Saturday, August 9, 2008

Finally.... it got over!

My MS dreams took life when I cleared all my papers in the VII sem, but then I thought it was too late to apply. I once told my friend that he was pretty late with his applications, he was applying in the month of December :P. So I thought Fall '08 time was over and I planned to apply for Spring '09.Though people say Fall is comparitively bttr than Spring, I had no other option,because I wasn placed in any comp till then. So Fall'08 buried alive. Jan,Feb , March and a week in April passed, then I went with my mom to a consultancy to enquire about the Spring'09 intake on how and when to apply etc etc. There , they asked me to apply for Fall'08 itself as the deadlines were open. I wasn't very interested in applyin for Fall'08, as I thought it was too late for me to apply, as US univs grant admits on "first come first served" basis. They kept askin me to apply, I just wasnt interested . So, they turned to my mom and brainwashed her. So after coming home, I told her the drawbacks of applying late, but she just dint listen. She called up my dad and they started pressurizing me to apply for F'08, finally, I succumbed and agreed to apply. The counsellor gave me just one week to complete all the formalities of application . The next day, went to the AU to get the marksheets attested. Then got the financial affidavit. No time to write my own SOP( even if I had all the time in the world, I wouldn have drafted an SOP on my own :P). So, I got the SOPs of my classmates(who bloody already had their admits :X) and i also googled some SOPs too. Now that I had enough SOPs , i read all the SOPs and used the Ctrl C and Ctrl V option and created an SOP. My SOP was ready and it was good too :). Even the Letter of Recommendation is to be written by us, the professor just signs. You can write whatever you want , the professor will sign ,no matter what, atleast in my college :). So I got the sample letters from my friends and again used the Ctrl C and Ctrl V option and finished it . SOPs ans LORs were ready in some couple of hours. Finally, In a week, my documents were ready somehow and I started with the online applications. Damn,Its such a pain to fill up the online applications, where u fill the same thing in all the application. Its very boring.So, I finished the online applications and documents were also sent by the consultancy. I finished my applications my April III week and I was expecting the final decision by June . These American Univs are real, no matter, how perfectly you send your application, they keep telling that something or the other is missing. IIT(Illinois Inst... )said that they havent received my GRE/TOEFL marksheet(I was wondering, if other univs got the marksheets, what the hell was wrong with tis univ alone.) The status got updated sayin my application was complete, cpl of weeks back. Then USC, asked me to get a letter from the Anna Univ registrar saying my college is affiliated to the university(God oly knows why they askd me to get it) and the greatest comedy was from Washington St. Univ , where they said I had applied for UG instead of Graduate study, In fact, I got a mail from them saying my GRADUATE APPLICATION was complete after I submitted my online application.But laters, they said I had applied for UG. ( got irritated really). Now my mind was totally focussed on MS, and from no where, came Reliance Communications, fortunately/unfortunately, got placed in that. Now, again,mind started wavering whether to go for MS tis year or work for Reliance, strengthen my profile and go next year. April ,May June passed, no updates from any university. By June end, my friends had their Visa in hand and had started with their shopping. Since, I had no updates from any univ, I was now clear with Reliance , thought of working there for an year, if in case I get any admits, would defer it for an year. After some days, came in one update
Polytechnic Univ-Reject (Rejected due to inconsistent academic record, ok Agreed)
then after some days
RIT-Reject(Lack of accomodations,Grrr ... why accept applications if they don have accomodation)

One fine night, I was too bored sitting online, so thought of checking if any new updates from any univs , logged into San Jose Univ after so many days,
Status-Accept(Surprised, as some of my friends who had applied ages before me hadn got any updates on my status). Now my parents asked me to go with this univ as schoolmate and my coll class mates were heading to the same univ. But then, I wanted to work in Reliance for 1 yr and then pursue my Masters.My protest again flopped. Started with the necessary documentation work from the very next day. Damn, there was so many documents to be prepared. Loan,house evaluation, CA, etc etc. The documentation work was gng on, but I hadn got my I20, bloody , they sent it through sea mail . Was expecting it in some 20 days from the day they had posted. Days kept passing, no sign of the I20. So finally, asked my mom's friend who's in San Jose to collect it from the univ and courier it . Well, a normal fellow follows the following steps
1) get the I20
2)Loan sanction
3)Book Visa slot
4)Book tickets
but me being a special case always, mine were different
1)BOOK,not blocked , BOOKED the ticks
2)Booked the visa slot
These 2 were done even before i got the duplicate I20 from them
3)Bank loan work was going on , as i produced my friends I20, they needed it to check the fee structure.
4)Received the I20
Had booked the Visa on 6th Augustus, 11 am slot, to be frank, I never had the confidence of getting the Visa , cos of the super duper profile which i was having, Because , i was going through the Visa interviews on Orkut, ppl who had many backs were mercilessly rejected. My friend's friend had 12 arrears , 2 less than me :P got his Visa only on his 6th attempt.
The previous night , I was checking the Rejection Interviews thread on Orkut to see why their visa got rejected. 80% due to excess backlogs. Seeing and hearing all this , my confidence hit the rock bottom.But I dint have to worry much , as I had Reliance for backup.All the necessary documents were ready and the Doomsday arrived.Woke up early, by 730 , went to the temple etc etc , got ready and reached the Consulate by 10am. Got the security check done and was waiting for half an hour at the Indian Counter. In this half hour hour time , I was just thinking of a convincing answer to cover up for my backlogs,but in vain, couldn think of anything convincing enough. They checked the basic documents and asked me to head to the adjacent building. I went in , and saw tat it was empty. My friends and other people told me that its very crowded and u shud take the Snake 'Q' etc etc, but to my surprise, it was literally like a Sathyam ticket Counter durin Off peak hours :P. Was asked to stand at the first counter , where a gal was almost completing her interview, her visa got rejected. FK!! Bad Sign. Butterflies,honeybees,flies,mosquitoes , grasshoppers all were flying in my stomach. Then the VO called me and here goes the interview

VO-Good morning
Me-I am fine, TY
he was checking my docs for some 4-5 secs
VO- Wat are you going to do @ San Jose State University?
Me- (was thinking , what a dumb question, as it was clearly mentioned in the I20, i would ve told GUMMI ADIKKA poren, if some one else had asked me )
I am going there to do my masters in electrical engineering
VO- So why this particular university?
Me- (Actually, had oly 1 admit from tis univ)
Sir, my splization will be VLSI and the coursework for VLSI is extremely good.
Climate in California is also well suited to the Indian people sir( Actually , I dunno why i said this , but at that moment, it jus popped out)
VO-Your father's occupation?
Me-Sr. Air Traffic Controller ,AAI , Chennai
VO-Your final %age
Me-(Nerves Nerves everywer) 70%
He looked at me straight
VO-Are you any of the rankers in your class?
Me - ( Actually , I dint understand the question) Pardon me Sir
VO-Repeated the same Q again
Me- I said I am a First Class degree holder
VO- No no, not that, I asked if you are any of the rankers.
Me- U mean , my rank in the class sir??
VO-Yes
Me- (should be in the bottom somewhere) Hmmm.. Must be in the top 25 sir :p
He signed somewhere and said, Ok Gentleman, your visa is issued , you can collect your passport later.
Actually , this interview might seem long, but it was like a rapid fire round and it lasted only for 20-25 secs. I really din believe that my visa was approved, so to re assure , I asked him, Can i come and collect the passport in person. He said yes!!
And that's it. Got my VISA the same day!! I never thought that I would get it so easily. Gods grace + Luck+ Stars shining helped me get the visa. Ppl say that how u present yourself is important, your attitude is important etc etc. All Crap . Its jus pure LUCK!! If ur stars are shining on u , job done , else doomed irrespective of the profile you have .
My friends have finished their packing, I 've just started, still a long way to go!
Leavin to Mumbai on 14th and will be leaving to San Francisco on 15th from Mumbai.
Thats it. This is my last post from INDIA.I' ll update bout the US life once i reach there . BYE!!
Apologizes for any gram/spelling mistakes here n there!

12 comments:

Ganesh Prabhu said...

Might very well make a movie abt ur UG life with the visa interview as the climax. lol. Anyway, ur post gave a nice read. Saw that ur previous post's comments had many au revoirs and im continuing it in this post's comment.

AU REVOIR!!! :)

Wenks Vicious said...

Ya, happys endings as they call...

Krishna said...

Thats wht a combination of tired dumb VO and a lucky should i say very very lucky A**H*** can do. ;)

All the very best. May god bless you.

Krishna - www.devilzadvocate.wordpress.com

Wenks Vicious said...

Well , Americans are either too brainy or too dumb. Latter was there in my case.Luck helped me for the first time in 4 years , i must say :)

Anonymous said...

:D

VO-Are you any of the rankers in your class?
Me - ( Actually , I dint understand the question) Pardon me Sir
VO-Repeated the same Q again
Me- I said I am a First Class degree holder
VO- No no, not that, I asked if you are any of the rankers.
Me- U mean , my rank in the class sir??
VO-Yes
Me- (should be in the bottom somewhere) Hmmm.. Must be in the top 25 sir :p

:D :D :D

MAMAAAAAA!!! MANA-SAATCHIYE ILLAYA!!!

aswingreats said...

hey this is cool da..u hv given a nice experience for students who are very much scared abt visas...now i think they wont be much worried:)

Laxman.M said...

nice post tat gave a climax feel

Anonymous said...

po po kaathu varathumm:d

karthik said...

cool da.. all the very best... n better get ur ass back here soon....

Anonymous said...

gr8 blog da simply enjoyed every moment da.the visa issue is still a mystery 4 everyone.wish u best of luck

Unknown said...

hey tats some real gr8 news :) . have fun nd rock :). gud luc!

Anonymous said...

ya mapla! mine too lasted only 20-25 seconds... and it had the first three questions from your list. sometimes we get lucky and sometimes not. and after coming here it doesn't seem we got lucky after all, illa? hmm...