I was something of a mathematical prodigy as a child in China and won several awards at provincial and national levels. Initially I decided that, as I was so good at math, I would study it and make a career in that field. However an interest in geoscience began to develop about the time that I had to make a choice of undergraduate major and so I came to study Geomatics Engineering for my bachelor degree. To be frank, I was slightly disappointed with my undergraduate program as there was an emphasis on traditional land surveying and photogrammetry. However I was awarded a good degree and regard my undergraduate experiences in a very positive way otherwise. I came to the US at the age of 23 and successfully pursued a Master’s in Geography, awarded in 2010, while holding a number of jobs in the field of GIS. During my studies in XXXX, I met my husband, who was pursuing a Ph.D. in Geology. He fired a latent interest in the subject that resulted in some private reading and an appreciation that increased knowledge of this specialty would assist me in my work. I eventually decided that pursuing a degree in the subject made sense from several angles: I am very interested in geology; my background in geoscience has provided a good foundation for its study and, finally, the formal study of the subject will enhance my utility in the petroleum industry. My choice of this program, beyond the relevance of the content to my work in the petroleum industry, is made mainly because it is aimed at the working professional. I know that this will make demands in terms of time and effort that not everyone would be able to fulfill. However I have previous experience of successfully combing work and study and I know that I can meet the demands that will be made in terms of time and effort. I am particularly interested in assisting in research in the area of reservoir modeling during the program. My first job was as a research assistant and I have an understanding of research techniques which I look forward to applying in the program. My professional life has provided many useful lessons and I see every project and job as a stepping stone in advancing my knowledge and skills with the aim of becoming an acknowledged expert in my field of work. The most important lessons have been the importance of building and maintaining effective teams in an area of work in which little can happen without the collaboration of many different experts. I have happily studied, worked and socialized with people from many social and cultural backgrounds and look forward to widening this experience in the program. I also feel that I will be able to ‘add value’ to my class with the insights, skills and knowledge that I have acquired to date. I also look forward to benefitting from the knowledge and skills of a varied class of fellow students. I know that the program will attract many well qualified applicants; however I feel that I am an exceptional candidate. I have an excellent academic record and significant professional and research experience in closely related fields and I am familiar with the demands of combining work and study; but my main recommendation is a passionate interest in the subject that I greatly look forward to pursuing within the program.

I hold a bachelor degree in Statistics and Computing and a Master’s in Information Systems. My goal now is to pursue a Ph.D. with the ultimate aim of becoming a teacher and researcher and at the University of Najran in my home country of Saudi Arabia, where I studied for my bachelor degree. I possessed boundless curiosity as a child about machines of all kinds and used to amuse and sometimes exasperate my father with questions about how things worked and how they might be improved or put to new uses. Before I had ever used a computer, my father decided that this was a field in which my curiosity could find a useful and profitable outlet and bought me a PC. ‘Love’ might be too strong a word for my feelings for a mere machine but I was immediately intrigued, I quickly discovered how it worked and, to my joy, that the potential applications were almost endless. I am still filled with that first enthusiasm and in seeking new ways of using technology to get relevant information into appropriate hands in more and more efficient and focused ways. I am very interested in applications related to the provision of health services especially to rural and impoverished communities and would be particularly interested in pursuing research in this area of work. Naturally I seek to ‘make a living’, and a hopefully a good one, but I also long to make a positive difference in the world and to acquire the skills and knowledge that will enable me to do so for the general good. I know that not everyone is a fit candidate for a Ph.D. program and have carefully considered my own suitability. I am aware that such a program calls for boundless enthusiasm for the subject and I can certainly offer that. Relevant knowledge and academic skills of a high order are also called for and I believe that the work undertaken and results obtained in my Master’s degree program provide both a good foundation for this program and a positive indication of my further academic potential. I undertook useful research during my Master’s degree studies and my deep interest in research is, of course, one of the main reasons for this application. I am aware that the best researchers commonly possess certain characteristics and I believe that I have or can develop these. I am, by nature, very curious and enjoy being presented with new problems calling for innovative thinking and in providing efficient and elegant solutions. I am a patient yet determined person who does not give up easily. I am aware of the temptation in research to prove a hypothesis rather than to test it thoroughly and dispassionately and I believe that I possess the objectivity to avoid this trap. I have acquired teaching experience in my professional life as a manager. I have been called upon to train junior staff both singly and in groups and thoroughly enjoy sharing my knowledge, skills and enthusiasm with others. I have gained great satisfaction from this area of my work and the feedback from my trainees has been uniformly positive. I feel that I have the potential to make a good teacher and look forward very much to acquiring further skills in this art during the program. My professional experience has provided me with skills and knowledge that can be usefully applied in the program. I know something of the world of work outside of academia which is vital to someone seeking to solve real and pressing practical problems. I have learned much about effective management. Among the most important lessons learned have been those related to effective decision making, efficient allocation of time and resources and team building skills. I believe that this professional exposure will enable me to provide useful insights to the academic community that I hope to join. I am fluent in Arabic and English. I have travelled widely both in the US and in the Arab states and I hope to travel more widely in the future. I have happily studied, worked and socialized with people of many different cultural and social backgrounds and look forward to extending this experience within the program. I have carefully researched the programs available to me and regard your own as the best fit to enable me to achieve my goals because of its focus on research and teaching. Colleagues and friends have also recommended the university as one that provides an excellent academic environment that is both highly challenging and supportive. I know that the program attracts many well qualified applicants. However I regard myself as an excellent candidate who can bring a highly relevant academic and practical background but, most importantly, a genuine passion for the subject and a determination to learn as much as possible and to apply and pass on that learning for the general good.

I am a graduate student at XXU and will finish my Master’s Degree in Mathematics in May of 2012. I am devoted to the idea of pursuing a lifetime career in statistics and hope to be accepted to the PHD Program in Statistics at the University of XXXX. With my undergraduate degree in economics, further studies on a graduate level in preparation for our program, and my professional experience to date, I feel that I have an excellent foundation for pursuing a doctoral degree in Statistics. My long-term goal is to be able to use statistical models to solve problems arising in fields ranging from biology to physics and computer science, and UXX is especially appealing to me because of its reputation in these fields. My dedication to the field of statistics was confirmed by a course in econometrics. I particularly enjoy using data to better understand the world around us, to see the connections and patterns in research results, and I love the thrill of arriving at counterintuitive conclusions through logical deduction. My senior thesis, an empirical investigation of the effects of intellectual property rights on development, helped me to arrive at a much better understanding of controversial trade issues, using regression techniques such as three-stage least squares, seemingly unrelated regressions, and sample splitting and threshold regressions. Upon completion of my undergraduate studies, I began working as a Business Operations Analyst, using large-scale data analysis projects in Excel, and working with teams of colleagues, streamlining budgets to improve processes for presentation to investors. I also began taking part-time courses at Brooklyn College in Linear Algebra and Ordinary Differential Equations in preparation for my Master’s Program at NYU. As a graduate student, I have developed a solid foundation in basic probability, Monte-Carlo methods and stochastic processes. I have a well developed understanding of both computational and theoretical aspects of linear algebra and the implications of the Central Limit Theorem. And I have developed a keen interest in data mining with the integration of different areas of mathematics into our quest for more powerful statistical tools and models. Most recently, I have begun working on a thesis investigating non-equilibrium fluctuations in simple particle models of diffusion, using a variety of applications of numerical methods for solving differential equations and programming in Fortran. I have also been serving as an instructional assistant for an undergraduate course called “Probability, Statistics and Decision Making” as well as grading for an undergraduate calculus based course in probability. These experiences have helped me to more fully appreciate how much I look forward to a career as a university professor. I believe I am a good match for the Statistics Program at UXX because of my shared interest with faculty members, especially data mining and component analysis (PCA); I have been especially intrigued with applications to machine learning in this area since attending a seminar on the subject. In my “Scientific Computing” class, I got the opportunity to explore PCA more in depth for a project in image compression and lately I have also become interested in high-dimensional data analysis and low rank matrix completion. It would be a special privilege for me to conduct research in this area under the supervision of Professor XXXX. I have learned some especially fascinating uses of Monte Carlo methods in statistical mechanics through my research for my thesis and I would be interested to pursue further research in this area under Professor XXXX. Finally, Professor XXXXa’s work on Large Deviation theory has also piqued my interest. Holding onto a job while pursuing my education, has greatly enhanced my time and performance management. In my first semester as a part-time student at XXXX, for example, I worked over sixty hours a week. The fact that my performance in courses gradually improved over the time is a testament to my high level of dedication, perseverance, and organizational skills. I am determined to achieve my career goal through pursuing my PhD degree at a top university and will be eagerly awaiting a response.

I am a 32-year-old Saudi Arabian man. I live in Jeddah which, after the capital, Riyadh, is Saudi Arabia’s number one city in terms of economic development. I look forward to having a full participation in the information needs and directions of that development. I have identified Management Information Systems as the area in which I would most like to focus my endeavors in an academic program, because I feel strongly that this would be the most effective way for me to contribute to the future well-being of Saudi society. I currently live in Miami, Florida and I am attending a GMAT preparation course at the Kaplan International Center. I hold the BSc in Management Information Systems (2005), from XXXX University in Jeddah Saudi Arabia, and the MSc Degree (2008) in Knowledge and Information Systems Management from the University of XXXXin the UK. I now want very much to embark on a PHD program in information systems and I especially appreciate the way that your program focuses on practice as well as the theory, and integrates technological, managerial and social aspects of the subject into your curricula. I keenly look forward to using the excellent tools that you will provide me with in order to engage in research into the information challenges facing Saudi Arabia in the future. I am a very hard worker and thoroughly committed to giving my all to my studies so that I will be able to produce a lifetime of excellent research work and publication. As a Saudi Arabian, I look forward to contributing to the diversity of your program. I am currently employed at XXXX University as a Teaching Assistant. I love teaching and the independent effort required for teaching excellence. I have been granted a full scholarship award to study towards the PHD abroad. My long term goal is to become a full professor at my university with a proven track record of publication in professional journals in both English and Arabic. I look forward to decades of dynamic teaching experiences, especially graduate students, supervising their research projects. I also want to continue to nurture my own business interests, helping businesses to attain seamless technological support that is tailored to their specific development needs. I want to do more than provide technical solutions; I also want to educate business people about technology so that they can use it more effectively, establishing long term partnerships. I worked full time on several projects before I was selected to teach at the university. I was Network and Systems Administrators at an IT department which I used to deal with many technical and advanced equipments from network components to sophisticated servers and applications. I have earned the Microsoft Certified System Administrator MCSA and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library certificates. I spent hard time self studying and reading technical materials and books in order to be forehead in terms of technology. I deal with products from pioneer companies such as IBM, HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Linux, McAfee and DELL. I especially appreciate the opportunity to work with groups as well as individually. I am always very focused on my goals and I have excellent organizational skills. I am open minded, thrive on challenges and I am a quick learner who does especially well under stress. In my spare time I like to watch movies, read, and do some light sports. I also like diving and swimming. I play volleyball and table tennis from time to time. I feel strongly that the greatest contribution that I might be able to make to society would be to assist students in my field to engage in increasingly creative research. I want to become a master of my field who is constantly on the lookout for new avenues of academic inquiry. Studying for two years in United Kingdom greatly enhanced my multicultural perspective and ethic; it was a great privilege to study British culture as well as technology. I moved to the US because I want to explore a different teaching school in order to rich my experience in teaching and researching. I find Floridian culture to be a delight and I have been learning some Spanish and exploring local customs, traveling around the state to Orlando, Gainesville, Palm Beach, fort Lauderdale, Key west and Tampa. I find people to be very open and friendly. In particular, I have enjoyed studying at the Kaplan Center where I have been getting to know people from all around the world. I look forward to increasing my awareness as a global citizen in your program and further prepare myself for working to further open up Saudi society to the vast opportunities represented by information technology and the appreciation of multicultural diversity. I want very much to peruse the PHD at UXXX. I thank you for considering my application.

I am a United States soldier originally from Cape Verde. I am especially interested in undertaking graduate study because I would love the opportunity to devote myself professionally to research in geographic information systems. I am particularly intrigued with the prospect of using GIS in order to determine the optimal locations for major key infrastructures in the Developing World. I am not exactly sure why I find myself so keenly attracted to spatial analysis but it is my favorite avenue of inquiry. I am concerned with what happens where in real time (from a physical and human perspective), and how that information can be converted into geographic information that links features and phenomena in such a way as to help with making sound territorial/spacial decisions. My heart is in Cape Verde and I hope to return there after completing your program. Cape Verde will be the focal point of my ongoing investigations into GIS as well as the community in which I hope to teach and stimulate economic development through increased technological advancement. I am currently serving in the US Military until 2014, when I will once again be able to give top priority to my education. I want to earn this certificate because I am truly passionate about making a difference in the quality of people’s lives and contributing to a less evasive use of our spacial resources. Someday, I hope to teach students in Cape Verde how to use innovative and productive tools such as Arc View, Arc GIS, Arc Editor, ERDAS etc., to help in making the kinds of territorial decisions that drastically improve the quality of life for people in the underdeveloped world.

A professional journalist from Pakistan, now 38 years old and the father of two children, I am making Canada my permanent home—in fact, my wife and children are already there getting settled in and building our new life. I am still in Prague running a bi-weekly talk show for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I look forward to a complete immersion in your program into a critical analysis of the blood and treasure that Canada has spent since 911 in ‘my’ part of the world, Pakistan and most particularly Afghanistan, countries that I know extremely well for having worked as a journalist for years covering events on the ground. An ethnic Turkmen, I was born in Pakistan near the Afghan border. My languages skills are perhaps my greatest gift since, in addition to my native languages of Urdu, Uzbek, and Pashto, I am also fluent in Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, Punjabi, and English, more recently achieving fluency in the Russian and Czech languages. Earning my PHD in your distinguished program at the Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the U of XXXX represents a change of focus that is complimentary to my desire to build a stable, permanent home for my family. I seek to travel less and to read more, move from the fields of journalism to security and to eventually earn my living as a thinker, researcher, and perhaps eventually as a teacher, making my living either in academia or working for a think tank. I would also be very much honored to serve the Canadian Ministries of Foreign affairs or Security at some point in time. I want to give all of my energy to the study and debate of Canadian security, especially with respect to policy directions for the future and particularly with respect to the Middle East and Central Asia. Canada is increasingly playing an international role in fast moving political events surrounding the West’s war on terror. Recent Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, have increasingly threatened to draw Canada into the fray, especially in Afghanistan, the center of my research focus. I was one of the first journalists to enter Kabul in early 2002, when the Taliban regime was still in power in many parts of the country and the first to report the capture of John Walker Lindh, the first known American fighter among the Taliban forces. I quickly set up a news bureau for my employer at the time, the Turkish Television news agency (IHA) in Kabul in at the beginning of 2002. By that November, I found myself working as the Senior Broadcaster and Editor for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty based in Praque, Czech Republic. Still here to this day, I plan and editorial agendas; observing and reporting on daily events with a focus on Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, and global developments relevant to the region. I produce and broadcaste news stories and media packages, host feature programs, and moderate radio talk shows. I also direct approximately 12 field reporters. Since 2002, I have returned to Afghanistan on numerous occasions in my role as a journalist. Most recently I launched a bi-weekly English language radio talk show in RFE/RL, focusing on the deteriorating security situation in northern Afghanistan and its implications for regional security, including poorly guarded Central Asia. I am most fascinated by the idea of writing a doctoral dissertation that compares the roles of Germany and Canada in Afghanistan over the last 13 years. This subject is especially intriguing for policy makers since it was the first German military combat deployment since World War II. I hope to research in-depth the reasons behind what was largely a Canadian success at turning a most volatile province into a relatively peaceful region while the German presence generated the opposite effect, turning a relatively peaceful region into a very violent one. I see the impressions of local people about the legacies of these respective military adventures to be particularly intriguing. The rapidly deteriorating security situation in northern Afghanistan and its potential security implications for its immediate neighbors, is expected to raise many questions about the legacy of the German troops, I am very confident that this paper will create bases for any future discussions on this matter. After thirteen years of military operations, the thirty-nation combat coalition forces are winding down their presence in Afghanistan by end of 2014. After losses of some 3500 coalition military personnel and nearly 11,000 Afghan soldiers, and the country remaining unstable, there are mixed feelings about the outcome. Among the coalition nations was the Germany, which joined the alliance initially sending some 5,350 troops to Afghanistan in the country’s first overseas combat military deployment since WWII with the clearly defined purpose of engaging solely in a peacekeeping mission. Germany was the third largest contributor to the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, and the country’s soldiers were assigned the regional command in relatively peaceful northern Afghanistan, and stationed at a major military base in Kunduz province. Though they entered as peacekeepers, when they handed over the base in October 2013 to Afghan troops, 57 German soldiers had been killed and 245 injured, the German troops were no longer peacekeepers, and the Kunduz was no longer a peaceful place. On the top of that, throughout the deployment, each German casualty led to a major controversy back home, so did the Afghan casualties at the hands of German troops. While the first ever such overseas deployment of German troops remained an unpopular move in Germany, today five out of six districts in Taliban control, the German controlled Kunduz province is the most dangerous place in Afghanistan. The security developments as such that the authorities in neighboring Afghan provinces and countries (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) are expressing concern about the fact that the province is increasingly turning into a launching pad for the Taliban in their further advances. At a time when the Taliban are not able to hold even one village in the movement’s birthplace of Kandahar, their unchallenged authority in Kunduz raises many questions about the performance of German troops and the ability of German-trained Afghan forces. Among those questions, how could the Taliban change the ground realities so quickly in Kunduz, even without direct geographical connection to its natural supporters in southern Afghanistan or the tribal region of Pakistan? Why has the non-Pashtun local population aligned themselves with the dominantly Pashtun Taliban? What is the local population’s perception of German mission and what legacy did they leave behind in areas of operation? There are some non-academic journalistic work available highlighting the German perspective of the subject, but I want to examine the legacy of the mission from the local’s perspective, so that the paper contributes better understanding of what really went wrong with the first-ever overseas German combat mission since World War II. I believe, I am in a perfect position to handle the subject. I have family roots in Kunduz province, an advantage that will allow me to go back and conduct field research. Additionally in my professional life as a journalist I have reported extensively about northern Afghanistan over the past 18 years. During my trip to Kunduz province in September 2010, I was the first, in my reporting, to shed light on reason behind recent advance of the Taliban and elements helping their advance in the province. During that trip I spent time with a village militia, who picked up arms to defend themselves in absence of help from German troops and their Afghan allies. My report was the first to reveal the local militia and their role in preventing the Taliban’s advance in the province. The report later added significant value to an existing discussion about creating similar local community forces to prevent the Taliban’s advance. Among several others, I was invited to discuss my findings at the Annual International terrorism Conference held in National Press Club in Washington DC on December 10, 2010. My thesis reflecting the local perspective on 13 years of Canada’s military engagement in Afghanistan, will be a unique paper, which I believe will help Canadians to understand it’s legacy and outcome of billions of financial investment and human sacrifices in Afghanistan. I believe, there is few people if any, with my qualification to shed light on this subject. Further, as a Canadian resident, I aim to remain in Canada after my graduation and continue to make my contribution to Canada’s growing community of foreign policy analysts.

Letter of Reference for MBA Program To whom it may concern, I am proud to recommend Miss. XXXX as a candidate for the Master of Finance Program at Queen’s University. Miss XXXX joined us at XXXX Group Corporation in July of this year as Vice President of our Financial Investment Department. But I have known XXXX for about three years, back when she was working for an investment firm in Shanghai. She was an associate and worked as a liaison for a project proposed as a collaborative effort between my company and her boss at that time. I was most impressed by XXXX’s thorough investigation, elaborative report and innovative ways of presenting her ideas. I have stayed in contact with her ever since and have had the privilege of watching her grow professionally, being promoted from an Associate to Regional Director in the space of only two years as a result of her continuous effort and rapid learning abilities. She would visit a different target company in a different city almost every week. I was not surprised to hear that she interviewed more than 200 entrepreneurs over the course of her three years in that position. When she told me that she was immigrating to Canada, I recruited her immediately. I am pleased to say that she has matured into a very thoughtful manager, independent, creative, and capable of drawing upon the resources of a broad network of colleagues. I especially appreciate her communication skills and power of persuasion. She helps us to build and maintain a excellent relationships with both Canadian and Chinese clients. XXXX is an accomplished professional who excels at her work, especially inter-company project management and consulting for company strategies. When she first joined us, she was still a bit nervous but soon hit her stride. Our company is currently raising a fund for investments in elder care facilities. I may appoint Min to be the fund manager. I believe strongly that with additional training in research and the rigorous, systematic learning of an MBA program such as yours, that she will be able to handle formidable challenges in the future. She tells me that, among all the MBA programs in Toronto, your Program at XXXX University has the curriculum that is the best fit for her interests. Attending your program will give her the opportunity to explore global business opportunities, learning valuable tools and strategies through discussions with classmates from all over the world. XXXX is very open-minded to new ideas, and she has had many valuable, even unique life experiences, despite the fact that she is still only at the beginning of her career. We have discussed at length numerous issues involving current financial markets and I find her grasp of the major issues to be outstanding. Thus, I am most confident that she would excel in your esteemed program. Please email me when you need more information. Best regards, XXXX

I am the culmination of many victories and great challenges along the way, growing up on the south side of Chicago. The perils of our neighborhood plight—violence, prostitution, and debilitating poverty—are vivid in my memory. Thus, I sought escape, salvation, from a world beyond my reality, in books. My love for reading began and even continues with my mother reading to me at times; she has done this ever since I was a baby. This helped my reading skills to flourish early on so that I was reading at a Junior High level while still in Grade School. I also spent a lot of time making the track team. Running was an escape valve for my problems, especially my mother´s refusal to denounce and report my father´s violence, for so many years. It seems perfectly clear that my first interest in becoming a lawyer was in response to my desperation as a victim of domestic violence. Where my mother has been the victim I have been the victim. And I always wanted to fight back. Still do. I want to struggle to strengthen laws that serve to protect women and their children from domestic violence. It was not until my college years that my mother finally divorced my father and transitioned to a new life, with my three younger siblings, an uneducated single mother lacking a work history. Yet my mother is a survivor and she inspired me to complete college; thus making me the first college graduate in my family. My accomplishment has even helped to inspire my mother´s return to college to complete her Education Degree. My childhood taught me many lessons but the most profound lesson of all is never to give up on one´s situation no matter how hopeless it may seem. In my senior year of high-school, a history teacher further inspired my interest in law and Politics: his engaging method of teaching offered me a different paradigm for how to view the world and the impact that politics and laws had on my mundane life. I finally felt assured that I could make a difference in this world. Thus, in college, I studied Political Science and volunteered with the Rape Action Committee at Southern Illinois University. In my Senior year I received an opportunity to study abroad in Ghana. This adventure has afforded me with a broader perspective on human nature as well as politics, allowing me to re-establish the borders of my own identity and culture. I completely immersed myself for a sustained period in African culture; a part of me that I regard as my greatest treasure. ´African´ American has taken on new meaning, flavor. As I listened to the women in the refugee camp tell us about their daily lives I inquired into the protection of women’s rights. I was surprised to learn that laws prohibiting the sexual and physical abuse of women where either non-existent or not enforced. I was enraged and wanted to help them. And I intend to do so after graduating from Law School. I want to protect African women from rape, and help those who have been raped to recover, not only justice, but their soul as well. I look forward to bringing my diverse background to your program, along with my advanced communication skills and highest ambitions as a law school student dedicated to the protection of human rights. I feel strongly that I have the right level of maturity at 25 to excel in Law School and I plan to devote myself full time to my studies, confident that I have the strength and tenacity to do excel in your program.

Your world-class LLM Program in Corporate Governance & Practice at XXXX University is my first choice for further graduate study not only because of the prestige of your program, but primarily because I feel that I am the best fit for your program given my interests and experience. I seek a thoroughgoing immersion in the study of corporate governance and transactional legal practice, especially in the international arena. As an attorney from the Ukraine who has also completed a Master’s Degree in Law in the UK, I look forward to contributing to the diversity of your program at XXXX and contribute to ongoing discussions concerning the crises in my country and its impact not only on Europe but the USA as well. Earning my LLM in England taught me a great deal about the UK and also the European Union. It is my hope that earning my second LLM in the USA will teach me even more about the USA. I seek to deepen my knowledge of common law, in particular, as well as trust law in the US and its commercial application in the areas of banking and capital markets. I received some basic background in this field while studying in London; however, I would like to continue my research so that I can use findings and knowledge to help Ukraine reform its banking system Although I have a stable and well paying job, working for a bank which belongs to a well-known Swedish group SEB, I want to continue setting new goals and working towards achieving them. Currently there are few appropriate work opportunities in the Ukraine which would meet my career aspirations and would allow me to continue develop professionally. Partly, this situation is due to the anti-terrorist operation ongoing in eastern Ukraine which has resulted from Russia invading our territory; but it is also consequence of a rampant corruption underpinning our society in general. Almost every company (with the rare exception of a few foreign businesses) shows very little sense of corporate responsibility and many workers are treated in most unfair and inhumane ways. I observed first-hand how often people were promoted not for their good performance at work, but for some sort of personal connections or their willingness to bend moral and ethical principles to make a good impression on the boss. I do not feel comfortable in such conditions of employment. I really enjoyed studying in London and would really enjoy continuing my education in the US. I want to use this time of uncertainty and turmoil in my home country to continue to grow intellectually and to work to build solidarity with my besieged country abroad at the same time that I continue to enhance my qualifications and competitiveness in law, so as to return at some point with the tools that I need to fight corruption and to work to preserve Ukraine’s financial integrity. I feel that I have some valuable things to share in your program in light of my background in banking law in Ukraine and the professional skills that I have developed so far. I believe that this is a good time for me to pursue the opportunity of studying in the US. Acceptance to XXXX’s law school would allow me achieve several of my central career goals. I want to be able to make a difference in the world. Currently, I'm helping needy and poor people, as well as some orphans. I haven't decided yet whether I will stay in the US or go back to Ukraine after I have completed my studies. To a great extent, it will depend on the political situation in my country. In addition, it is unclear whether recent moves of our new government will produce any tangible results with respect to resolving the crises and protecting the security of our people. In any case, I will continue helping vulnerable members of the Ukrainian society. I feel that I want to be able to help my country more by becoming as well educated as I can, maybe someday I will be in a better position to improve people's lives there. It may be possible to better effect progressive social change and respect for human rights from outside my country than within. I seek to acquire an extensive knowledge of US laws, particularly with respect to capital markets. I have about 10 years of experience in the field of banking and finance so I am well aware of the underdevelopment of these sectors in Ukraine. The major part of our legal system has been either inherited from the Soviet times or is generally outdated and does not correspond to modern banking practices, allowing banks to go bankrupt, with corrupt banking officials stealing the life savings of many thousands of people and transferring the money overseas. After the Maidan revolution last winter, some of such fraudulent schemes involving the former President and his “family” were revealed. I have even become victim myself of bank fraud.Currently, the bank is under temporary administration, with thousands of depositors—myself included—left with little hope of recovering their funds. Thus, I take this quite personally. Our banking system requires an enhanced asset protection mechanism that would allow assets to be traced after they have been misappropriated and squandered by the bank’s managers or owners. In my opinion, the whole bulk of regulation governing US and English trusts may be applicable to the Ukrainian legal system. Thus, I look forward to completing my LLM Degree at XXXX so as to learn how to make my maximum contribution to fighting bank fraud in the Ukraine. I thank you for considering my application to XXXX.

From my earliest years I loved puzzles and games involving the application of logic. It was a delight, at school, to discover that my skills had an application in computing. From my first lesson in the subject, I was ‘hooked’, it was work but it was also fun, an elusive combination to many in the world. I feel extremely fortunate to be in a position to be submitting this application to undertake further study in a subject that I love and that has the potential to do so much good in the world. My goals are to complete a Ph.D. at XXXX and then to become a successful researcher and university teacher in Saudi Arabia, discovering new applications for technology and sharing my enthusiasm for my subject with new generations of students. My mother never learnt to read but she was very intelligent and so I knew from an early age that some people do not fulfill their potential merely because they are not offered the opportunity to learn. With this fact in mind, I set up a computer lab called Hawaiian Hope for use by homeless people as an elective project towards my Master’s degree. I designed and built the lab, installed the computers and defined its policies. I was sure that some of the clients would discover a love of, and facility for, technology; develop marketable skills and go on to change their self image and their lives, and, to my great joy, this has been the case. No matter how far I go in life, little will compare with the satisfaction that this project has given me. My father had a small farm in Saudi Arabia and, because of this, he was keen for me to study an agricultural subject and so, as a dutiful son, my bachelor degree was in Agricultural Economics. However I was always determined to pursue a future in technology and was eventually the proud and grateful recipient of a highly competitive scholarship from the Saudi Arabian government that enabled me to study English and to pursue a Master’s in Information Systems at XXXX University. I thoroughly enjoyed the Master’s program in Hawaii and excelled within it, obtaining straight A’s in my last semester of the program. My passion for IST arises because it is a subject in which my characteristics and natural skills find their most useful application. My success within the Master’s program will attest to the fact that I possess a high order of analytical skills, highly developed intellectual curiosity together with the intelligence and diligence that will enable me to profit from a doctoral program and to enhance the prestigious reputation of the University. I am particularly interested in undertaking research that will enable the disabled to lead fuller lives and specifically in the areas of intelligent systems and e-health. The availability of research labs in my areas of particular interest initially attracted me to XXXX. However I am also attracted by what I have read of the excellence of the faculty, the diversity of the student body, the flexibility of the programs and the university’s reputation for providing challenging and supportive instruction. I have very carefully considered many of the programs available to me and conclude that Claremont’s is by far the best fit for my purposes. Unlike many of those seeking to join a doctoral program, I do have fairly substantial professional experiences that have made me a more rounded individual than I might otherwise have been at this stage in my life. Amongst the most valuable things that I have learned in my working life are: effective team working, leadership, motivation, problem solving and the application of independent action and initiative. I am sure that these skills will have wide application within the program. My business background has also provided a commercial awareness. I know that there is always a ‘bottom line’ and that any effort should result in a worthwhile and measurable result. I can also provide an assurance that I have stayed abreast of developments in IST since concluding my formal studies for my Master’s degree through wide reading and contact with faculty members. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to study in the US and have happily studied, worked and socialized with people of many cultural and social backgrounds during my time here. I am curious about other people’s lives, I love to share information about my own country and culture and look forward to exchanging such information during the program. I get on well with others and have a well developed sense of humor! I know that there will be many well qualified applicants for the doctoral program. However I am an exceptional candidate. My background confirms that I am a diligent, intelligent person with substantial experience of team working and leadership and I excelled in my Master’s degree program in this subject. My main recommendation is a passion for IST and for acquiring the highest level of skills and knowledge in the subject to enable me to improve the lives of many.

I qualified as a dentist in 2009 at the Universidad Europea de Madrid and am currently in my second year of study towards a higher degree in Dentistry. I commenced my career in general dentistry but I have developed a great interest in restorative dentistry and particularly implantology which I see as a particularly exciting field being relatively new and having enormous future potential as new techniques and materials become available. My goal is to complete your prestigious programme to become a leading implant treatment provider and to continue research in this field throughout my career. I am now undertaking research involving the comparison of a conventional impression system and a digital impression system (ITERO). I am greatly enjoying my research work and believe that I have the characteristics of a successful researcher being determined, curious and very hard working. The opportunities to undertake substantial research in the programme together with the exposure to significant clinical work is a major attraction for me. I know that cultural sensitivity and awareness is essential in dental service provision. I am widely traveled in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. I enjoy the exposure to new cultures and hope to extend this experience with fellow students and patients during my future studies. I speak English and French in addition to my mother tongue of Spanish. I know that the programme will attract many well qualified applicants. However I do believe that I am an exceptional candidate. I am well qualified; I have research experience; I have the personal qualities that will enable me to profit from inclusion and to ‘add value’ to my class; my main recommendation is a passionate interest in implantology and a desire to become a world class treatment provider.

Hilda was an indigent patient who spoke only Spanish and so I was called in to translate. The news was bad and it was my duty to deliver the test results and the prognosis to her. Hilda had an inoperative brain malignancy. If the diagnosis had been made earlier, Hilda would almost certainly have survived. I felt helpless but this event fired in me a great wish to help people like Hilda and it turned a career choice into a vocation. As part of my extensive preparation for the PA program, I have undertaken several health- related volunteer activities. One of these activities involved working as Spanish translator at the XXXX Health Clinic in Tampa where I met Hilda. I assisted nurses and physicians in communicating with their patients in order to diagnose, treat and educate them with regard to their illnesses. This was one of the most useful and educative of my volunteer activities. I learned a great deal about effective and sensitive communication with patients and also the great importance of carefully observing non-verbal signals and responding to them. Another part of my preparation, involved shadowing P.A.’s in the areas of Neurology, Dermatology, Internal Medicine and Orthopedics. A particular interest in the Orthopedics specialty was fired when I witnessed the P.A. I was shadowing insert metal rods and screws in a corrective spine procedure for a patient suffering from scoliosis. This was a life changing procedure that was going to bring great and almost immediate benefit to the patient. I have done some research into Sports Medicine and this interests me as a possible specialty in future. In addition to being attracted to orthopedics, I also have an interest in plastic surgery because of a life changing event of my own. As a child I had corrective plastic surgery for a cleft lip which was highly effective and I am greatly drawn to the idea of helping children requiring such surgery and especially those whose parents are unable to afford treatment. My father is a caring and highly effective primary care physician. I was always drawn to a career in healthcare as a result of his influence and have considered the various career paths available in this area. Fortunately, my father had the contacts to enable me to observe and shadow various healthcare professionals and I have concluded that I can best contribute as a P.A. I am attracted to this career path for several reasons, the main one being the fact that so much of the working day is spent directly interacting with, and assisting, patients and the ‘hands on’ nature of so much of the work. I also love the variety in duties coupled with opportunities to specialize at some stage. I have carefully considered the characteristics required to become a highly effective P.A. and believe that I possess them. I am academically able, observant, curious and empathetic. I have good interpersonal skills and, not least, a well developed sense of humor. I am aware of the great importance of cultural sensitivity in the provision of health care. I am fully bilingual in Spanish and English, having a Spanish speaking mother. I have also spent significant periods of time in Colombia, Peru and Costa Rica. In addition, I have happily worked, studied and socialized with people from many cultural and social backgrounds. I am aware that the program will attract many well qualified applicants. However, I do consider myself to be an exceptional candidate; I have an excellent academic record which will provide assurance as to my potential to excel in the program; I hold a bachelor degree in a subject directly relevant to the program; I have carefully prepared myself for the program by a wide variety of volunteer activities; I have thoroughly familiarized myself with the work undertaken by P.A.’s. in various specialties. Most importantly, I offer a passion for healthcare and in giving excellent, caring service to others, especially the medically underserved and indigent.