好久不写与留学相关的文章了，今天想谈论的话题是“如何填写托福/GRE免费送分学校”。请注意，这篇文章不是教你怎样在ETS或是NEEA的web系统上操作，而是教你怎样选择填写的学校。

首先，陈述一下申请北美研究生的同学多数会遇到的问题，那就是填写的托福/GRE那四所免费送分学校到最后很少有能用上的。当时我填写送分学校的时候试图从网上搜索一些具有指导意义的文章，收获甚少，只好随便填写了CS除四大金刚外的四所名校，最终一所学校都没用上。按照GRE送分$23（2010年新调价）和托福送分￥136来计算，我浪费了大约$23*4 + ￥136*4 = ￥1 172。我相信这对大多数的中国学生来说不是一个小数字。而当弄完申请之后再回过头来考虑这个问题，我有一些自己的想法，虽然没有付诸过实践，但是我相信会有帮助的。

对于一个典型的秋季(FALL)入学申请者，GRE机考安排在入学之前一年的4月，托福安排在入学之前一年的8月，而填写免费送分学校要在这两个时间节点之前。考虑到大多数学生在12月之后才能完成选校的工作，因此，如何能在选校敲定之前几个月的时候就能‘压中’几个月后要申请的学校呢？问题的答案似乎很简单，填自己一定会申请的学校呗。可是，怎样确定“一定会申请的学校”呢？

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• Leave roughly 1/3 of the essay to talk about the future
  In this section you can describe your interests, goals, career plans after graduate school, and why the school you are applying to is a good choice to pursue these interests. If there is a stringent word limit, make sure you include this part, even at the expense of leaving out some of your past. Your history should be reflected elsewhere in the applications, through your recommendations, cv, etc.
• Don’t list experiences and awards
  If awards are listed elsewhere in the application (which they are according to nearly all forms), don’t put them here again! Not only is it a waste of space but it also makes you sound arrogant. If there is something listed on your c.v. that deserves explanation, you can put it in here, but even then it could be better to have a letter writer mention it, if the award is something s/he is familiar with.
• Write for each school
  Your statement should read as though you wrote it specifically for the school to which you are applying. This may mean that you can leave 5 paragraphs the same for each school and change just the 6th for each application. However, sometimes it means tweaking other parts of the essay as well. I did this for 19 schools, and it was definitely worth it! You should definitely mention specific professors you would like to work with. If you do not do this, your application may be missed altogether (one school said they worked this way, even though they didn’t warn applicants ahead of time!) You may even mention how your interests are specifically aligned to work that some of the professors have done. This step should not be hard if you have already done your research on the schools you’re applying to. 阅读更多…