Studying in Canada

Canada is a great place to study. There are several universities in Canada and some of them are ranked amongst the top universities in the world. They offer a wide variety of subjects to study at different levels and you can enjoy a great student life, have access to several facilities, and take part in curricular as well as extracurricular activities. Canadian universities offer a multicultural environment where international students are much valued (well, part of it is because the tuition fees are usually higher for international students!!!)

Let me tell you right off the bat that if you are coming from Iran, and will need a student visa to travel to Canada, obtaining the visa is your MOST CHALLENGING obstacle where a lot of soldiers will fall! I will talk about this obstacle later and provide some recommendations on how to increase your chances, but for now, I am going to talk about your second most challenging obstacle, which unfortunately you will have to deal with before knowing whether or not you receive a visa. This obstacle is of-course, applying to a university!

Generally speaking, most universities in Canada and the U.S. will require the following documents before considering your application:

• A completed application form: most universities now have an online application process that includes completing an online form. Some universities may have printable forms that can be downloaded, printed, and completed.

• Proof of English (or French) language proficiency: universities usually define their minimum requirements in terms of your score in language exams such as TOEFL or IELTS. Minimum score requirements are different for different universities, different subjects, and different levels of study.

• Your transcripts: depending on the level of study (undergraduate or graduate), from the high-school, college, or university where you have studied. Some universities in Canada require that the transcripts be mailed to them directly from your high-school, college, or university. This requirement, however, is usually impossible to be met by Iranian students, as Iranian colleges or universities do not accept such requests. Don’t worry! Obtain your transcript records, have them officially translated, and certified by the Ministry of Justice as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This will suffice. You can mail them yourself.

• Curriculum Vitae (CV): Note that while some people may mistakenly refer to CV and Resume interchangeably to refer to the same thing, CV and Resume are NOT the same. To find details about their differences, as well as guidelines on how to write a CV, you can search online and have access to thousands of web-sites with recommendation, templates, or samples.

• Statement of Purpose (SoP): is usually required for graduate levels and is a one or two page essay containing your goals and objectives for studying the subject of your interest, how you can see yourself contributing in that area, and why you are suited to study that subject. I have seen several terms that refer to the same document as SoP, used by different universities. Some of them include Letter of Intent, Statement of Intent, Expression of Interest, and so on. Again, you can find thousands of guides and samples online. Be careful though! Plagiarism is a very serious offence here! I know of several students who have been expelled from their universities because of plagiarism. If you plagiarize for your admission application, you are sending them a message that “I will likely plagiarize for my studies as well”!!!.
  I have heard from several people that “There are millions of samples on the web. How would they find out that I have copied one of them?!!” Let me tell you something! As unlikely as it might seem to you to get caught, it is actually quite likely! There are several tools available to the universities that can compare your essay to a comprehensive database of millions of essays and prompt them if there are similarities beyond a certain threshold. Therefore DO NOT COPY EXISTING ESSAYS! READ THE ONLINE SAMPLES ONLY TO GET IDEAS ON HOW TO WRITE YOURS.

• Letters of Recommendation: most of the universities require at least two or three Letters of Recommendation for graduate level applications. These letters should be written by the university teachers with whom you have had a project or conducted a research study, or by your direct supervisors / managers at your work. Some universities have specific instructions such as “At least two letters of recommendation from academia and one from work”. Also, it is worth mentioning that most of the universities nowadays have printable forms for this purpose and will require your references to complete their forms. I would recommend getting your letters of recommendation from people with whom you have done some work related to the subject of study you are applying for. For example if you are applying for the Master of Image Processing in Computer Science, try to get your letters from professors with whom you have worked on projects related to Image Processing. If you don’t have such experience, try to find the closest projects you have worked on. Also, if you are applying for a subject that requires a lot of research, ask your references to focus on your research capabilities. For business related subjects, such as MBA, ask your references to focus on your business demeanour, successful marketing strategies, or your potential in creating business relations, etc.
  One of the challenges I have seen a lot of applicants deal with, is that asking a professor or a manager for a letter or recommendation is often deemed to be asking for a huge favour and therefore some applicants are hesitant to do so. In my experience, most people in fact get flattered when asked for a letter of recommendation and would be happy to do so, especially if they have a positive experience working with you. Also, consider that while this is likely your first time to be collecting letters of recommendations, some of your references may have provided such letters to several other students in the past. So they are quite familiar with the process. Another challenge that most applicants deal with is that their references do not have a clear recollection of what they have done or what the results were. Therefore they will likely ask the applicant to write up a draft letter for himself or herself so that they can edit and sign it. A lot of applicants will use online samples for this purpose. Again, I will have to caution you about plagiarism. DO NOT COPY ONLINE SAMPLE LETTERS! The Application Review Panel will know it if you do so!
  Also, do not try too hard to make the letters like Shakespeare’s texts! The content is much more important than how it is written. Besides, as far as the Application Review Panel is concerned, the letters are written by your references, not yourself! So if there is a minor grammatical error, it would not be considered yours! One last thing I need to warn you about if you do end up having to write your own letters: Do not exaggerate too much! I have seen letters that refer to the applicant as “the most brilliant person I have ever seen” who has “extraordinary abilities” or has done some “unique work that few people on the planet could have done”! Unless you REALLY are such a brilliant person and are applying to a top ranking university such as Harvard or Stanford, avoid writing such statements!
  Most universities want to receive the letters of recommendations, sealed and signed, and directly from the references. Since this is usually not practical, I would suggest that you could ask your references to put the letter in an envelope, stick the flap, and sign on it such that their signature spans across the flap to the body of the envelope. Then use a transparent tape on the signature and mail the envelope along with your other application material. I my experience, this would be good enough for all universities.

• Scores of specialized tests such as GRE or GMAT: some universities require scores of specialized tests as a part of the admission applications. For example, most universities in Canada and the U.S. require GRE scores for graduate level Engineering and Computer Science programs. I have personally taken GRE and acknowledge that it is a VERY difficult test. GRE is composed of three main parts: Verbal, Quantitative, and Writing. It is only the Verbal part that I found extremely difficult. This is because unlike TOEFL, GRE is designed for college graduates of North American universities whose first language is English. Therefore, you will be taking the same exam as a college graduate who in addition to speaking English as their mother language, have taken several English literature and Shakespeare Plays courses in college. So don’t be surprised to see multiple-choice questions that you can’t even pronounce any of the words in the choices, let alone knowing what they mean!! Well, enough of scary stuff! Good news is, the Application Review Panels in the universities are fully aware of this and quite understand how difficult the Verbal part of GRE is for international applicants. Therefore don’t worry about it too much. My advice to you is to focus on the Quantitative and the Writing parts and try to ace in them! The Quantitative part includes some basic math, statistics, algebra, and geometry questions which would be quite easy with some practice. When I took GRE, I hadn’t studied math for over 10 years and yet I was able to obtain the perfect mark (800 out of 800) so I am sure it shouldn’t be difficult for people with Engineering or math background. The Writing part requires you to analyze some arguments or scientific statements and if you have a good command of English, you could easily get at least 5 out of 6 with some practice.

If you are going to apply for a Canadian Student Visa (or U.S. F1 visa), it means that you have successfully applied to a university or college and obtained admission; so Congratulations!!!

In my experience, assessment of visa applications at the embassy of Canada is very subjective and depends a lot on the individual officer who is reviewing your file. For this reason I can’t offer you step by step guidelines to help you be successful in terms of receiving a visa. I do however have a few recommendations that you might find useful:

Firstly, it is important to understand that the roles and responsibilities of the Application Review Panel in the universities and the visa officers in the Embassy are totally and completely different. Many people may think that they are all parts of a big happy family and work together to make sure that the best individuals around the world will be admitted to the universities!!! This, unfortunately, is not the case.

Because of this mentality, many of you might want to try and prove to the officer that you are bright intelligent students and would be contributing to the body of knowledge significantly once you start your studies! Well, in my experience, the officer wouldn’t give a damn!

I want to re-emphasize this because I think it is important to understand that while the Application review Panels at the universities are concerned about your potential in research or studying, the job of the visa officers is to minimize the risk of giving a student visa to any of the following individuals:

• People who will illegally stay in Canada after their study is over
• People who might face financial difficulties during their studies and could not afford their living costs and/or their tuition expenses
• People who seek a student visa as a means to enter Canada in order to engage in illegal or terrorism activities

Based on the above, here are a few recommendations to improve your chances of being successful:

1. Make sure that your application is complete and all the required documents are included! I was surprised to learn how many people miss this part!

2. Include as many proofs as you can to show that you and/or your family can afford your expenses in Canada. For this you can provide copies of ownership deeds of properties that you or your family own, shares in the stock market, businesses, etc.

3. If possible, ask your father (or a rich uncle!!!) to provide a letter and take the responsibility for paying all of your living expenses as well as your study expenses (tuition, books, etc) as long as you are in Canada.

4. If you can, provide a bank statement showing a considerable amount of money in your account. I would recommend 50+ million Tomans if possible.

5. If you are receiving a scholarship or have been offered a TA (Teaching Assistant) or RA (Research Assistant) position at the university that you have been admitted to, make sure to provide documents showing that.

6. If you have had to provide a collateral to organizations such as the Ministry of Health (I had to do this to get my medical degree) or the Ministry of Science, in order to obtain your transcripts/degree or to receive financial support, provide a proof showing that, because it would be considered a “tie” to make you return.

7. If you have relatives or friends who live in Canada and you are going to stay with them for a while, the officer in the embassy does not have to know that! Why? Because that would tell the officer that you will be able to establish “ties” in Canada quickly so the likelihood of you wanting to stay in Canada after your studies would be high! (remember, this is usually the main reason why most applications are being refused) You have to list the names and addresses of your immediate family members on one of the application forms; other than those, you don’t have to list anyone else!

8. If your application is rejected the first time, don’t quit! Gather more documents, write letters, meet with the officers, and apply again! Many people (including me!) obtain a visa after their application was rejected initially. Remember, if you can convince the officer that you have a good financial standing and have enough ties to Iran to motivate you to return, he/she will quite likely approve your application.

Happy applying and good luck!!

Living Expenses in Canada

Coming soon...!

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Also, please note that the information provided here are based on my personal knowledge, experience, or opinion. Therefore I can't be held responsible if you find the information misleading in any way. I encourage you to consult other sources of information as well.