Planning for your abroad education in the US? You may then very well know how important Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score is. GRE score was usually requested by universities in the U.S prior to enrolling in a Ms degree, but as the pandemic spread, many students could not take the exam, hence many universities waived off the GRE requirement. 

Hitherto getting an unsecured education loan without GRE was not possible, as when it comes to an unsecured education loan for US, for lenders in India especially the Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), GRE is of prime importance. NBFCs have been using GRE as the primary screening factor and they use this to predict applicant's academic standing. That's how NBFCs analyze student's profiles and determine how much of an unsecured education loan a student is worthy of. 

Lately, many students have been facing issues in getting an unsecured education loan without GRE from these lenders as they were not accepting students' applications, or even if they do, students were quoted an increased interest rate by 0.5 to 1% than compared to those who have written GRE and going to the same university for the same course. 

So, in this article, we'll tell you the alternatives available to GRE which you can present to the NBFCs to get an unsecured education loan without GRE with a decent interest rate and term. And how WeMakeScholars, an organization funded and supported by the Ministry of IT Government of India extends its support to students by addressing the issue to these lenders and come up with an initiative which we'll come to later in the article.

You can also watch episode 16 of the LoanFlix series where our co-founder Ms. Damini Mahajan has covered the same topic, for your ease below is the video - 

Pre-sanction letter for I-20

As you may already know that to be eligible for the US visa process, you are required to have obtained the I-20 from the university by showing the proof of funds, indicating you have enough funds to complete your education on your own. 

This proof of funds could be personal financing, scholarships, and education loan. The loan sanction letter is considered as proof of funds and is shown to universities to get i-20. Earlier NBFCs would give students this pre-sanction letter, the amount and the rate of interest were purely based on the GRE score. A student need not require any offer/admission letter from any university to get this pre-sanction letter, unlike the sanction letter which is usually given based on the tuition fee, living expenses mentioned on the offer letter received from the university.

So this pre-sanction letter can be very handy because you can get i-20 from multiple universities by showing the same sanction letter as it does not specify any university name. 

But without GRE, getting one is not possible. Our team at WeMakeScholars is currently working on this through dialogue with the NBFCs like we've solved the issue of discrimination in interest rates for students who have written GRE to those who did not. We will be able to help only those who approach these NBFCs for their education loans through us. 

EliteScholars 

EliteScholars is a community of students going to the top-notch universities in the US for their masters or MBA. This community is actually an initiative of WeMakeScholars. By being a part of this community, based on your profile, you get the best possible education loan for Ms in USA without collateral from Indian lenders, like the highest loan amount at the lowest ROI possible with a bunch of other privileges.

So how does EliteScholars work is by analyzing your profile through using artificial intelligence and machine learning, where it matches your profile with the various credit profiling models of different financial institutions available in the Indian market for the best loan terms and interest rates available and eventually gives you an offer instantly.  

So this is a wonderful initiative and very useful for students going to the top-ranking university in the US but you need to have scored a minimum of 305 in GRE in order to avail the benefits of EliteScholars. 

Now that many universities had waived off the GRE requirement, many students approached us requesting to waive off the GRE requirement for this loan too as EliteScholars had the best offer they were getting. So we had to work with various financial institutes for this and came up with an alternative to GRE which they can accept for an unsecured education loan for students applying through WeMakeScholars. 

Alternate to GRE

So now students qualify for the EliteScholars club even if they do not have a GRE score but they would need to have a minimum of 75% in 12th as well as graduation. This means now students with either a minimum 305 GRE score or a minimum 75% in 12th and graduation are qualified for the EliteScholars club which means students are eligible to get an education loan for Ms in USA without collateral. Students will be able to get an unsecured education loan in the range of 45 lakhs to 75 lakhs with an interest rate of 11 to 11.5%. The processing fee is 0.75 to 1% on the loan amount but the best part is students are required to pay just 2K per month during their moratorium period. 

Apart from the best offer in regards to an education loan, EliteScholars has additional special privileges to offer as well like free US credit card, free travel insurance, free Forex card, free scholarship alerts, and premium EduLoan support. To know more about the EliteScholars club visit the official website which is www.elitescholars.club

Other NBFCs 

Similar to Elitescholars, we've also taken approval from other NBFCs regarding waiving off the GRE score which means the loan term and interest rate will be the same for students with or without GRE. Approval is primarily for 200 top universities in the USA but it can be negotiated for other universities on a case-to-case basis, but for that negotiating power, you will have to apply via WeMakeScholars.

Now if you're going into any one of these top 200 US universities and apply for your education loan from these NBFCs via WeMakeScholars, you'll be able to get an amount ranging from 50 to 60 lakhs of unsecured education loan at an interest rate of 11.25 to 11.75%. The processing fee is 0.8 to 1% on the loan amount whereas it would be a minimum of 1.5% if you decided to go on your own. 

Another advantage of applying to these NBFCs via WeMakeScholars is that even if your financial co-applicant profile is not that strong, it can still be considered for a student loan without GRE. 

So do apply for your loan via WeMakeScholars as we can help you get a student loan without GRE at the best deal possible, or even if you're not going to these top 200 US universities or going to another country altogether, it is still beneficial for you to apply for your loan via us.

Note: WeMakeScholars is an organization funded and supported by the Government of India that focuses on International Education finance. We are associated with 10+ public/Pvt banks/ NBFCs in India and help you get the best abroad education loan matching your profile. As this initiative is under the Digital India campaign, it's free of cost. The organization has vast experience dealing with students going to various abroad education destinations like the US, Canada, UK, Australia , Germany, Sweden, Italy, Newzealand, France among others.