OK, it seems the prize is really incentive.
In terms of graduate school application, I think the biggest secret is about the reference letter. I think your reference letters are far more important than standardized test scores of GRE, GMAT, or Toefl. The reason is that a reference letter means a connection. If you got a letter from a famous researcher, or from a scholar that your future supervisor knows of, then the letter really makes difference. Unfortunately, many Chinese applicants write reference letters by themselves. To top it off, these letters are not really convincing but full of stereotypical sentences.
So what can we do about it? One suggestion is you woud better try hard to ask for help with reference letters from those professors who had overseas study experiences, especially at the PhD level.
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