Analytical skills define a person’s ability to collect and analyse data, solve a particular problem, and make decisions on the basis of available information. These strengths not only help students perform well academically, but these are exactly the skills companies look for in a potential candidate. These skills are the determinant of overall productivity and success.

Analytical skills might sound a bit technical, but we all use them on a daily basis while detecting patterns, brainstorming, observing, interpreting data, integrating new information, theorizing, and making decisions based on multiple factors and options available.

Universities and colleges look for refined analytical skills in their prospective students. When a student demonstrates the ability to analyse data and make informed decisions, the admission panel understands that the person has the ability to become a part of their student community, and can be relied upon on a constant basis. Apart from that, analytical skills can improve the academic standing of a student, as most of the course work requires analytical skills in order to understand it.

CounsellingX.com has put together a list of relevant analytical skills that can help students in not only improving their academic standing but also acing the admission interviews:

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking can enable a person to observe a problem with an unbiased point of view, and tackle it with multiple approaches. This provides the ability to perform a comparative analysis. The use of logic on the principles of rationality to find out optimal solutions based on scientific data provides a concrete insight. 

Admission panels scrutinise the academic record of students, but the admission interviews are designed around the evaluation of analytical skills of a student. Critical thinking helps a student during the interview to answer the tough questions without giving-in to the personal biases. Courses related to computer science can enhance the critical thinking abilities. Various online comparative and quality analysis problem are available online that students can take to practice critical thinking. 

Root Cause Analysis

Life is like a big puzzle riddled with the problems that unlock different doors. Problem solving skills come in handy in the both personal and professional spheres. The ability to research about a problem and find the root cause of a problem on the basis of researched data is a great asset to students. A good analyst incorporates the principles of critical thinking to analyse a problem from multiple perspectives. The subsequent proposal and testing of solutions require the ability to perform root cause analysis. 

Various admission and scholarship interview questions are related to real-world problems, where a student has to provide a solution by pin pointing the root causes of the problem. Apart from that, root cause analysis provides a firm standing to the students regarding their beliefs and world view. Courses related to mathematics, probability and statistics, and stochastic systems can enhance the problem solving skills. Different brain games and fun quizzes are available online that students can use to practice their analysis skills.

Strategic Vision

Strategic vision is required to uncover opportunities. Making robust, scalable and portable strategic models, and applying those models on the real-time data can lead to finding opportunities that can overcome the gaps in long-term planning and goals. Hence, the strategic planning is led by the process of discovering new opportunities. To discover opportunities, the ability to see the big picture is required. You need to understand a subject, know the context, know the overlapping areas with other subjects and be able to connect the dots. 

Universities prefer the students who have their life, academic, and career goals in order. It shows the strength of character and will power. Strategic vision provides the students with required tools to quantify their life goals, and prioritize them accordingly.

Courses related to business and management can improve the abilities to identify strategic opportunities.

Predictive Analysis

Historic data combined with current trends and data analysis tools can help in predicting the future. The rise of the exponential amount of data provided by connected devices and the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is defining current technological era. Predictive analytics is gaining momentum due to the combination of Big Data and Machine Learning (ML) methods. Current Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom in user electronics and on digital platforms is backed by ML methods, Big Data, and Predictive analysis tools.  The ability to see future enables an analyst to stay in control of what is happening in a particular situation. 

One of the key trait that International universities look for in the students is their ability to use the data available to them and make future decisions. Predictive analysis embodies the spirit of data usage to avoid any future risks and discrepancies. A student who is capable of predictive analysis will always be one step ahead of the lot, and hence stay under the spot light.

Courses related to statistics, data science, and machine learning are a great start for the students to who want to perfect their predictive analysis skills.

Optimization

Insights driven from a data provide an analyst the required information to pin point the required optimal solution. Analysts are always looking for ways to make improvements based on insights derived from the data. Finding an optimal solution to problems is the key job of an engineer. 

If a student is capable of coming up with optimised solutions to the real-world or theoretical problems, he/she will never fail to achieve a goal. Even during admission process, finding out the right course and universities requires immense knowledge of courses, universities, and career paths. But if a student knows how to get to an optimised solution, the chances of rejection come down to almost zero. 

Courses related to engineering, calculus, vector analysis, and matrix analysis are useful for enhancing the skills related to optimization.

Precision

Data is like a long story with a lot of distractions, unnecessary information, and noise. Deciphering the data and putting together the most relevant and precise data narrative is a key requirement of good analysis. Precision comes handy in understanding the gist of a data and delivering the required information. Refined observation skills lead to precision and precision leads to excellent summarization skills. 

If a student is unable to precisely and accurately communication the data and information he/she has, then all that knowledge is of no use. Admission interviewers are well aware of it, and are often looking for the precise answers that deliver all the required information without conveying anything irrelevant. Hence, students who have such skills often clear interviews and land admissions in the universities for higher education. 

Courses related to precise writing, numerical methods, and designing are useful for the students in order to practice precision.

Resourcefulness

A good analysis practice is to make of whatever resources are available. Gather data from different sources, use multiple analytics tools, and stay updated with the latest developments in the field in order to compile a comprehensive analysis. This practice can enable students to perform at their peak productivity. 

A student who is resourceful shows promising traits of always surviving and even reaching the top if paired with relevant analytical skills. Universities don’t want students failing and rolling out of the courses, so they prefer students who know how to use every resource available to them in order to succeed. Presenting your resourcefulness during admission interviews make a good impact on the interviewers.  Information and knowledge management courses are useful for incorporating such skills.

Communication Skills

An analyst caters to all kind of people. An analysis is no good is no one understands it. The ability to communicate it to multiple audiences is an important skill. These skills help students in their admission interviews, presentations, and project defences. 

Interpersonal skills and non-verbal communication is the decisive factor during an admission interview. In case of a tie between two equally talented students, the one with the good communication skills always wins because he/she knows how to sell himself/herself. Courses related to professional and soft skills development can be useful to enhance communication skills.

Curiosity

An analyst never grows up and always stay as curious as a child. The trick is to never stop asking “Why?” A good analysis requires never ending curiosity to figure things out. The practice of being curious can provide insights regarding what questions to ask. This skill comes in handy for students, as their sole purpose in an institute is to ask and learn.

Learning is directly proportional to the curiosity. A student who has an innate curiosity to find out more about a subject or topic always end up with more information than others, and knowledge is the real power.  Universities also judge their prospective students on the basis of their curiosity and the passion of learning.

Improving analytical skills is not a very difficult task. Various online services are provided for the students in order to enhance their skill sets. Websites like My Tutor Source can help students improve their academic standing in the courses that develop analytical skills.