Common Questions on Application Form and Admissions

GPA/percentage/cumulative average

Please check whichever measure is most relevant to you, and then fill in both your score and the base from which it was calculated. Only give information one measure--do not check more than one measure. For example, if your institution uses “Cumulative Average” as its measure for academic achievement and your cumulative average is 8.0/10.0, please check “Cumulative Average”, and then fill in “8.0” on score and “10.0” on base. If your institution does not calculate any of these measures for you, you will have to calculate the average of the final grades of ALL of your coursework, and fill in the relevant information. Please note that if you attend an Assessment Centre, we will ask for copies of your marksheets or transcripts to confirm the score you indicated.

When will I hear back?

You will either be invited to an Assessment Centre or phone interview approximately 3 weeks after you submit your application. Please reach out to us at admissions@teachforindia.org if you have not heard back from us during that time.

Essays:

Essays are your chance to tell Teach For India about yourself in your own words. Please spend time thinking about how you will answer your questions, and learn about Teach For India—by talking to staff members, reading our website, watching our video and reading media articles—before answering the essay questions.

Please ensure that you have checked your essays for spelling and grammar, and answered each question fully. We recommend that you show your essays to someone who can help you proofread to make sure that you submit a polished copy

Saving application changes
The online application is designed to let you complete various sections on your own time before you submit the final version. At the bottom of each Page (1-4) you will see a button that says “Save and proceed.” You must click this button for changes to be saved to your application.

• If you have not filled all required sections on a page, you will get an error message that tells you which required sections you have not completed when you click ‘save and proceed.” Do not worry—your changes have still been saved—but you must fill out these required sections before you can submit the application (Page 5).
• IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you click submit, you will NOT be able to go back and see or alter your application.  For this reason, we recommend that you save information from the application on a Word document for your own reference.

The Admissions team will only review your application once you submit “submit” on
page 5.  They will NOT look at your application while you are still working on it.

What is the Admissions Criteria?

We are looking for people who have demonstrated ambitious results in leadership roles, and have the commitment to take on the challenge of obtaining unprecedented academic goals in low-resource schools.   Most of our current Fellows have held leadership positions in college or at work. Additionally, we are looking for people who have great communication skills and problem solving abilities.

The minimum qualification is a Bachelor's degree, although most of our Fellows have work experience and many have post-graduate degrees as well. Applicants must be fluent in English, as we place solely in English-medium schools, and also should be born on or after 1 January 1970. We accept people of diverse backgrounds, as we truly believe that all types of leaders will be excellent in the classroom.

What is Teach For India’s admissions process?

Teach For India is looking for the country’s best young leaders to tackle the immense problem of educational inequity.  Our admissions process is rigorous and selective at every stage to ensure that our admitted Fellows are up to the challenge of teaching in a low-resourced school for two years.

The first step of the admissions process is an online application. The Fellowship application is now available on our website, visit our Apply Now section. You will be able to access the application at any time using your unique Username (e-mail ID) and password. The application will be open until 9 January, 2011, but we encourage applicants to apply before one of our deadlines: 10 October, 2010 (early), 28 November, 2010 (regular), 9 January, 2011 (final).

After we receive your application, our admissions team will review it and, within 3 weeks of submission, tell you whether you have been selected to attend an Assessment Centre or phone interview. The first set of Assessment Centres will occur during the week of 28 November, 2010 and will occur approximately every eight weeks until mid February, 2010. We will hold Assessment Centres in the following cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta, and New York.

Assessment Centres are the final stage of the admissions process, and our chance to really learn about you and your interest in Teach For India. During the full-day Assessment Centre, applicants will teach a 5-minute lesson, participate in a group discussion, complete a case study, and undergo a one-on-one interview.

Can foreign citizens apply?

Teach For India welcomes applications from Indian citizens and applicants of Indian-origin. Foreign citizens who are not of Indian origin are not eligible to apply. If you are of Indian origin and living overseas, please take note of two important facts. First, we will only hold Assessment Centres in India and, depending on the applicant pool, New York City and London. If invited to an Assessment Center, you will be informed of the exact dates and locations of non-Indian Assessment Centres. People residing outside of those areas will need to travel to an Assessment Centre location. Second, if accepted into the program, non-Indian citizens will need to apply for and receive an OCI (“Overseas Citizen of India”) card, allowing for valid employment in India.

For more information on the OCI card, please go to 
http://mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?id_pk=553. To apply for the OCI card, please go to 
https://passport.gov.in/oci/OnlineOCIRegistrationG.jsp. We recommend applying for the OCI card as soon as you have made the decision to join the Fellowship, as it takes approximately 1-3 months to receive the card.