A properly articulated strategy is a pertinent requirement in the art of setting goals and staying on course the highly demanding path to achieving them. Another crucially important component and in fact, the most important component, is the driver – the difference between a wish and a reality.
Since September 2019 when I received news about my funding for the GRE, and would later receive news about my TOEFL funding, i-Scholar Initiative has been the difference. Amidst my personal motivation and initially formidable plan, i-Scholar Initiative has served as that vessel that has made dreams turn into a reality. It has been a rollercoaster ride applying to various schools, scholarships, and research opportunities, and getting quite a number of feedbacks; from the very positive to the not so positive, and then to the outright rejection mails. In fact, some rejection mails were so properly crafted that it took a number of attentive readings to decipher the actual tone of these mails.
Despite the numerous number of ‘love letters’ I received, the mentors at i-Scholar Initiative remained relentless in encouraging me to forge ahead with my applications. The support has been immense, and I am beyond thankful to God that it has all paid off. Those sleepless nights of drafting SOPs and essays, and preparing for the GRE and TOEFL in traffic has finally resulted into something positive.
To every potential scholar, I have to say that applying to schools and securing funding/scholarship opportunities is a very rigorous process. You are going to have moments when everything would seem too overwhelming, and you would want to consider giving up to be the next plausible option. But it might be in that particular moment that the tide would turn.
As a best practice, I would advise you to get every box on your list of essential documents/requirements ticked before even commencing your applications. This would save you from the stress of falling back on one or two loopholes in your application when you are supposed to be preparing for the GRE or re-drafting a compelling personal statement/SOP.
Being a scholar of i-Scholar Initiative has been one of my important highlights in the last 6 months. I am beyond grateful for the strong mentorship platform and ever encouraging peer-to-peer interaction that the initiative provides.
The pinnacle is in sight, and we shall all get there.
Cyril Pepple is a First Class Graduate of Petroleum and Gas Engineering from the University of Port Harcourt. He has a Mini-MBA in Venture in Management from Lagos Business School. He currently has two confirmed MSc offers with potential funding from 2 schools in the US, and has also secured offers into some of the top 10 schools in the UK.
