The BITSAA Graduate Application Scholarship provides financial assistance to BITSians for their applications to MS/PhD programs.
We believe BITSians are among the very best in engineering our country has to offer and hence deserve the very best grad schools the world has to offer. This initiative is a small step towards ensuring that the financial burden of applications does not get in the way of an ambitious and successful app.
The cost of applying to graduate programs has risen considerably in the last few years. Taking the GRE costs $170, and the Subject Test and TOEFL cost $150 each; additional score reports come to at least $15 per university for each of these tests. Application fees for each program have also risen; at Stanford, for instance, the fee is $105. UC Berkeley and UIUC (both public schools) have fees of $80 and $75 respectively. Even for people applying to just 6 universities, the cost of tests and application fees alone can easily be over $1000. Then there are costs for transcripts, visa applications and processing, and much more.
Since applying has become so expensive, it's become harder for many BITSians to afford. The idea is for BITS alumni to pay for a significant part of the costs, making the application process more affordable. This should also encourage more BITSians to apply to top schools. We hope that the program will eventually become self-sustaining, with people who receive the scholarship in one year paying for the next generation of BITSians to apply.
If you would like more information about this scholarship, or have any questions / comments / suggestions, please fill out the form by clicking here and BITSAA scholarship team will contact you.
Over the next few years, until the program becomes self-sustaining, its success will largely depend on the enthusiastic support of alumni for their juniors. Our goal for this year is $4000, to help at least 5-8 BITSians apply.
If you would like to contribute to the scholarship program, you can Donate Online. All contributions are tax-deductible, and donors will receive a receipt at year end from BITSAA.
If you would prefer to mail a check, please make it out to "BITSAA International", and mail it to:
Krishna Hegde 100 Dudley St, Apt 2318 Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA Email: finance-team@bitsaa.orgIf you mail us a check, please also include your return address, the words "BITSAA Graduate Application Scholarship" on the check and an email address so we can mail your receipt and contact you if necessary.
Recipients of Graduate Application Scholarships 09-10.
Arvind Pawan R. Ravikumar (2005B5A3404) Arvind is currently doing his undergraduate theses at TIFR, Mumbai. He wishes to pursue doctoral studies in the areas of semiconductor devices and nano-electronics. He was the first recipient of the BITSAA SVC Miles program, awarded to help present his work at the 9th IEEE Intl. Conference on nanotechnology in Genoa, Italy. He would be presenting his research at the 3rd IEEE Intl. Nano-electronics Conference to be held in Hong Kong. His research involved work on semiconductor quantum devices, which have been published in various journals and conferences. His stupendous academics were recognized by the BITS Physics society by awarding him the 'Best Outgoing Student' Award. At BITS, he was the secretary of Ragamalika and also conducted various quiz shows during APOGEE.
Subhadip Ghosh (2006A7PS387) Subhadip is a final year student pursuing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Pilani. He has interned at BARC, Mumbai and ISI Kolkata and will undergo his Practice School-II at Dreamworks Animation, Red Wood City. He plans to pursue his higher studies in the field of Computer Graphics. At present he is working on implementing Ray-Tracing on Nvidia CUDA architecture, which involves both Graphics and High Performance Computing. At BITS, he secured a transfer to Computer Science from Physics. He was the President of Astro Club and also coordinated various events with Photog and NSS. He is also an active member of Moruchhaya Association.
Ankita Arvind Kejriwal (2006A7PS360G) Ankita is a final year student at Goa Campus. Her research interests are in the areas of Mobile Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, Sensor Networks and Internet of Things. She is a National Talent Scholar and a recipient of Dhirubhai Ambani Scholarship. Since the first year at BITS, she has consistently been a topper. Her research projects on mobile web have led to a paper titled "MobiDSL - a Domain Specific Language for Mobile Web Applications: developing applications for mobile platform without web programming”, which has appeared in proceedings of the 9th OOPSLA Workshop on Domain-Specific Modelling at Orlando, Florida in October 2009. She also presented a Poster on her work at IBM-IRL Collaborative Academia Research Exchange (I-CARE) Research Poster Competition, New Delhi and won the best poster award. Moreover, she has interned at BARC, Mumbai for her PS-I and at IISc, Bangalore, as a Summer Research Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences. At BITS, she has worked as teaching assistant for two courses, secretary of Student Chapter of ACM, and Founder Member and Chairperson of Computer Society of India Student Chapter.
Devdatta Akhawe : "The scholarship encouraged Devdatta to apply to top programs in Computer Science and also boosted his confidence, which helped during the talks with the faculty members interested in his application."
Pritwiraj Moulik: "The BITSAA Graduate Scholarship gave the much-needed boost to my confidence as I was planning a complete change of fields from Civil Engineering at BITS to Earth Science with no alumnus to look up to. The application process also made me introspect and better define my research interests which helped during all the interviews I gave for the top seismology departments later on. The scholarship support also helped me concentrate on the top programs and drastically reduce the number of "safe-schools” that I was planning to apply to."
Rajesh Bhasin: "I would like to thank BITSAA for considering me worthy of this prestigious scholarship. The graduate scholarship has helped me in applying to more number of schools including some like University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC), Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University which are pretty expensive. It is indeed a great initiative by BITSAA and I shall strive to maintain the excellence associated with this scholarship. "
Can I apply for the scholarships even though I do not qualify for the BITS merit-cum-need program?
Yes, and we strongly encourage you to apply! We would like to award scholarships to encourage top students to apply to more highly-ranked universities. We hear every year of very good students who could get into MIT, Berkeley, CMU, Stanford, Cornell, etc., but don't apply to many of these schools. Admissions at these schools are very competitive, and involve some luck, so even the best students might not get admitted if they only apply to 1 or 2. If you would like to apply to the best graduate programs, but are only applying to 8-10 schools in total (including lower-ranked/"safety" schools) because it's too expensive to app to more, do apply for this scholarship; it may pay for 5-6 more applications to top schools.
Can I apply for the scholarships even though I have been working for the last n years?
No. You have to be a final year student to apply for Graduate Application Scholarship
What documents do I need to send along with my application?
Details provided in the application form. If we need anything more, we will contact you by email.
How can I contribute? Are contributions tax-deductible? Will I get a receipt? Can I contribute online or with a check?
Please see Contributing for answers to these, and related questions.
How are scholarship recipients selected?
From 2008 onwards, recipients will be selected by a committee that will include contributors to the scholarship fund, and members nominated by BITSAA, but will primarily consist of BITSians in senior academic/research positions. We believe they will be best qualified to determine the best candidates for top graduate programs. The committee will set precise criteria every year, but students will typically be asked to provide resumes, links to any publications or reports, and to write short essays or letters answering any questions the committee may have.
The scholarships are open to all BITSians from Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad & Dubai campuses, whatever your discipline.
The scholarships will be awarded based primarily on academic merit.
Financial need will also be a factor in determining to whom scholarships are awarded, and the amount of each scholarship. Note that you do NOT have to be a recipient of the BITS merit-cum-need scholarships in order to apply.
The scholarships are given out in the faith that students, who benefit from it, will support future applicants.
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