Personal Admissions Counseling - FAQ about Donations
Are you still taking in new applicants for counseling this year?
See here for any status updates regarding the personal admissions counseling program.
How do I make the donation?
Donations in support of Helpage Age India can be made on their website at http://www.helpageindia.org/donate/. They accept credit cards, debit cards, money transfer through internet banking and if you are in India, cheques and DDs as well. I highly encourage donating to them directly, since that helps me to keep things transparent and also allows you to avail the tax benefits for your donation. I merely need a proof of the donation, which can be a screenshot of your donation confirmation page or the confirmation email.
There have been very few cases where people have had problems in donating on their website, especially with international credit cards. In such cases, the interested applicants can transfer the money to me (via PayPal) and I can make the donation on their behalf and send them a receipt of the donation. But this is just a fallback option.
How much do I donate?
There are two counseling tiers with different required minimums. These tiers correspond to how much time I might need to spend for counseling a particular applicant.
- Tier I, with a minimum donation of ₹ 1250: This is for applicants who understand the application process well and are fairly confident of making informed choices about the universities to apply, the recommenders to select and can come up with a decent draft of the Statement of Purpose essay. But they would still like to run their choices by me, have their resumes and SOPs reviewed and in general, clarify any doubts that might come up during the admissions process.
- Tier II, with a minimum donation of ₹ 2500: This is for applicants who are less confident about the admissions process or even confused about all the procedures. It's also for those who do understand the application procedures well, but still feel they would need some non-trivial amount of help in finalizing their choices about universities, recommenders and framing a good Statement of Purpose essay. They might want to go over in depth about various aspects of their profile and discuss the best application strategy given their particular situation. This would also involve clarifying all the doubts that might come up while filling out the various admission applications.
Which tier do I choose?
That depends on your level of familiarity and confidence with the end to end admissions process.
Tier I students can expect:
- One in-depth review and one quick review (i.e. two iterations in total) of their resumes, SOPs and if applicable, recommendation letters.
- A review and discussion of their university choices and recommender choices.
- (Bandwidth permitting) Any number of general discussions and clarifications regarding the admissions process.
- (Bandwidth permitting) Multiple reviews of their resumes, SOPs and if applicable, recommendation letters.
- (Bandwidth permitting) Multiple reviews and discussions of their university choices and recommender choices.
- (Bandwidth permitting) Any number of general discussions and clarifications regarding the admissions process.
Why are there two tiers?
For the first five years of the personal admissions counseling programme, there wasn't a concept of two separate donation tiers. I would only mention a suggested minimum donation, and various applicants would donate differently depending on their capability and willingness. Some would exactly donate the suggested amount, others would donate a bit more and a few would really go beyond the call of duty and donate very generously. I would offer the same service to all regardless of the donation amount, since I've always wanted this counseling programme to be seen as a fundraising effort rather than a fee-based service. But over time, I realized that in practice, my approach could be unfair to some applicants even if it was motivated by a good principle.
The amount of time I have to spend in reviewing and revising a grad school application greatly differs from applicant to applicant. For some, the entire counseling process might be over in a week with the exchange of a few mails and a quick skim through their application materials. But for others, it could require me to have several email exchanges with them, going over several iterative drafts of their SOPs or recommendation letters, and the entire process could go on for months. The bandwidth taken by applicants of the latter kind would sometimes also prevent me from being responsive and attentive to applicants of the first kind, even if that communication would've taken lesser time.
The two-tier system therefore ensures two things. Firstly, it makes the donation proportional to amount of work I put into the counseling process. Secondly, it helps me to plan my couseling season better, since I can roughly estimate beforehand the amount of time I will need to spend with each applicant.
