The United States is the sought-after destination for Indian students planning higher education abroad. The country offers a range of academic programmes at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. US universities are the best choice for students seeking master’s or PhD degree programmes.

Which are the best institutions for pursuing a master’s degree in the US? How to prepare for admission?

As per the global rankings of Times Higher Education, 12 of the top 20 universities are in the US. And 10 of the top 20 are in the US, according to QS. The admission will be based on the applicants' academic record, quality of education, GRE score, the Statement of Purpose (SOP) that have to be submitted along with the application, and the letters of recommendation from the teachers.

(GRE or the Graduate Record Examinations is a standardised test for admissions to many graduate schools in the US, Canada and a few other countries.)

Graduate and MS programmes?

The master’s programmes in the US are called graduate programmes. MTech and MSc programmes are generally called MS programmes.

Do not limit your applications only to the premier universities. Also, select institutions that are a little lower in the rankings. From the websites of the institutions, check out the required qualification, the language and aptitude tests and the required score for these. Not all universities require GRE.

Apart from the above-mentioned ranking lists, you can also rely on certain websites such as www.usnews.com and www.webometrics.info to help you decide on which all institutions to apply for. Create a list of universities while considering factors such as fees, performance of the institutions, the admission prospects, and the availability of scholarships. Know more about the programme and the admission process by interacting with the department dean/professor. Parallely, you can also prepare for the GRE exam.

As the applications are invited almost a year before the commencement of the course, it is ideal to start preparation during the third year of the BTech studies itself. The GRE score is valid for up to five years and so the score can be used in the subsequent years too.

For instance the best institutions for pursuing Electrical Engineering in the US and other countries are: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford, University of California Berkeley (UCB), NTU Singapore, ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Cambridge, Harvard, National University of Singapore (NUS), Oxford, and EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland.