For Pakistani students the Fulbright Scholarship provides 100% funding to complete a postgraduate program or a PhD. for upto 5 years. This year the deadline for submitting your applications is May 15 2013.

By then you must submit a written document called the personal statement or the statement of purpose, which details your research and study plans, and how would you contribute to Pakistan on your return. You contribution to Pakistan is very important and you must focus on that as much as you can.

The Fulbright Scholarship selection Criteria that selectors use to award Fulbright Scholarships include:

• GRE scores;
• Undergraduate GPA and accomplishments;
• Likelihood of the candidate and project to help advance the program and promote mutual understanding among nations;
• Proof of written and spoken English;
• Proposed plan of study which is identified by your SOP (Statement of Purpose also known as personal statement)

Writing your Fulbright Personal Statement

The statement of purpose is a one-page essay that describes your professional history and intellectual background relative to the goal and objectives of Fulbright scholarship. Its purpose is first to give a picture of you as the type of individual whom the Fulbright would wish to recommend and would like to invite. As usual, the personal statement is your opportunity to discuss personal motivations, your experience and activities, and future goals. Though your examples should still be concrete, you have the room to reveal your personality—indeed many applicants view this as their chance to let the selectors know them as individually as possible, and they use lightly entertaining anecdotes to set themselves apart from other candidates. In plain terms, the goal is to write an essay that no other person could have written.

As you begin to write the Personal Statement, ask yourself the following questions:

• Why are you passionate to do a graduate degree in your chosen program?
• How have your past challenges prepared you for a graduate program?
• What will you do on returning to Pakistan?
• How would you contribute to the economy of society in Pakistan?

Give the Fulbright committee your complete picture. Avoid general statements and be specific. Show them by using examples and your past experiences what you have done and what qualities you have. For example, You are interested in the teaching bilingual education, and to achieve that you volunteered with SOS village during summer break and helped children learn a couple of languages.

Be clear in explaining who you are, what is important to you, and what you wish to become. Mention career plans subsequent to the completion of the program and how Pakistan will benefit from you. Be sincere in explaining your 5 year plans and your commitment to Pakistan - think of it as a means to contributing to our country.

In writing the statement of Fulbright, begin by making sure not to repeat material from other parts of the application unnecessarily, and present detail tailored as much as possible to the U.S. and how would you contribute to Pakistan upon your return. If you can show that you have performed research on (or, better yet, in) the U.S. already and have made contacts with potential supervisors, you increase your odds of success dramatically.

The Fulbright website cautions writers against the use of discipline-specific jargon, and a good rule of thumb is to define any jargon that you do use in context, keeping the focus of your statement of grant purpose on addressing problems that will provide valuable contributions to society and within your field.

Also, practicality and feasibility are principal concerns, so the best applicants provide a timeline, discuss their methodology and goals, and analyze such variables. Finally, of course, you must demonstrate as necessary your linguistic ability as it applies to the country and your proposed plan, especially if your primary goal is a teaching assistantship.

Good Luck!

Hey, thanks for the information!

I am hoping to apply for Fulbright this year but a bit reluctant to do so because I don't have any research papers or publications yet!
Do I have a chance at Fulbright without them?

mr omer kindly tell me whether it is necessary for a person having graduate degree to submit the written statement as he wants to do masters or it is just for those seeking a phd degree?secondly kindly post the link by which the related information can be read regarding these scholarsips?

Hello Irene, Publications and papers are a huge plus point for applying to FB....I would say that if there is a chance for you to get a few published then wait till next year - more or less i have seen applicants with publications get FB conveniently. it is a strong indicator of how competent and focused a candidate is. Good luck!

__________________
Talha Omer

@silverheart: A personal statement is a compulsory requirement for all applicants to FB: Phd or not. Moreover personal statement is the MOST important part of your application therefore please strive to spend more time on it and make it really good.

For the link your requested please go here: http://www.brightlinkprep.com/blog/f...ship-pakistan/

__________________
Talha Omer

Who is the Fulbright scholarship program for and who can apply?

The FB program awards scholarships on merit to Pakistani citizens for study toward a master's or Ph.D. degree at a US university beginning in August of 2014.

Applicants must be citizens of Pakistan who permanently reside in Pakistan. Persons who have a completed 16 years of formal education to be eligible to apply for a Master's; those with 18 years of formal education can apply for the Ph.D. All disciplines except for clinical medicine are eligible to apply.

Applicants are especially encouraged in the fields of agriculture, water and energy. Women, minorities, people with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds are also especially encouraged to apply.

Because one of the major goals of Fulbright programs is to promote mutual understanding between the people of the United States and Pakistan, in addition to academic work, persons selected for Fulbright programs are expected to share information about Pakistani life and culture with their U.S. colleagues and with community groups in the U.S. On returning to Pakistan, Fulbright grantees are expected to share their U.S. experiences with colleagues and community groups in Pakistan.

All Pakistanis selected for Fulbright awards are obliged to return to Pakistan within 30 days of completing their programs and to serve a residency requirement (a minimum of two years).

Courtesy: http://www.usefpakistan.org/

Best,

Talha

__________________
Talha Omer

Fulbright is the flagship scholarship program of the U.S. Department of State. Fulbright Awards are offered in 151 countries in the world. Pakistan is able to have the world's largest Fulbright program due to generous funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The grant funds tuition, textbooks, airfare, a living stipend, and health insurance. In fact a lot of students who go on FB to U.S. return to Pakistan with more than 10,000 dollars in savings....

__________________
Talha Omer

Fulbright is the flagship scholarship program of the U.S. Department of State. Fulbright Awards are offered in 151 countries in the world. Pakistan is able to have the world's largest Fulbright program due to generous funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The grant funds tuition, textbooks, airfare, a living stipend, and health insurance. In fact a lot of students who go on FB to U.S. return to Pakistan with more than 10,000 dollars in savings....

__________________
Talha Omer

The GRE is an important tool enabling Fulbright committee to compare applicants coming from diverse backgrounds, academic disciplines, and geographic regions.

The minimum requirement is 135 out of 170 (300 on the old version) on each section of GRE. The GRE scores are required for placement at a U.S. university.

However, different disciplines have different GRE score requirements. For examples, English literature will not require a high score in the quantitative section and engineering fields may not require a high score in the verbal. Economics might require good scores in both sections.

Moreover, it is understood that students coming from elite schools may have an advantage in the verbal portion of the GRE and such factors are taken into account in determining merit.

Although this is a difficult question to answer directly, but if you want to feel safe i wuld say anything above 155 on quant and 150 on verbal is considered competitive.

Good Luck!

__________________
Talha Omer

Your statement of of purpose or study objectives provides you with the opportunity to explain what kind of study/research you wish to pursue in the U.S. and why.

Do not mention specific universities at which you would like to study in your statement of study objectives. Your statement must be clear, concise and detailed. Without a clear understanding of your study objectives, your application may not pass to the next stage of the selection process or may be misunderstood by universities in the U.S.

The Personal Statement is a very important part of the application. It is used not only in the selection process for the Fulbright scholarship but also by universities in deciding whether or not to admit an applicant.

American students spend a great deal of time perfecting their statement of purpose as well as their study objectives and you will ultimately be competing against them for placement in a U.S. university.

__________________
Talha Omer