Summer is traditionally the time when Vietnamese twelfth-graders enter their National High School Examination and apply to college. As such, students usually begin considering their options for college by the end of the first semester before finalizing their decisions halfway through their second semester.
Instead of following such timeline, Fulbright University Vietnam opens admissions from the beginning of students’ twelfth-grade school year. This causes some students to miss Fulbright’s application deadline.
Committed to providing students with fair and equal access, Fulbright implemented an additional undergraduate admissions cycle, allowing late-informed students to submit their application without having to wait another year. Consequently, Fulbright organized two admissions cycles this year. The Priority Cycle, opened on September 8, will conclude on December 1, 2019. It will be followed by the Spring Cycle starting from January 15to April 1, 2020.
Which cycle is best suited for you? Some students would rather wait until the Spring Cycle to ensure their applications are polished and perfected before submitting them. And all students are concerned with making the right choices and maximize their chances for admission. To help prospective applicants in their decision making, our admissions team at Fulbright composed a list of three reasons why you should consider applying in the Priority Cycle.
Reason one: two opportunities to be admitted
You usually have only one chance to apply to any university. However, with double the admissions cycles come twice the opportunity. If, for some unfortunate reason, your application does not qualify for the Interview Round, or fails to make the cut at the Interview Round, it will automatically be reassessed during the Spring Cycle alongside new applications.
You are permitted to review, adjust, and add to your initial application to improve its competency. Such revisions must be done by April 2020. By then, students should have more material to tell their stories to Fulbright’s Admissions Board via their personal essays or original pieces of work.
You can also update the transcript for your first semester of twelfth grade to clearly reflect your academic progress as well as improvements in your English proficiency. More importantly, you will have more experience to “fight” better this time around.
Reason two: higher chance to be accepted
Fulbright intends to recruit 130 students for its Class of 2024. Therefore, our Admissions team is likely to accept significantly more applicants during the Priority Cycle than during the Spring Cycle. If you apply during the Priority Cycle, your chance of acceptance will be higher.
Moreover, more time is allotted for the applications in this cycle, allowing you to work on and sharpen them. Ms. Le Thi Quynh Tram, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid advises prospect students to value time as an advantage while completing these applications.
“In this time of the year, while the pressure from the exams hasn’t peaked, you will have time to pay attention to details, down to every word, in your applications, to make sure you can intricately portray who you are as well as your virtues and capabilities to the Admissions Board”, emphasizes Ms. Le Thi Quynh Tram.
Reason three: reduced stress during exams
If your application in the Priority Cycle is successful, you will receive the final offer letter of admission from Fulbright no later than March 2020.
“You will be relieved from all the stress coming from the exams. Fulbright requires that you finish your twelfth-grade curriculum and the National High School Exam; however, you will enter the exam with a much more relaxed mindset. More importantly, you can fully enjoy the last glowing days of your high school life.”
The Priority Cycle offers the tremendous advantage of flexibility, time, and practice. Yet Spring Cycle applicants should not worry: Fulbright is committed to assessing each and every applicant fairly. If you get to know about Fulbright later than others, the Spring Cycle is still your chance to become a “Fulbrighter”that very same year.
