Steps to apply for your Graduate Degree.

   Step One: 

Choose a program that offers your field of interest. You need also to consider the ranking of your program not the institution as a whole.

To check the ranking of the program of your choice visit http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010/subject-rankings/technology

The above URL is filtered to show the programs of science and technology.

Step Two:

Check the institution research fields, and pick the one of most interest. Contact one or more of the research group to see if you can contribute in the research they are doing. 

Step Three:

Apply online, using the university online application. Most of the data you will fill is related to

1.       Personal info

2.       Educational background

3.       Your research interest

4.       Statement of Purpose, where you state why you are interested in the program in hand and why you think you are qualified to pursue graduate degree, of course you need to list any publications, research background. Additionally, it will be very helpful if you can specify a certain faculty member whom you wish to work with.

5.       You need to provide three recommenders who are familiar with your work. It’s preferred that all three are in academia, but it’s acceptable if you can provide two from academia and one from the industry.

6.       Test scores. All the programs require the TOEFL IBT, you can book your test date at http://www.ets.org/toefl , acceptable test score should be 90 and above. You need to check exactly the test score required for the institution you are applying to. The maximum test score I saw was 100.

a.       You need also to check if the institution you are applying two requires GRE score or not, you can book the exam date on http://www.ets.org/gre.

7.       Some of the universities will ask you to upload your CV, and a scanned copy of your transcripts (of course for you bachelor degree and you Masters), so keep them ready.

8.       Now you are ready to submit your online application, the average cost of the online application is 50 US Dollars.

   Step Four

The last step is to send your supporting documents to the university you are applying to.

1.       Official transcripts in the original language (in our case Arabic). For the bachelor and Masters degrees.

2.       Official translation of the transcripts to the English language, also for both the bachelor and Masters (you can ask Ain Shams to issue transcripts in English).

3.       Official Degree Certificate in the original language. Of course for both Masters and Bachelor.

4.       Official Translation of the Degree Certificate to the English language (you can ask Ain Shams to issue degree certificate in English).

5.       Ask ETS to forward your test scores (TOEFL, GRE) directly to the university you are applying to; you can get the university code from the website. This code you will use to find the university you are applying to on ETS website.