many of the UGs involved in research. I am glad to mention here that 13 of my batchmates (including me) were involved in solo research projects during their first year. Three ICMR-STS projects were also approved and all three from first year MBBS😀. And you will not believe the research cell provided me INR 10k😅 in my first year to carry out my intramural research work in biochemistry, the sum of money is not important but giving this money to a first-year student who has no previous research experience is commendable. And let me tell you, we were not involved in any faculties’ project. Besides that, anybody can be involved in the research projects of professors too. Approach them with enthusiasm and curiosity to learn, they will surely involve you in their ongoing projects. Once, a professor himself asked me to help him in completing his ICMR funded project, the budget of which was around 8 lacs.Now where do we stand in research as compared to other top colleges? See yourself.This was the status during year 1999-2008.And this one is from year 2018.Recently, three of our professors were featured among top 2 percent medical-scientists around the world. (Ranking was done by Stanford University).PATIENT INFLOW AND EXPOSURE:Currently KGMU is offering health care services to a 20-crore population of entire north India (including UP, Bihar, MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand), Nepal and Bhutan. Last year data available on KGMU website suggest, 15-20 lac patients are seen annually in the OPD of KGMU with on an average 10,000 patients every day. This number is many folds of the combined patient inflow of all the AIIMS (except Delhi due to obvious reasons).The patient inflow and the kind of clinical exposure we get are just unparalleled. A number of successful, complicated surgeries and treatments testify the exceptional clinical skills of Georgians.The above, a case of esophageal atresia was treated with a complicated tissue engineering technique (Kimura technique) developed by Japanese expert Dr Kimura in 1994. Till September 2018, only 19 successful surgery by Kimura technique had been reported across the world with only one from India (Yeah dear! KGMU 😄).RANKING:KGMU has consistently been among the top 5 medical institutions of India and is currently the 2nd best medical university of India.MHRD NIRF rankings 2018.Outlook’s annual ranking 2019.MHRD NIRF 2020 ranking.ALUMNI:Established in 1905, KGMU has already produced tremendous number of great scientists and clinicians. Post graduates from our departments hold high position overseas including senior faculty and research posts in USA, UK, Australia and Gulf countries. Many of our alumni are Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree awardees. Presently, many of them occupy senior faculty positions in different regions of India. Few of them who are role models for us include-Prof. Autar Singh Paintal (discovered J Receptors, B Receptors, Muscle Pain Receptors and many more sensory receptors), Dr. Naresh Trehan (Founder of MEDANTA), Prof. Balram Bhargava (DG-ICMR), Prof. Vishram Singh (Author of famous ‘Vishram Singh Anatomy’), B.K. Anand (discovered feeding centre in hypothalamus), Sunil Pradhan (discovered Pradhan sign, Poly hill sign, Shank sign, Calf-head sign, Diamond on quadriceps sign, F-response multiplicity and many more electrophysiological techniques), Prof. M.C. Mishra (father of Indian Trauma Surgery and Ex Director of AIIMS-DELHI), Prof. Ravi Kant (Director of AIIMS-RISHIKESH), Sanduk Ruit (Himalayan cataract project), Asha Seth (Canadian politician and doctor), Anil Kohli (former president of dental council of India). These are just a few names out of the umpteen number of KGMU alumni who speak up about its glory not just in India but all around the world.CAMPUS AND COLLEGE LIFE:Just one word for the campus- ‘MAGNIFICENT.’Being spread over an area of 7 km, with more than 50 buildings, the buildings are so elegantly designed, that it will surely leave you in awe of its beauty. There is enormous greenery all around the campus. So that you don’t doubt its glory, I must mention that many of the scenes of an upcoming Hollywood web series- “A Suitable Boy” were recently shot at our campus. It displays our Physiology Department which was made ‘Department of History’ during the shooting.For more details about college life you may have a look at the following answers-Answer to How is life as a medico at KGMU, Lucknow? by Shubhanshi Dixit Shubhanshi Dixit's answer to How is life as a medico at KGMU, Lucknow?Answer to How is life as a medico at KGMU, Lucknow? by Piyush Sapra Piyush Sapra's answer to How is life as a medico at KGMU, Lucknow?As there are currently 250 seats in MBBS per year so obviously you are going to get a diversity of students both in terms of culture and mindset. Most of the students always feel overburdened by the course and hence they are focussed on passing exams only. Many of them are involved in extracurriculars. Few in research and other activities. About brilliancy of guys, most of them come with decent ranks in NEET/AIIMS. But as it happens, most of us adapt ourselves with our fellows despite all the differences. As first years get double/ triple seater rooms, few of us face problems in the beginning, but we gradually learn to adjust and it’s a great experience living with people from different backgrounds. We get to learn a lot from our batchmates and make some unforgettable memories.RAGGING AND SENIORS:I will be honest about ragging in KGMU-- it exists (to a little extent) just like other medical colleges in India. Believe me it's completely upto you. You don't like it then don't get involved in it. I accept the fact that juniors get phone calls from their seniors during their free time but any kind of physical ragging just doesn’t exist. Surely the media has made us famous in the state for ragging but we as students of this prestigious college know the reality. Though there are some weird rules which you have to follow but you always have another option.And, kindly don’t focus on these pointless comments on Quora about ragging in KGMU.These comments come from some random people who themselves have never been to KGMU, they have just heard about it ‘somewhere’ from ‘someone’ and are now spreading rumours.About Seniors here, I will say- you have to choose between them, not all will be similar to your mindset. Seniors help us with everything and make us well-acquainted with the college’s environment. Sometimes you will feel that many of them are demotivating you. But you should know how to survive in the worst of conditions that’s what these seniors teach you- IGNORE.Besides all these, many of our seniors have left no stones unturned to make us proud by representing KGMU in national and international conferences. Many of our seniors have been matched in several prestigious universities in the US. Moreover, AIR 4, 8 and 9 in NEET-PG 2020 top-10 were interns from KGMU.This is the place (Kalam center) where our regular classes are held.This is our lecture hall having a capacity of 300 seats. (Don't worry about visibility of blackboard. In reality you can see things clearly written on the board even while sitting on the last bench but idk why in picture it came so big😂).Hostels are not luxurious but still they are good. In the first year we usually get double seater rooms and from second year onwards you may opt for single as well as double seater rooms.You get free high-speed unlimited Wi-Fi everywhere in the campus. Library, reading room and cafeteria are present close to each other.EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES:Facilities for almost all of the major sports are available here. Cricket, football, badminton, basketball, swimming, table tennis everything is available. Indoor games like chess, snooker can be played in the hostel itself. TV room, gym and guest room are also available in hostels.The annual fest of KGMU- ‘Rhapsody’ is the state’s largest socio-cultural and sports festival. Besides that, we celebrate Basant Utsav, Saraswati pooja, Krishna Janmashtami in our unique traditional way.These are the pics from Saraswati Pooja which is organised every year by the second year students.Many groups and clubs also exist in our campus which provide you enormous opportunities to follow your hobbies. Soul Cushions, Fashion society of KGMU, Medlit Society are a few of them.Most of the fests and conferences are held at Scientific Convention Centre, which is again an unique site for scientific and cultural events.On a lighter note, there are various other things apart from excellent academics and unparalleled clinical exposure that KGMU offers to its UGs. You will get these facilities only at a selected institutions across India. These include:Any UG/PG/Faculty of KGMU gets free subscription to UpToDate, Nature Research, Clinical Key, SpringerLink, JAYPEEDIGITAL, Clinical Learning, BMJ Case Reports, BMJ Best Practice, ERMED Consortium. (Individual annual subscription of each costs hundreds of dollars and even more).A separate ‘Placement Cell’ comprising of several students and faculties to provide academic as well as non-academic guidance including information about student organisations, career oppurtunities, higher education, research, code of conduct, funding oppurtunities, soft skills etc. Its based on the ‘Counselling Cell’ that exists in several IITs. Check it out: http://placement.kgmu.org/Foreign Exchange Programs with several universities abroad. In the year 2016, one of our senior from 16 batch was selected for a 2-month internship at University of Wisconsin.Formal UG research group comprising of students from different batches active in research and related activities and with a good background in research.An official ‘@kgmcindia.edu’ mail id is provided to each and every student of this college. (.edu mail ID is required to get the access to several websites).‘MBBS Student Research Award’ is being awarded to an UG student each year who has published first authored article in a national/international journal with high impact factor.Before I end my long list of opinions, I would like to clear your misconceptions regarding the cons of joining KGMU.-Many are worried due to 2 years rural bond after completing MBBS. Nothing can be done regarding this.-Sometimes you may feel like lacking innovation in academics but rest assured this is the condition of every medical college. It is you who has to put in efforts, if you want to do something different. You want to do research at KGMU, go for it, remember you don’t always need institution’s facilities/labs to carry out your research work (Although you will get all research facilities in KGMU itself). Just select your mentor carefully. Get to know about research methodologies (free resources are available). That’s it.-It’s under control of state government. But I don’t think there’s any disadvantage associated with this except that someone may underestimate you as a student of state gov. college. Also, as compared to a central institute, you will find more students coming with different kind of quotas and reservations. About academic environment, it’s the same as any other top medical college. Not only brilliant students, you are also going to get surrounded by people with purposeless future. Don’t get influenced by those who are having secured future. You come here to learn. Focus on learning.-Most of the guys go for Delhi colleges mainly because of city factor and better college environment. Some go for peripheral AIIMS colleges for the tag/no bond rule/better hostel facilities.Lastly, some remain confused due to these type of questions.Dear, just having luxurious, Air-Conditioned hostel rooms does not mean that you can start comparing this 2-year-old institution with a 114-year-old prestigious university which is now an 'Institute of Eminence.’Before opting for a medical college, its really important to have an idea about the facilities and things you need; for some students it can be a tag of college or location of college so they can enjoy their college life and for some it can be the actual factors that are gonna make them good clinicians. Choose wisely. Don’t select a college just coz someone at your rank made same choice last year.Overall, I would say this one year experience of KGMU has completely changed my life. Proud to be a Georgian.Thank you for reading.P.S. In case you need evidence for anything I have mentioned here, I would love to provide that.

Q. Is it true that some students at Brown University get food stamps because they’re smart enough to be attending Brown but are broke?A. Low income students at Brown are offered full scholarships that cover tuition, room and board. Their meal plans are covered by the Brown scholarship. They do not need, nor are they qualified for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Food Stamps. The above statement is not true.What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston GlobeAlejandro Claudio can eat whenever he wants at the Ratty, the campus dining hall, because his meal plan is covered by his Brown scholarship. During his first semester, friends looked at him like he had five heads when he said he’d never tasted falafel, kebabs, or curry. He had immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 8. “Growing up in a poor family, we ate the same thing every night: rice, beans, and chicken,” he says.Am I Eligible for SNAP?What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston GlobeThe son of an MBTA bus driver from Jamaica Plain, Harvard sophomore Ted White helps lead the First Generation Student Union, pushing for a better understanding of challenges financially disadvantaged students face.DINA RUDICK/GLOBE STAFFBy Brooke Lea FosterAPRIL 09, 2015WHEN ANA BARROS first stepped into Harvard Yard as a freshman, she felt so out of place she might as well have had the words “low income” written on her forehead. A girl from Newark doesn’t belong in a place like Harvard, she thought, as she marveled at how green the elms were, how quaint the cobblestone streets. Back home, where her family lives in a modest house bought from Habitat for Humanity, there wasn’t always money for groceries, and the world seemed gray, sirens blaring at all hours. Her parents, who immigrated to the New York area from Colombia before she was born, spoke Spanish at home. It was at school that Barros learned English. A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair, Barros found out in an e-mail that she’d been accepted to Harvard — a full scholarship would give her the means to attend. “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,” she says.She opted for a single her freshman year, because she felt self-conscious about sharing a room with someone from a more privileged background. “All you see are class markers everywhere, from the way you dress to the way you talk,” says Barros, now a junior sociology major, as she sits in a grand, high-ceilinged space off the dining room in her Harvard College dorm. During her freshman and sophomore years, Barros hesitated to speak in class because she often mispronounced words — she knew what they meant from her own reading, but she hadn’t said many aloud before, and if she had, there had been no one to correct her. Friends paired off quickly. “You’d get weeded out of friendships based on what you could afford. If someone said let’s go to the Square for dinner and see a movie, you’d move on,” she says. Barros quickly became close with two other low-income students with whom she seemed to have more in common. She couldn’t relate to her peers who talked about buying $200 shirts or planning exotic spring break vacations. “They weren’t always conscious of how these conversations can make other people feel,” she says. In a recent sociology class, Barros’s instructor asked students to state their social class to spark discussion. “Middle,” said one student. “Upper class,” said another. Although she’d become accustomed to sharing her story with faculty, Barros passed. It made her uncomfortable. “Admitting you’re poor to your peers is sometimes too painful,” she says. “Who wants to be that one student in class speaking for everyone?”For generations, attending an Ivy League college has been practically a birthright for children of the nation’s most elite families. But in 2004, in the hopes of diversifying its student body and giving low-income, high-achieving students a chance at an Ivy League education, Harvard announced a game-changing financial aid campaign: If a student could get in, the school would pick up the tab. (Princeton was the first Ivy to offer poor families the option, in 1998; Yale followed Harvard in 2005.) Families with incomes of less than $40,000 would no longer be expected to contribute to the cost of their student’s education. (In recent years, income eligibility has increased to $65,000, with significant grants awarded to families that make up to $150,000.) Having since been adopted, in one form or another, by all the Ivies, this “zero family contribution” approach opened the gilded doors of top colleges for many of the country’s most disadvantaged students. The number of students awarded a Pell Grant — financial aid of as much as $5,700 given to those with a family income of up to 250 percent of the poverty line, or about $60,000 for a family of four — is considered the best indicator of how many are low-income. At Harvard, where tuition, room, and board is estimated at $58,600, the Pell is a very small part of a student’s financial aid package. Last year, 19.3 percent of eligible Harvard students were awarded a Pell, an 80 percent increase since the admissions policy began 11 years ago. At Brown University, 15 percent of students get a Pell, and at Yale, 14 percent do.But receiving a full scholarship to an Ivy League school, while a transformative experience for the nation’s poorest students, is only the first hurdle. Once on campus, students report feelings of loneliness, alienation, and plummeting self-confidence. Having grant money for tuition and fees and holding down jobs, too, as virtually all of them do, doesn’t translate to having the pocket money to keep up with free-spending peers. And some disadvantaged students feel they don’t have a right to complain to peers or administrators about anything at all; they don’t want to be perceived as ungrateful.“IT’S TOTAL CULTURE SHOCK,” says Ted White, a Harvard sophomore. White grew up working class in Jamaica Plain and graduated as valedictorian (he was one of the only white kids in his senior class) from New Mission High School in Hyde Park; his father is an MBTA bus driver. From the start, the Harvard campus didn’t seem built for a kid from a background like his, he says. Classmates came in freshman year having started businesses or nonprofits (usually with their parents’ resources, he says) that could make even a top student wonder if he belonged. “The starting place for all of us isn’t really the same,” he says. White appreciates, for example, that Harvard gives low-income students free tickets to the freshman formal, but they have to pick up the tickets in a different line from everyone else. “It’s clear who is getting free/reduced tickets and who isn’t,” he says — a situation a Harvard spokesperson says the school is working to remedy. At times, White wondered if he’d made the right choice going to Harvard, even if he saw his matriculation, like many low-income students do, as his one shot at leaving his family’s financial struggles behind for good.RELATED LINKSMaribel Claudio makes the sign of the cross on her son's head before he heads back to Brown.View GalleryPhotos: Class distinctionsRead: How did colleges become country clubs?Stephen Lassonde, dean of student life at Harvard College, says first-generation students have it particularly tough because they’re wrestling with their identities, like all students, while simultaneously trying to transcend their socioeconomic backgrounds. “As much as we do to try to make them feel included, there are multiple ways that their roommates and peers can put them on the outside without even intending to,” he says.Today, White, a sociology major, is vice president of Harvard’s First Generation Student Union, an advocacy and support network seeking to create positive institutional change for students whose parents never attended a four-year-college; Barros is the president. To hear them talk about it, the union has become a haven for Harvard’s poorest students, even if “first generation” doesn’t always mean poor. Low-income kids claimed the term when they realized how much easier it was to admit they were struggling partly because they were the first in their family to go to college, and not simply because they were poor, says Dan Lobo, who founded the union in 2013. Raised by Cape Verdean immigrant parents in Lynn — his dad cooks and his mom waits tables at hotels near Logan — Lobo spent a few tough years “trying to transition to Harvard.” After having dinner with two classmates in similar circumstances who also felt like an “invisible minority” on campus and struggled to make friends and keep up academically, Lobo decided to “come out” as a low-income, first-generation student and organized the First Generation Student Union. Urging others to talk more openly about how their background influenced their college experience, he sought to create a community that could advocate for change on campus. “At the time, no one was talking about first-gen issues at all,” says Lobo, who has since graduated (with highest honors) and works for a nonprofit that helps students of color get into elite private high schools. “It’s like Harvard was committed to admitting underprivileged kids, but then we got here and they didn’t know what to do with us.”Freshman Alejandro Claudio navigates a different world at Brown. “If I fail, I’m going back to poverty, to working in a factory,” he says.DINA RUDICK/GLOBE STAFFAs at Harvard, low-income students at Yale and Brown have suggested administrators could do more to help them develop a sense of belonging. And they, too, have been organizing — Undergraduate First Generation Low Income Partnership sprang up in 2014 at Yale. At Brown, three students, including a Mexican-American kid from California named Manuel Contreras, started 1vyG, the Inter-Ivy, First Generation College Student Network, in January 2014. Contreras’s group organized a three-day conference this February that brought together students and administrators from other schools to share information and learn from one another. “Brown wasn’t made for students like us,” Contreras, a cognitive science major, often tells fellow members, “but we have to make it ours.”All the groups are seeking greater visibility on campus: a more open dialogue about what it means to be a first-generation student at an Ivy League school, dedicated staff to serve as support, and a list of best practices so Ivies can use their abundant resources to ensure their most disadvantaged students are as equipped to succeed as other students. If the infrastructure at an Ivy League school assumes everyone comes from a certain socioeconomic background, as some first-generation students say, then change needs to come at an institutional level. Dining halls at some schools, for example, close for spring break, though some students can’t afford to leave campus. While tuition, room, and board may be covered. some universities tack on a “student fee” ranging from a few hundred to as much as a thousand dollars, an amount that can be devastating to those trying to figure out how to pay for books.Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College, grew up in Queens as the son of a teacher in the Bronx. “We have to do a better job at making sure every student feels comfortable here,” says Khurana, who recently organized a task force to that end. In December, Harvard appointed two first-generation liaisons — one in the office of financial aid, the other in the office of career services — to help ease the transition for students. In January, Jason Munster, a first-generation low-income graduate student in environmental sciences and engineering from Maine, was named Harvard College’s first “first-generation tutor.” If you’re poor and struggling, Munster is the person you can go to for help. With an undergraduate degree from Harvard, Munster is also the campus liaison for the Harvard First Generation Alumni Network, founded around the same time as the First Generation Student Union.Still, students complain that Harvard worries too much about singling out first-generation students — the administration has been hesitant, for example, to offer them a specialized “bridge” program in the summer before their freshman year. Khurana waves the accusation off, saying that as a college Harvard is still figuring out how best to help. “I told the task force to imagine that we can create the best environment possible for these kids — no constraints,” he says. “What is the ideal? Can we create relationships earlier in their experience rather than later? Can we streamline certain forms of financial aid? It’s our goal to close this gap as quickly as possible.”ON A SUNDAY in mid-January, 18-year-old Alejandro Claudio has just packed up his duffel bag at his family’s first-floor apartment in a run-down triple-decker on Waldo Street in Providence’s West End. A crumbling statue of the Virgin Mary sits on the porch; next door is the Cranston Street Rescue Mission, a soup kitchen. It’s just a 15-minute drive across the city back to school after winter break, but to Claudio, dressed most days in his Brown sweat shirt and Red Sox cap, Brown is worlds away from the neighborhood where he grew up. On campus, his “perfect world up on the hill,” he feels removed from the worries at home — how his mom, a day-care provider, and his dad, a welder, are going to make their rent or keep their lights on. A political science, philosophy, and economics major, Claudio is well aware, though, that he must succeed. “If I fail, I’m going back to poverty, to working in a factory. I need to get good grades and get a job that pays well enough to help feed my family.”Claudio’s bright, windowed dorm room overlooks a grassy quad, and he can eat whenever he wants at the Ratty, the campus dining hall, because his meal plan is covered by his scholarship. During his first semester, friends looked at him like he had five heads when he said he’d never tasted falafel, kebabs, or curry. He had immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 8. “Growing up in a poor family, we ate the same thing every night: rice, beans, and chicken,” he says.Brown UniversityIt was at Providence’s predominantly Latino Central High School that Claudio, who would go on to be class valedictorian, decided he didn’t want a job in the fish factories where many of his friends’ parents worked. He believed he might actually escape the West End when he met Dakotah Rice, his coach on the debate team and an undergrad low-income student at Brown. They’d get together at a Burger King across from Central to talk about Claudio’s future and his chances of going to Brown. “He understood my background, and we’d talk for hours about how I could get in. He was like, ‘If I can do it, you can too,’ ” says Claudio. Now that he’s on campus, Claudio sees just how big a social gap exists between him and other students. It was easy to mistake other African-American and Latino students as coming from a similar socioeconomic background — but after striking up a conversation, Claudio was shocked to learn many were as moneyed as his white peers. At the first ice cream social, one student mentioned his dad was a lawyer and his mom a doctor, then asked Claudio what his parents did. When he told them his dad was a welder, the conversation ended awkwardly. Later in the semester, Claudio confided in a well-off friend that his mom was asking him for money to help pay bills. “I’m sorry,” the friend said, which made Claudio feel worse. He’s since stopped sharing his background so openly.After parachuting into a culture where many kids seem to have a direct line to prestigious internships through their well-off parents and feel entitled to argue with a professor over a grade, poor kids sense their disadvantage. Even if they’re in the same school as some of the nation’s smartest and best-connected young people, students’ socioeconomic backgrounds seem to dictate how they navigate campus. Research shows, for example, that upper-middle-class kids are better at asking for help at college than low-income ones, in part because they know the resources available to them. Disadvantaged students are accustomed to doing everything on their own because they rarely have parents educated enough to help them with things like homework or college applications, so they may be less likely to go to a writing center or ask a professor for extra help. Yolanda Rome, assistant dean for first-year and sophomore students at Brown, says many disadvantaged students have come to her in tears after getting a C on a paper. When she asks if they met with the instructor, the answer is typically no. “We’re working hard to change the campus culture,” she says, “so these students know that asking for help is not a weakness.”Anthony Jack, a resident tutor at Harvard alongside Jason Munster, is a PhD candidate in sociology studying low-income students at elite colleges. He says low-income students show up at his office every other week looking to vent about frustrations with campus life — or to ask a question they don’t know whom else to ask, like “How do I get a recommendation for a fellowship?” In his research, Jack looks at the experiences of both the “privileged poor,” low-income students who attend an elite, private high school before college, and the “doubly disadvantaged,” or students who aren’t familiar with the expectations and norms of elite colleges. His findings suggest that low-income students’ success on campus may be tied to the social and cultural capital they possess. For example, do they arrive with the same sense of entitlement as their more affluent peers, do they understand the importance of developing one-on-one relationships with professors to earn future recommendations?Brown is just a 15-minute ride from the apartment in Providence’s West End where Alejandro Claudio’s parents, Alejandro and Maribel Claudio, live.DINA RUDICK/GLOBE STAFFJack says that the privileged poor adjust more easily to the campus culture than the doubly disadvantaged. The latter see professors as distant authority figures and feel guarded in approaching them, whereas the privileged poor, like upper-middle-class students, find it easier to cultivate the relationship. “You’re worth a professor’s time,” Jack will tell many of the students he mentors.Does this reluctance to ask for help ultimately impact graduation rates? Perhaps not as much at an Ivy League school as elsewhere. Nationally, the graduation rate for low-income, first-generation students in bachelor’s programs is about 11 percent, but that number increases dramatically at Ivy League schools, where most of the financial burden is lifted from students. According to data collected by I’m First, an online community for first-generation college students funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at Harvard and Yale, 98 percent of students from minority groups underrepresented in college will graduate with a four-year degree within six years; at Brown, it’s 91 percent.When recent Brown graduate Renata Martin first came to campus, she had no idea how poor her family was back in the Newark area, where her dad works as a pizza delivery driver. “Everyone who lived around us was getting their lights shut off — that was my normal,” she says. She used her campus health insurance to see a therapist for help with her identity struggles, but she couldn’t afford the $15 copays. Martin, who attended Brown on a $90,000 Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, says, “Brown assumes that all students can afford small extras like that, but we can’t.” During lean weeks, she’d stop in to see the campus chaplain to apply for funds to buy a book she couldn’t afford or a bus ticket home. “It’s really hard to ask for help,” she says. “But I had to get used to telling professors my story or I wouldn’t have gotten through Brown.”Beth Breger is the executive director of Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, a nonprofit that helps prepare 100 high-achieving, low-income high school juniors per year for college and the application process. Its students spend seven weeks on Princeton University’s campus to study leadership and attend seminars on things like writing, standardized-test prep, and campus life. They’re introduced to the resources that exist on campus, like the career center, where they can learn how to network and prepare for job interviews. “Our students are very capable of doing the work academically, but we help them with social and cultural aspects of school: why it’s important to meet with their academic adviser and professors, how to access a health center. We don’t want them to feel like taking advantage of these resources is a weakness.” Bridge programs with similar goals exist for incoming freshmen at Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. Says Breger: “There’s a confidence issue with these kids. Many have never met a corporate lawyer or Wall Street trader. They don’t have a parent offering them a lens into the professional world. We try to broaden their perspective.”WHEN JUNIOR Julia Dixon steps inside the small cafeteria at Trumbull College at Yale, the short-order cook flipping hamburgers lights up: “Hi, Ms. Julia, what can I get for you today?” A man stacking crates of clean glasses says to the Southern-born Dixon: “Ms. Julia, it’s too cold for a Georgia peach today, isn’t it?” Wearing black-rimmed glasses and lipstick the color of Japanese eggplant, Dixon may be a long way from her childhood as the second oldest of 11 growing up on food stamps in rural Georgia. But she sees the dining room workers as family. In fact, when her parents rented a car and drove up to visit, they were nervous around Dixon’s friends — but they asked to meet the cafeteria workers. “Can you watch out for my baby girl?” her father asked the short-order cooks. That her parents reached out to dining hall staff on their one visit to campus, rather than a professor or faculty member, gets at the heart of the split identity Dixon has grappled with since her freshman year.She’s come to see herself as “Georgia Julia” and “Yale Julia,” and reconciling the two identities is complicated. Even her parents sense the change. On her second (and most recent) visit home in the three years she’s been at school, her father voiced concern at dinner one night that her education might cause her to drift away from them. “I don’t want you to be ashamed of us,” he said. At first, Dixon wouldn’t talk to her parents about what she was going through at school — a tough class she was taking, how much money she had in her bank account. She’s since realized that the only way to stay connected to them is to talk openly about her problems, even if most of what she’s experiencing is foreign to them.Poor students may feel out of place at an Ivy League school, but over time, they may feel as if they don’t belong at home, either. “Often, they come to college thinking that they want to return home to their communities,” says Rome, the Brown official. “But an Ivy League education puts them in a different place — their language is different, their appearance is different, and they don’t fit in at home anymore, either.”Ellie Dupler, a junior global affairs major at Yale with wavy, reddish-brown hair and silver hoop earrings she picked up in Turkey on a Yale-funded trip, lived in a trailer with her single mother in northern Michigan until she was in the sixth grade. In high school, she took a public bus two hours each way to a better public school than the one in her hometown. She’s on a tight budget when we meet at Blue State coffeehouse in New Haven. “I’m waiting for a check from financial aid, so I’ve been skipping some meals,” she says. Even so, Dupler says Yale has given her a false sense of financial security. “Frankly, the longer I’m here, the less that I feel I identify with having a low-income background.”Along with working three jobs, she’s on the school’s ski team — her mom operated the chairlift at a resort near her hometown, and Dupler could ski for free. When she shared her background with some of her teammates, they were surprised. “I would have never have known you were low income,” one told her. Her best friend, who is from a wealthy suburb of New York City, helps her out when she needs it, though Dupler says she’s quick to repay her. Dupler thinks she’s been able to blend in more easily at Yale than some other low-income students because she’s white. “Typically, unless I disclose my background in some way, I’m assumed to be just like most of the other white students who grew up upper middle class in a perfect house in the suburbs,” she says. She likes seeing herself through other students’ eyes. Maybe it’s even convinced her that she can live a different kind of life.Still, graduation looms, and she worries about making it without the security of a Yale scholarship. “I feel like here I’m moving up the socioeconomic ladder. But when I graduate, will I slip back down?” As a result, she says, she’s become obsessed with her career. “My friends joke that my aspirations change weekly.” She’s currently set on getting a graduate degree in law and public policy and eventually a career in international relations.Julia Dixon says she tries not to see money as the most defining element of her identity anymore. Yale has shown her a life where dinner conversations don’t revolve around overdue bills. She’s using the time to think about her future — without worrying about the financial means she needs to get there. “Money is something I’ve learned to disassociate from. Maybe I see these four years as my chance to dream.”Brooke Lea Foster is a writer in New York. Send comments to [email protected] THE NUMBERS38% — Share of undergraduates at four-year schools whose parents did not attend college1 in 10 — Number of people from low-income families who attain a bachelor’s degree by age 25 (half of the people from high-income families do)4.5 million — Number of low-income, first-generation students enrolled in post-secondary education, about 24 percent of the undergraduate populationSources: US Department of Education; Russell Sage Foundation; the Pell InstituteBROWN GROUP BRINGS FIRST-GENS FROM MANY CAMPUSES TOGETHERBy Emeralde Jensen-RobertsEsther Maddox from Princeton, Jasmine Fernandez from Harvard, and Kujegi Camara, also from Princeton, attended an open dialogue session at Brown’s 1vyG conference for first-generation students in February.GRETCHEN ERTLA new group at Brown brings first-gens from many campuses together to agitate for change.On a frosty Saturday morning in February, more than 200 students, some wearing sleek business suits, file in to Brown University’s C.V. Starr auditorium. As they wait for the day’s program to start, they sit in small, chatty packs, picking at blueberry muffins and sipping coffee from paper cups. Some take selfies with friends, later tweeted and hashtagged “1vyG2015.”Hailing from Brown and 15 other schools, some Ivies and some not, the students and more than 20 college administrators are here at the invitation of 1vyG, a first-generation student network launched last year at Brown. 1vyG’s founders, juniors Manuel Contreras, Jessica Brown, and Stanley Stewart, have been studying the obstacles that first-generation students like them face at Brown, and the three-day conference, believed to be the first of its kind, is a natural extension of that. Are students at other schools dealing with the same challenges, and how can they share information to help improve campus life for all?The weekend’s workshops are geared to fostering discussion between first-generation students and administrators and to boosting students’ coping skills on campus and beyond. Sessions include Navigating Class and Culture on Campus, Building a Career as a First-Gen, and Coaching College-Bound Students to Succeed.Contreras comes away from the event determined to repeat it. “At bare minimum, we’re going to be an annual rotating conference,” he says, with different schools playing host. Additional ambitions at Brown include setting up a textbook lending library and establishing a mentorship program to connect incoming students with current first-generation upperclassmen and alumni.The ultimate goal remains constant: keep pushing schools to broaden their view and keep encouraging students to find strength through their shared experience. “I want first-gens to be connected, [to] feel happy and that they belong,” says Contreras. “You may be the first, but you’re not alone.”