Resources

Great Ways to Build Your LinkedIn Profile

Dilip Oak's Academy

  • Keep adding contacts. After you have added all the relevant contacts from your email list (the first step when you join LinkedIn) send requests to connect to:
  1. Teachers whose courses you are taking. Those with a good standing in the field are especially desirable as contacts.
  2. Project guides (internal and external)
  3. Teachers and professionals who you consult about seminars, research papers, curricular projects and those for competitions etc.
  4. Classmates in college who share your academic/professional interests (keep touch with the others on Facebook)

These steps will help you build a large network in a short time. Start this process now while at your college here in India and continue when you join your American university. The contacts that you make at your American university during internships, while working on projects, research or papers are likely to be among the most useful and important ones you make.

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Great FREE Application Tools on DOA Online: Part 2 – University Checklists Feature

Dilip Oak's Academy

Our first post in this series on the free application tools available on online.dilipoakacademy.com was on the University Info feature. This is a great tool that simplifies the admission process for you by making available one website key facts about the top 220 universities – most importantly, the departments and courses available there. One of the other important things that the University Info feature makes available, however, is a standard university checklist.

What are University Checklists and Where Can I Get Them?

The university checklists we are talking about here, are lists of the standard documents required by all universities. Our University Info feature provides the standard checklists for each of the top 220 American universities that it covers. When you select a university from our University Info feature, you can access the standard checklist for the university by clicking the checklist button (see screenshot below – right-click it to enlarge it).

Why is the University Checklist Feature Important?

The reason we have the University Checklist feature is to make sure that you do not forget to send any of the required documents. Sending your documents and application packet before the deadline is crucial for the following reasons:

  • Forgetting to send even a single document can cause long and inconvenient delays in your application process.
  • You may also end up spending a lot of money to send the additional documents by courier
  • In fact, you may even lose out on getting admission to a good college or university.

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Why You should Join the LinkedIn Student Portal

Dilip Oak's Academy

According to LinkedIn about 200,000 college students join every month. As a result, companies are realizing that it makes sense to use the site to recruit interns and entry-level employees. Thus, when you join LinkedIn you become part of a network that Human Resource professionals in various organizations regularly scan for potential employees. The advantage is that companies search for recruits on LinkedIn even when recruits are not searching for them. (This is what is called ‘passively’ searching for a job.)

But keep in mind that people are more likely to check you out as a prospective employee if your profile is complete. (Recommendations are a key part of a complete profile, so make sure that you ask your professors and others whom you have worked with to endorse you.) Having a complete LinkedIn profile may get you a much coveted internship. So, make it your goal to have an updated LinkedIn profile even during your master’s studies. It will help bring you to the notice of potential employers.

But, the great news is that LinkedIn has a student portal which will help you in a number of other ways:

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5 Reasons Why Students Going to America Should Join LinkedIn

Dilip Oak's Academy

LinkedInIf you are reading this blog the chances are that you are a net savvy user, you have accounts on Facebook and Twitter and you are a student going to America for higher education. But have you ever thought of signing up for a LinkedIn account? Probably not: LinkedIn is supposed to be meant for professionals, and none or few of your friends are on it, so what good would it do a student to have a LinkedIn account?

When you don’t know many people on LinkedIn, it is easy to think that it doesn’t matter. Actually however, there are 5 reasons why having a LinkedIn account is very useful if you are heading for higher education in the States.

 

  • LinkedIn offers several tools to help get information and ideas from experts in your field viz.:
  1. LinkedIn Groups
  2. LinkedIn Answers
  3. LinkedIn Today

For college students these tools offer a great way of learning the professional language of your field, keeping up with the latest trends and topics in the field and becoming a well-informed ‘insider’. With more than 120 million users worldwide, LinkedIn offers a lot of potential avenues for learning.

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Great FREE Application Tools on DOA Online: Part 1 – the University Info Feature

Dilip Oak's Academy

Is the Admission Process Becoming a Hassle?

If you have been struggling with the complexities of getting admission to an American university, then you need to know about the great FREE tools available on our ‘online‘ site. They are great for two reasons. First, they will simplify the process of applying to American universities for you. Second, they are free.

There’s no payment and there are no obligations even for students who haven’t enrolled for admissions counseling at Dilip Oak’s Academy. To use them, all you have to do is sign up and start using them. So, tell all your friends about them so they can benefit from them too! This week we will begin with the University Info feature.

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We Are Now On Facebook & Twitter! (Read: Getting Important News Updates Just Got Easier)

Dilip Oak's Academy

OK, let’s get to the point. We are now on Facebook, and Twitter!

 

We monitor news and trends coming from American Universities, and ETS. So just follow us on Facebook or Twitter and you will get all the important blog updates, new product launch information, latest trends and news directly delivered into your favorite social stream.

Note, we hate spam just as much as you do so we’re not going email you every time we post something new. There is better way to follow all the latest news and trends, and the general consensus is it’s Facebook or Twitter!

So don’t wait. Start following now!

Thanks,

Team Social @ Dilip Oaks Academy

TOEFL and IELTS Must Read: All the Most Important Information

Dilip Oak's Academy

Indian students applying to a foreign university have to take exams to certify that they have the required basic minimum skills in English. The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) are the two leading tests for this purpose.

This post gives you links to some of the most important information about these two tests of English proficiency published earlier on this blog. Take a look. You may find answers to questions you have been waiting to ask.

  • Some students want to apply for admission to a German university. Some to a British or, Canadian one. Some to a combination of American and other universities. So, which exam should you take? If you are confused, find out here: IELTS or TOEFL – Which Exam Should I Take?

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7 Cool Services on DOA Online that will Give You an Edge in Applying for US Universities

Dilip Oak's Academy

Announcing the ‘Best Online Tool for Applying for an MS in the US’!

Here’s some terrific news for all of you who are applying for admission to US universities” – Dilip Oak’s Online, a fantastic resource launched by Dilip Oak’s Academy puts vital help at your fingertips.

DOA Online that will Give You an Edge in Applying for US Universities

Here’s a peek at what makes it so cool:

  1. US University Information and Document Checklist Feature – an invaluable list of the departments and courses available in the top 220 universities; included is a checklist to help you keep track of which application documents you have or need – get a check list for every university you apply to. This is a treasure trove of information all conveniently collected in one place! (Read more below)
  2. Question & Answer Forum – a community of advisers that you can turn to and clarify all your doubts relating to the admissions process for American universities (Read more below).
  3. Application Tracker – a handy app that allows you to monitor the status of your applications (going to apply, applied, admitted…) for every university – view the status of all universities on one convenient page (Read more below).
  4. Full-length Online GRE Practice Tests in the Revised Pattern – 4 are already available!
  5. Dilip Oak’s Blog – important news, advice and updates on standardized tests and student meets along with inputs from our past students and professionals in various fields – right on this site!

More exciting features are also coming soon:

  1. Online Admission Center Services – expert personalized guidance for every aspect of the admission process (Read more below)
  2. Visa Tips – help to tackle the last and most important obstacle – the visa interview! (Read more below)

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Help for Essay Writing in the GRE AW and TOEFL: Hypergrammar from Ottawa University

Dilip Oak's Academy

Prepare to be Sentenced!

One of the most important building-blocks of an essay is the sentence. Writing an essay for an Analytical Writing Task in the GRE or the GMAT – or even the TOEFL Independent Writing Task – means that you will be expressing your thoughts in an academic context. So, you need to use sentences that are acceptable in that kind of context, but also effectively to translate your ideas onto the screen

  • Complex sentences show that you are able to use the language fluently
  • Clear well-formed sentences make your essay easy to understand
  • Variety in sentence construction will make your essay interesting

How can you write like that? Simple, click on the link below and find out:

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/bldsent.html

The link will take you to some useful suggestions published by the University of Ottawa, Canada on ‘Hypergrammar,’ their online resource page for grammar and writing. Use this link to understand:

  • the importance of sentence structure
  • the purpose of different types of sentences,
  • what kind of sentences work best in formal writing assignments such as essays.

Happy reading. Happy writing!

GRE Prep for Oak’s Students: Plan for Taking Practice Computer-Based Tests

Dilip Oak's Academy

CBT – Practice on the Computer-Based Tests (1 month before GRE test)

The final stage of your GRE prep is taking practice GRE computer-based tests. If you are a student at Dilip Oak’s Academy, here is the plan – if you’re not, you are missing out!

  • Start doing the Computer-based tests 3 weeks-1 month before the GRE.
  • There are 10 Oaks tests (5 to be taken in the lab and 5 online) and two PowerPrep tests from the ETS, making a total of 12.
  • Going through all of them, at the rate of one every 2-3 days will take about a month.

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Write Better Essays with OWL – A Simple Aid to Improving Grammar

Dilip Oak's Academy

Essays

For GRE and GMAT test-takers, the Analytical Writing Section may sometimes seem to be an uphill climb. With only a half an hour to brainstorm ideas, make an outline and finally type in the entire essay, it may not always be possible to transfer your thoughts to the word processor exactly as you want. The result is often essays that fall short of what the examiner expects in order to award a 4.

The links below are a part of the Online Writing Lab, a project started by Purdue University, which helps teachers and students in developing their English Language skills and rectifying the errors that they make in their essays. They provide valuable suggestions on how to structure sentences correctly and avoid minor errors in English that we as non-native speakers of the language tend to make. Visit them and start improving your Analytical Writing essays immediately.

Note: if you are taking the TOEFL exam, these links will be a big help to you too.

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Introducing Admissions News Feed & Roommate Finder | Dilip Oaks Academy Online

Dilip Oak's Academy

Earlier we had launched our new portal to help students applying for an MS in US – it’s called Dilip Oak Academy Online. It had lots of nifty features to begin with, but today we made it even more cooler with two cool new features: US University Admission News Updates & Roommate Finder!

US University Admissions News Updates:

Interested in keeping track of who is getting admits/rejects to which universities? Interested in finding which universities have started rolling out admission decisions? Well now you can get all the updates in your admissions news feed! (As long as you have applied to the University in Application Tracker).

University information for MS in US

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