Choicexx:

Very sure, but you know “cheap” is relative. Also, program of choice (lol not choicexx o) might influence the cost for the program.
Anyways, are you heading to CSU or you would want to enlighten us?

I want to know about the application fee waiver, and how to request for it

omofolajomi:
@fairheart compliment of the season, pls i would like to send you private message.

Happy new year!
How's it going?

Juwon21:


I want to know about the application fee waiver, and how to request for it

Check the school admission page. If there is a waiver for the fall 2021 application year, they will indicate there. Otherwise, send a message to the admission office.

kastgeraldino:
Looks like those for the spring semester have all had their interviews. For those planning on resuming for Fall 2021, have you guys started thinking of the visa process?

People are still going for spring, those very small in number and most likely with extension letter. A lady from this thread got her visa yesterday at 4th attempt at the U.S embassy, Abuja. There are is another guy from here planning for interview next week.
For fall 2021, I believe applicants can start going to the embassy from late April, that is in roughly 3 months from now.

For those who are going for interview for fall, please read thread 15, at least from October 2020. Learn from others experience so that you can avoid setbacks and unnecessary refusal.

When I have time, I will post a list of to-dos for fall 2021 prospects.
If you have questions, don't hold back; ask! There are always people on this thread that will answer.
All the best guys!

Thanks for your response, i really appreciate i will be posting my proposed transcript and i will appreciate if you can help check it out.

NigPatriot:


Frankly, be honest with yourself, what has actually changed between then and now? No one can answer this for you.

But here are some cues;

Have you gotten better understanding of your coursework? Where you nervous at first trial? Do you have proper source of funding now? The aim should be to make sure the VO knows that you're better prepared now. However way you can protrude this belief, is your effort to make.

Btw, did you post your denial transcript here, because if you did, you must have had a few erudites here scrutinize and analyze your facsimile. That way your question would have been answered.

I wish you well in your pursuit.

Hello House,

Please can I transfer my SEVIS fee payment to another person?

@fairheart Please can I transfer my SEVIS fee payment to another person?

fairheart:


People are still going for spring, those very small in number and most likely with extension letter. A lady from this thread got her visa yesterday at 4th attempt at the U.S embassy, Abuja. There are is another guy from here planning for interview next week.
For fall 2021, I believe applicants can start going to the embassy from late April, that is in roughly 3 months from now.

For those who are going for interview for fall, please read thread 15, at least from October 2020. Learn from others experience so that you can avoid setbacks and unnecessary refusal.

When I have time, I will post a list of to-dos for fall 2021 prospects.
If you have questions, don't hold back; ask! There are always people on this thread that will answer.
All the best guys!

joesa:
@fairheart Please can I transfer my SEVIS fee payment to another person?

No, SEVIS payment cannot be transferred to another student.

Good afternoon great people!
I want to apply for fall admission this year, But unfortunately, the admission deadline I’ve been seeing is February 1(two days ago).

Please I need schools with farther deadlines ����
I need suggestions. Thanks in anticipation.

Oluwatosin2000:
Good afternoon great people!
I want to apply for fall admission this year, But unfortunately, the admission deadline I’ve been seeing is February 1(two days ago).

Please I need schools with farther deadlines ����
I need suggestions. Thanks in anticipation.

Illinois State Uni
March 1st with financial consideration
May 1st without

Are there not people who were issued VISA at the first attempt??
I keep seeing "my fourth attempt" on this thread.

Please I need to be clear on these issues before I start hustling on this journey.
1, what will be the faith of someone who has given birth in the states. Will it raise a red flag?

2, also the person presently have b1/b2 visa which was gotten outside Nigeria due to fear of denial because of birthing in the states.

What is the chance of getting F1?

Thank you.

Oluwatosin2000:
Good afternoon great people!
I want to apply for fall admission this year, But unfortunately, the admission deadline I’ve been seeing is February 1(two days ago).

Please I need schools with farther deadlines ����
I need suggestions. Thanks in anticipation.

There are many schools with March-May deadline.
Even June, you'll find. So keep checking

LeviAckerman:

Illinois State Uni
March 1st with financial consideration
May 1st without

Thanks ��. Please can you help me with the application process?

Chonco:


There are many schools with March-May deadline.
Even June, you'll find. So keep checking

Please, kindly suggest schools for me. Thanks

LeviAckerman:

Illinois State Uni
March 1st with financial consideration
May 1st without

Does the Illinois State University accept waec?
And please what does with and without financial consideration mean?

Oluwatosin2000:



Thanks ��. Please can you help me with the application process?

I'm applying to that school.

fairheart:


People are still going for spring, those very small in number and most likely with extension letter. A lady from this thread got her visa yesterday at 4th attempt at the U.S embassy, Abuja. There are is another guy from here planning for interview next week.
For fall 2021, I believe applicants can start going to the embassy from late April, that is in roughly 3 months from now.

For those who are going for interview for fall, please read thread 15, at least from October 2020. Learn from others experience so that you can avoid setbacks and unnecessary refusal.

When I have time, I will post a list of to-dos for fall 2021 prospects.
If you have questions, don't hold back; ask! There are always people on this thread that will answer.
All the best guys!

@fairheart that's really a nice one from you.

damtan:
Are there not people who were issued VISA at the first attempt??
I keep seeing "my fourth attempt" on this thread.

there are so many people who are been accepted and issued the visa on their first attempt, if you follow the thread very well for those who went for spring , some if them did it for the first time and were given.

Juwon21:


I want to know about the application fee waiver, and how to request for it

So fairheart has said it all. But if application fee would be a problem why not package your documents well and reach prof,program directors etc of schools that meet your needs so as to apply to as few as you can or even one school you are sure will admit you and probably fund you.
Senior fairheart nobi so?

I got admission for fall can I submit my ds160 form now my visa is schedule to be June. I got denied January

I thought you need DS160 to schedule a visa date. Or am I missing something?

MICCH:
I got admission for fall can I submit my ds160 form now my visa is schedule to be June. I got denied January

Please am having issues submitting my certificate to WES! What do I do?

Myralison:
Please I need to be clear on these issues before I start hustling on this journey.
1, what will be the faith of someone who has given birth in the states. Will it raise a red flag?

2, also the person presently have b1/b2 visa which was gotten outside Nigeria due to fear of denial because of birthing in the states.

What is the chance of getting F1?

Thank you.

Please someone answer

kastgeraldino:
I thought you need DS160 to schedule a visa date. Or am I missing something?

Your DS-160 number can always be changed, so even though you put random numbers and letters, it should work. Just dont change it less than 72 hours to your interview.

damtan:
Are there not people who were issued VISA at the first attempt??
I keep seeing "my fourth attempt" on this thread.

yes I got it first attempt, no funding, Abuja embassy, be confident and prayerful.

‘’How Many Rejections Now? 10!’’
How I got a Fully Funded Master’s Scholarship in The United States of America.

It had always been my desire to study abroad right from high school. So fast forward, having seen my final year result, graduating with a first class, I took 7 days off praying and fasting to ask God for the next agenda, what is next in His will? God began to speak to me about going abroad and confirming it in outstanding ways, details withheld. Okay, what destination? Having consulted with my Professors, my priority was Canada, USA and manageably UK. What do I need to get scholarships? Get my transcript, international passport, take IELTS/TOEFL and write GRE. While planning all these I was also praying towards my NYSC and God was telling me some things which were not very clear to me until I got to Ogun State NYSC Orientation Camp in Shagamu. Then it became very clear that though I have obeyed the clarion call of my fatherland, there was a demand of my father God on me that year to serve as State executive at Nccf Ogun , March 2018 to April 2019. It was a great sacrifice which took a lot of my time and attention because I was also serving as a Graduate Assistant, in the Electrical / Eletronic Engineering department at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, (MAPOLY), Abeokuta. And, I was lecturing. How I got my placement there is a story of faith for another day. Thank God service year ended and I was asked to apply as an Associate Lecturer by my HOD who wanted to keep me but somehow the application was declined by the Dean. I had applied for Mastercard Scholarship of McGill University, Canada, 3 Commonwealth Shared Scholarships (CSC), EducationUSA OFP and the PTDF scholarships while serving and they all looked promising. Despite the rigor of being the State Rugged, I stayed up late every night punching the computer, reviewing my application essays and the likes.

When my application was declined at MAPOLY, I moved to Lagos to stay with one of my mentor’s mentees, who works with Shell. I never knew he had been following my What’sapp status and by the kind of things I post there, he had judged that I am someone he could accommodate to stay with him, support and bring up to speed while I get sorted my applications. There in his house, I had access to electricity 24/7, food 24/7, even though I had already became a fasted man in NCCF. I settled down preparing for my GRE and though it was good, it wasn’t good enough for me with a score of 311. I could not write TOEFL or IELTS because of money and since many schools waive it. While preparing for GRE, the first rejection letter dropped. It was McGill’s, then the 3 CSCs and then the PTDF scholarship. After so much investment in preparation for the interview, I was not awarded. Then, I applied for Skoltech scholarship, a school in Russia, it was not successful. I applied for Mastercard Edinburgh, declined! Chevening, it failed then FSB Commonwealth Masters. I even paid a consulting firm to review my application, it failed. I was also applying to schools in the US But the problem was writing to Professors, requesting for GRA/GTA and getting no response.

How many rejections now? 10! While in this struggle, I got the idea to write to professors in Covenant University, to volunteer as a Research Assistant with anyone in line with my research interest, drawing from a scholar who challenged me by telling me, I didn’t have any online research presence apart from social media. He said the first thing most professors do when they get your mail is to put your name in Google to know if you have been in the corridor of research work and publication, to know if your mail is worth their reply. Personally, I did not know anyone in Covenant University so I went through the school website, went through the CVs of some lecturers in the Electrical and Information Engineering Department and I wrote to 5 of them. I made contacts in Unilag, especially because I had a comfortable accommodation at Surulere, and OAU because I could be accommodated in our mission house in Ife and I would be able to survive on tutorials. I got accepted into the 3 – OAU, Unilag, Covenant for voluntary research assistant work. I got a response from one of the Professors in Covenant who was willing to take me but on a condition - no accommodation, no stipend! That was a great challenge especially for someone from my background but I had learnt to walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit. September 2019, I resumed at Advanced Signal Processing and Machine Intelligence Lab, Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation and Development, Covenant University and, by December, I got a scopus-index paper published in a conference held in Madrid, Spain.

After this I started getting a few responses from the Professors I was now contacting in the US. I kept writing, I kept searching for schools and I kept applying to schools. I applied to 6 schools in the US, I was getting admitted even for direct PhD but full funding was the main challenge. In another 3 months, by April, 2020 I had already gotten 4, all scopus-indexed publications, with one as the first author, and 2 other ongoing journal papers. I also got a fully funded scholarship to do my master’s at Covenant University with World Bank project under the supervision of my Professor but with a condition that I was not going to travel abroad untill I am done with the 2 years. That was the first opportunity in two years but, I had to decline it even though I was yet to secure one scholarship abroad because while I prayed about it, I heard God telling me that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. I also remembered how in March, while at a church anniversary meeting, the guest minister from nowhere picked me up and began prophesying about my journey abroad with some instructions and revelation of the future and so I did not seek counsel with any human being until after I had declined it. I did not want to be pitied out of God’s plan for my life.

Shortly after, Covid-19 broke out, and with it, the global lockdown and ban on international flights, all hopes became very gloomy. Those who had secured scholarships even in the US prior to this time were being faced with the possibility of losing them. I know people who lost theirs, how much more I who was still just hoping to get one. Anyways for me, it was a journey of faith with God saying to me ‘let the bird in your hand go for two in the bush’. Who does that? My faith had built from faith-based teachings I had been listening to, I soaked myself into them and interacted with friends of like-faith who in the heat of the lockdown, started a whatsApp group where we pray and share God’s word with each other, just the three of us. In the lockdown, our lab was not locked down and I was working on some research work when we got this grant from the university to design and build an automatic solar powered water, soap and sanitizer dispensing machine with automatic temperature sensing functionality which we were also working on. This was the 8th month of volunteering without any pay. How was I being accommodated and fed? Those are testimonies of grace and favor for another day. God is too faithful to fail His children who serve and call upon Him in truth. Meanwhile, I was not really scouting for jobs. Maybe I would have gotten one, but that was not in the plan I received when I was leaving campus after my week-long wait in fasting and prayers.

Then came this fateful day, the last Friday of May 2020. we had just finished our normal weekly research cluster meeting and I was about to close my computer to leave the lab when I refreshed my mail and saw a strange email subject titled ‘Assistantship offer and SEVIS form’. I opened it and could only manage to read it halfway as tears roll down. A fully funded master scholarship worth thousands of dollars. The application fee was waived, my documents were sent free of any charges, I didn’t have to pay a dime, it was all covered and overflowing. Even if I were to bring a spouse, she would be covered as well. What a great God! I was to resume for the fall which was in August, 2020 but because of the international flight ban in Nigeria, I had to defer it to spring 2021, which is January. And so, for the first time in my life, I was on board an an airplane, on a flight to the United States of America. This is my third week in the US and everything has totally changed. Everything I struggled for in Nigeria, I am settled with in the US. I can clearly see pathways to the kind of future I desired and ofcourse fulfilling God’s master plan in the earth is my priority.

Eventually, I spent 14 months volunteering in Covenant University, and though I was not paid by my Professor, the school paid for every scopus-indexed publication and I was able to achieve the following:
1. Two fully funded scholarships; one declined, one accepted and one pending interview results
2. Assisted with Experimentations on Machine Learning Techniques Towards the Development of an Automatic Nigerian Currency Recognition Model, and published a conference paper.
3. Conducted research on Automatic Modulation Recognition Using Cepstrum Descriptors and Feed-Forward ANN and then using Constellation Diagrams with CNN for publication as two journal papers
4. Researched on the Transmit Power of a Universal Software Radio Peripheral Using GNU Radio Framework and a Handheld RF Explorer, published a conference paper.
5. Assisted with Experimentations with OpenStack System Logs and Support Vector Machine for an Anomaly Detection Model in a Private Cloud Infrastructure, and published a conference paper.
6. Three ongoing research works and manuscripts.

For me, the rejections were divine directions because even though I have left Covenant University, I am still a member of my Professor’s research cluster and we are still working and collaborating together on projects.

ykajalas@gmail.com

Ykxcels:
‘’How Many Rejections Now? 10!’’
How I got a Fully Funded Master’s Scholarship in The United States of America.

It had always been my desire to study abroad right from high school. So fast forward, having seen my final year result, graduating with a first class, I took 7 days off praying and fasting to ask God for the next agenda, what is next in His will? God began to speak to me about going abroad and confirming it in outstanding ways, details withheld. Okay, what destination? Having consulted with my Professors, my priority was Canada, USA and manageably UK. What do I need to get scholarships? Get my transcript, international passport, take IELTS/TOEFL and write GRE. While planning all these I was also praying towards my NYSC and God was telling me some things which were not very clear to me until I got to Ogun State NYSC Orientation Camp in Shagamu. Then it became very clear that though I have obeyed the clarion call of my fatherland, there was a demand of my father God on me that year to serve as State executive at Nccf Ogun , March 2018 to April 2019. It was a great sacrifice which took a lot of my time and attention because I was also serving as a Graduate Assistant, in the Electrical / Eletronic Engineering department at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, (MAPOLY), Abeokuta. And, I was lecturing. How I got my placement there is a story of faith for another day. Thank God service year ended and I was asked to apply as an Associate Lecturer by my HOD who wanted to keep me but somehow the application was declined by the Dean. I had applied for Mastercard Scholarship of McGill University, Canada, 3 Commonwealth Shared Scholarships (CSC), EducationUSA OFP and the PTDF scholarships while serving and they all looked promising. Despite the rigor of being the State Rugged, I stayed up late every night punching the computer, reviewing my application essays and the likes.

When my application was declined at MAPOLY, I moved to Lagos to stay with one of my mentor’s mentees, who works with Shell. I never knew he had been following my What’sapp status and by the kind of things I post there, he had judged that I am someone he could accommodate to stay with him, support and bring up to speed while I get sorted my applications. There in his house, I had access to electricity 24/7, food 24/7, even though I had already became a fasted man in NCCF. I settled down preparing for my GRE and though it was good, it wasn’t good enough for me with a score of 311. I could not write TOEFL or IELTS because of money and since many schools waive it. While preparing for GRE, the first rejection letter dropped. It was McGill’s, then the 3 CSCs and then the PTDF scholarship. After so much investment in preparation for the interview, I was not awarded. Then, I applied for Skoltech scholarship, a school in Russia, it was not successful. I applied for Mastercard Edinburgh, declined! Chevening, it failed then FSB Commonwealth Masters. I even paid a consulting firm to review my application, it failed. I was also applying to schools in the US But the problem was writing to Professors, requesting for GRA/GTA and getting no response.

How many rejections now? 10! While in this struggle, I got the idea to write to professors in Covenant University, to volunteer as a Research Assistant with anyone in line with my research interest, drawing from a scholar who challenged me by telling me, I didn’t have any online research presence apart from social media. He said the first thing most professors do when they get your mail is to put your name in Google to know if you have been in the corridor of research work and publication, to know if your mail is worth their reply. Personally, I did not know anyone in Covenant University so I went through the school website, went through the CVs of some lecturers in the Electrical and Information Engineering Department and I wrote to 5 of them. I made contacts in Unilag, especially because I had a comfortable accommodation at Surulere, and OAU because I could be accommodated in our mission house in Ife and I would be able to survive on tutorials. I got accepted into the 3 – OAU, Unilag, Covenant for voluntary research assistant work. I got a response from one of the Professors in Covenant who was willing to take me but on a condition - no accommodation, no stipend! That was a great challenge especially for someone from my background but I had learnt to walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit. September 2019, I resumed at Advanced Signal Processing and Machine Intelligence Lab, Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation and Development, Covenant University and, by December, I got a scopus-index paper published in a conference held in Madrid, Spain.

After this I started getting a few responses from the Professors I was now contacting in the US. I kept writing, I kept searching for schools and I kept applying to schools. I applied to 6 schools in the US, I was getting admitted even for direct PhD but full funding was the main challenge. In another 3 months, by April, 2020 I had already gotten 4, all scopus-indexed publications, with one as the first author, and 2 other ongoing journal papers. I also got a fully funded scholarship to do my master’s at Covenant University with World Bank project under the supervision of my Professor but with a condition that I was not going to travel abroad untill I am done with the 2 years. That was the first opportunity in two years but, I had to decline it even though I was yet to secure one scholarship abroad because while I prayed about it, I heard God telling me that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. I also remembered how in March, while at a church anniversary meeting, the guest minister from nowhere picked me up and began prophesying about my journey abroad with some instructions and revelation of the future and so I did not seek counsel with any human being until after I had declined it. I did not want to be pitied out of God’s plan for my life.

Shortly after, Covid-19 broke out, and with it, the global lockdown and ban on international flights, all hopes became very gloomy. Those who had secured scholarships even in the US prior to this time were being faced with the possibility of losing them. I know people who lost theirs, how much more I who was still just hoping to get one. Anyways for me, it was a journey of faith with God saying to me ‘let the bird in your hand go for two in the bush’. Who does that? My faith had built from faith-based teachings I had been listening to, I soaked myself into them and interacted with friends of like-faith who in the heat of the lockdown, started a whatsApp group where we pray and share God’s word with each other, just the three of us. In the lockdown, our lab was not locked down and I was working on some research work when we got this grant from the university to design and build an automatic solar powered water, soap and sanitizer dispensing machine with automatic temperature sensing functionality which we were also working on. This was the 8th month of volunteering without any pay. How was I being accommodated and fed? Those are testimonies of grace and favor for another day. God is too faithful to fail His children who serve and call upon Him in truth. Meanwhile, I was not really scouting for jobs. Maybe I would have gotten one, but that was not in the plan I received when I was leaving campus after my week-long wait in fasting and prayers.

Then came this fateful day, the last Friday of May 2020. we had just finished our normal weekly research cluster meeting and I was about to close my computer to leave the lab when I refreshed my mail and saw a strange email subject titled ‘Assistantship offer and SEVIS form’. I opened it and could only manage to read it halfway as tears roll down. A fully funded master scholarship worth thousands of dollars. The application fee was waived, my documents were sent free of any charges, I didn’t have to pay a dime, it was all covered and overflowing. Even if I were to bring a spouse, she would be covered as well. What a great God! I was to resume for the fall which was in August, 2020 but because of the international flight ban in Nigeria, I had to defer it to spring 2021, which is January. And so, for the first time in my life, I was on board an an airplane, on a flight to the United States of America. This is my third week in the US and everything has totally changed. Everything I struggled for in Nigeria, I am settled with in the US. I can clearly see pathways to the kind of future I desired and ofcourse fulfilling God’s master plan in the earth is my priority.

Eventually, I spent 14 months volunteering in Covenant University, and though I was not paid by my Professor, the school paid for every scopus-indexed publication and I was able to achieve the following:
1. Two fully funded scholarships; one declined, one accepted and one pending interview results
2. Assisted with Experimentations on Machine Learning Techniques Towards the Development of an Automatic Nigerian Currency Recognition Model, and published a conference paper.
3. Conducted research on Automatic Modulation Recognition Using Cepstrum Descriptors and Feed-Forward ANN and then using Constellation Diagrams with CNN for publication as two journal papers
4. Researched on the Transmit Power of a Universal Software Radio Peripheral Using GNU Radio Framework and a Handheld RF Explorer, published a conference paper.
5. Assisted with Experimentations with OpenStack System Logs and Support Vector Machine for an Anomaly Detection Model in a Private Cloud Infrastructure, and published a conference paper.
6. Three ongoing research works and manuscripts.

For me, the rejections were divine directions because even though I have left Covenant University, I am still a member of my Professor’s research cluster and we are still working and collaborating together on projects.

ykajalas@gmail.com

Congratulations brother, e nor easy. someday too, some of us wuld tell our stories. I pray your dreams come through

Ykxcels:
‘’How Many Rejections Now? 10!’’
How I got a Fully Funded Master’s Scholarship in The United States of America.

It had always been my desire to study abroad right from high school. So fast forward, having seen my final year result, graduating with a first class, I took 7 days off praying and fasting to ask God for the next agenda, what is next in His will? God began to speak to me about going abroad and confirming it in outstanding ways, details withheld. Okay, what destination? Having consulted with my Professors, my priority was Canada, USA and manageably UK. What do I need to get scholarships? Get my transcript, international passport, take IELTS/TOEFL and write GRE. While planning all these I was also praying towards my NYSC and God was telling me some things which were not very clear to me until I got to Ogun State NYSC Orientation Camp in Shagamu. Then it became very clear that though I have obeyed the clarion call of my fatherland, there was a demand of my father God on me that year to serve as State executive at Nccf Ogun , March 2018 to April 2019. It was a great sacrifice which took a lot of my time and attention because I was also serving as a Graduate Assistant, in the Electrical / Eletronic Engineering department at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, (MAPOLY), Abeokuta. And, I was lecturing. How I got my placement there is a story of faith for another day. Thank God service year ended and I was asked to apply as an Associate Lecturer by my HOD who wanted to keep me but somehow the application was declined by the Dean. I had applied for Mastercard Scholarship of McGill University, Canada, 3 Commonwealth Shared Scholarships (CSC), EducationUSA OFP and the PTDF scholarships while serving and they all looked promising. Despite the rigor of being the State Rugged, I stayed up late every night punching the computer, reviewing my application essays and the likes.

When my application was declined at MAPOLY, I moved to Lagos to stay with one of my mentor’s mentees, who works with Shell. I never knew he had been following my What’sapp status and by the kind of things I post there, he had judged that I am someone he could accommodate to stay with him, support and bring up to speed while I get sorted my applications. There in his house, I had access to electricity 24/7, food 24/7, even though I had already became a fasted man in NCCF. I settled down preparing for my GRE and though it was good, it wasn’t good enough for me with a score of 311. I could not write TOEFL or IELTS because of money and since many schools waive it. While preparing for GRE, the first rejection letter dropped. It was McGill’s, then the 3 CSCs and then the PTDF scholarship. After so much investment in preparation for the interview, I was not awarded. Then, I applied for Skoltech scholarship, a school in Russia, it was not successful. I applied for Mastercard Edinburgh, declined! Chevening, it failed then FSB Commonwealth Masters. I even paid a consulting firm to review my application, it failed. I was also applying to schools in the US But the problem was writing to Professors, requesting for GRA/GTA and getting no response.

How many rejections now? 10! While in this struggle, I got the idea to write to professors in Covenant University, to volunteer as a Research Assistant with anyone in line with my research interest, drawing from a scholar who challenged me by telling me, I didn’t have any online research presence apart from social media. He said the first thing most professors do when they get your mail is to put your name in Google to know if you have been in the corridor of research work and publication, to know if your mail is worth their reply. Personally, I did not know anyone in Covenant University so I went through the school website, went through the CVs of some lecturers in the Electrical and Information Engineering Department and I wrote to 5 of them. I made contacts in Unilag, especially because I had a comfortable accommodation at Surulere, and OAU because I could be accommodated in our mission house in Ife and I would be able to survive on tutorials. I got accepted into the 3 – OAU, Unilag, Covenant for voluntary research assistant work. I got a response from one of the Professors in Covenant who was willing to take me but on a condition - no accommodation, no stipend! That was a great challenge especially for someone from my background but I had learnt to walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit. September 2019, I resumed at Advanced Signal Processing and Machine Intelligence Lab, Covenant University Centre for Research, Innovation and Development, Covenant University and, by December, I got a scopus-index paper published in a conference held in Madrid, Spain.

After this I started getting a few responses from the Professors I was now contacting in the US. I kept writing, I kept searching for schools and I kept applying to schools. I applied to 6 schools in the US, I was getting admitted even for direct PhD but full funding was the main challenge. In another 3 months, by April, 2020 I had already gotten 4, all scopus-indexed publications, with one as the first author, and 2 other ongoing journal papers. I also got a fully funded scholarship to do my master’s at Covenant University with World Bank project under the supervision of my Professor but with a condition that I was not going to travel abroad untill I am done with the 2 years. That was the first opportunity in two years but, I had to decline it even though I was yet to secure one scholarship abroad because while I prayed about it, I heard God telling me that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. I also remembered how in March, while at a church anniversary meeting, the guest minister from nowhere picked me up and began prophesying about my journey abroad with some instructions and revelation of the future and so I did not seek counsel with any human being until after I had declined it. I did not want to be pitied out of God’s plan for my life.

Shortly after, Covid-19 broke out, and with it, the global lockdown and ban on international flights, all hopes became very gloomy. Those who had secured scholarships even in the US prior to this time were being faced with the possibility of losing them. I know people who lost theirs, how much more I who was still just hoping to get one. Anyways for me, it was a journey of faith with God saying to me ‘let the bird in your hand go for two in the bush’. Who does that? My faith had built from faith-based teachings I had been listening to, I soaked myself into them and interacted with friends of like-faith who in the heat of the lockdown, started a whatsApp group where we pray and share God’s word with each other, just the three of us. In the lockdown, our lab was not locked down and I was working on some research work when we got this grant from the university to design and build an automatic solar powered water, soap and sanitizer dispensing machine with automatic temperature sensing functionality which we were also working on. This was the 8th month of volunteering without any pay. How was I being accommodated and fed? Those are testimonies of grace and favor for another day. God is too faithful to fail His children who serve and call upon Him in truth. Meanwhile, I was not really scouting for jobs. Maybe I would have gotten one, but that was not in the plan I received when I was leaving campus after my week-long wait in fasting and prayers.

Then came this fateful day, the last Friday of May 2020. we had just finished our normal weekly research cluster meeting and I was about to close my computer to leave the lab when I refreshed my mail and saw a strange email subject titled ‘Assistantship offer and SEVIS form’. I opened it and could only manage to read it halfway as tears roll down. A fully funded master scholarship worth thousands of dollars. The application fee was waived, my documents were sent free of any charges, I didn’t have to pay a dime, it was all covered and overflowing. Even if I were to bring a spouse, she would be covered as well. What a great God! I was to resume for the fall which was in August, 2020 but because of the international flight ban in Nigeria, I had to defer it to spring 2021, which is January. And so, for the first time in my life, I was on board an an airplane, on a flight to the United States of America. This is my third week in the US and everything has totally changed. Everything I struggled for in Nigeria, I am settled with in the US. I can clearly see pathways to the kind of future I desired and ofcourse fulfilling God’s master plan in the earth is my priority.

Eventually, I spent 14 months volunteering in Covenant University, and though I was not paid by my Professor, the school paid for every scopus-indexed publication and I was able to achieve the following:
1. Two fully funded scholarships; one declined, one accepted and one pending interview results
2. Assisted with Experimentations on Machine Learning Techniques Towards the Development of an Automatic Nigerian Currency Recognition Model, and published a conference paper.
3. Conducted research on Automatic Modulation Recognition Using Cepstrum Descriptors and Feed-Forward ANN and then using Constellation Diagrams with CNN for publication as two journal papers
4. Researched on the Transmit Power of a Universal Software Radio Peripheral Using GNU Radio Framework and a Handheld RF Explorer, published a conference paper.
5. Assisted with Experimentations with OpenStack System Logs and Support Vector Machine for an Anomaly Detection Model in a Private Cloud Infrastructure, and published a conference paper.
6. Three ongoing research works and manuscripts.

For me, the rejections were divine directions because even though I have left Covenant University, I am still a member of my Professor’s research cluster and we are still working and collaborating together on projects.

ykajalas@gmail.com

I am thanking you on your behalf for not settling for less. You have just arrived the right place for A.I. and Machine Leaning. I hope your research is still concentrated on Machine learning. The US is highly in demand for such scholar. Congratulations and welcome onboard.

LeviAckerman:

Illinois State Uni
March 1st with financial consideration
May 1st without

is Illinois State Uni offering GRE waiver?

Wow congrats. I also got accepted to the University of New Haven CT Ms National Security for fall 2021. Mind if I reach out to you?

Motiqueen:
12th January, 2021
Good evening all,

I am glad today, my interview at Abuja went so well and it was God, I must say.

I was the 4th to be interviewed this morning and the 1st to be granted a visa, the three guys before me were rejected.

School is University of New Haven, Connecticut.
I had little funding and deficit of $26k
Course: Masters of Public health

The VO(only VO for today) had an assistant with him, guess the guy was on training or so, cos he had the approval and denial papers with him in a file, both of them were standing (or do the VOs usually stand?) the VO collects from him to dish out. You hear him converse slightly with the assistant after each applicant leave before he calls on the next applicant, so that's why I presume he was on training as a VO too.

VO: Good morning
Me: Good morning to you

VO: can I have your documents (passport and i-20)
Me: sure you can, here you have it(I passed to him)

VO: what's your course?
Me: Masters of Public health

VO:Do you know anyone in Connecticut?
Me: No, I don't.

VO: So where will you be staying
Me: in the school hostel, I already booked a space( I haven't booked any space ooo, just replied with that)

VO: I can see you have a deficit to be paid by a family member, so who is paying?
Me: My dad actually

VO: So what does he do?
Me: He owns one of the biggest hotels in Lagos, he cuts me short and asks for the name, I replied, then he asks for his bank statement and I showed him. Flips to the second page only, showing his assistant, then returns to me.

VO: what else does he do?
Me: He is into the transportation industry, his fleet of cars and buses run about 17 states currently in Nigeria and hoping to expand to more as demand permits

VO: So how long has he been in the hotel business
Me: about 15-16 years

VO: So he just added the transport to it
Me: Yes

VO: How about your mom, what does she do?
Me: She is a caterer

VO: What type of catering?
Me: indoor and outdoor catering, for both social and corporate events, she also runs staff canteens for companies and she's been in the field for 35years

VO: Wow! That's fine, so do you have siblings?
Me: Yes, 2 sisters and 2 brothers

VO: What do they do?
Me: my older sister works with my dad in his hotel, my younger sis is a fashion designer and a student, my younger brother is a hair stylist and a student, my last brother is a photographer and a student.

VO: Oh! That's good, what secondary school did you attend?
Me: I mentioned and added location

VO:You live in Lagos
Me: Yes, between the boundary of Lagos and Ogun state.

VO: So why did you come to Abuja for interview
Me: my school's resumption date is actually fast approaching and Abuja had earlier appointment dates than Lagos.

VO: oh! That's true, so have you travelled out of the country before?
Me: No, he tried to cajole me like, you know people just travel for maybe vacation to Dubai and that's just it.... So I replied by saying, I have actually been about school and work basically so I haven't even had the time to plan any trip, be it vacation or any.

VO: He kept nodding with his assistant, that one just had the file held like a statue and was smiling. So how did you find out about the school?
Me: When I concluded on having my masters degree, I did an extensive search on Google for schools that offer pub, VO cuts in and completes the rest for me and I said yes.

VO: OK, that's fine, do you have a room mate
Me: I don't know, the school didn't tell me any of such(room that I didn't even book at all)

VO: OK, I want to approve your visa, collects the white paper for approval from his assistant and slides it under the Window with my i-20 and says I can pick up at my preferred pick up point.

Me: thank you very much, I'm honoured.
VO: don't mention, you are welcome (he smiled at me with his assistant, while I dropped my papers in my file and left his window)


That was simply how my interview went, guess this VO is more about home ties cos he hardly asked questions about school even from the first 3 applicants before me.

Thank you everyone for the transcripts you have been dropping so far, to everyone still hopeful for an approval, God in his infinite mercies will make your day of joy to come. You won't come this far and not have a testimony.

Got accepted but haven’t fixed interview yet.

Humphrey11:
Anyone going to university of new haven