Applying to graduate school is a difficult task. As a
seven-time GRE instructor, three-time graduate school hopeful
(once-delayed, once-denied, and once-accepted), and an avid reader
of guidebooks and Internet newsgroups, I have yet to find someone
who found the process straightforward. Applicants tend to bemoan
the experience, don't understand it, and very often fail outright
at first. It's a tough process, and not only have I seen several
adult Kaplan students shed tears over this process, but I also
recall my own experiences and troubles along the way. It is no
wonder that such frustrations and fears take hold so readily, for
heart-felt hopes and dreams are at stake here, not to mention
applicants' professional futures and familial expectations. And
indeed, despite their efforts, many accomplished, intelligent
people fail to achieve their goals and win admission to graduate
school. Why is this so, and more importantly, how can you avoid
this?
It is important to realize that we are not alone in our
difficulties with regard to graduate school admissions. The
confrontation of high standards with a limited number of
applicants is not an occurrence unique to our generation. What has
happened, however, is a dramatic rise in the perceived utility and
importance of a graduate degree without a sufficiently
corresponding rise in the related employment opportunities for
graduate degree holders. The social perception of graduate degree
importance thus has outstripped the available economic
opportunities. At the same time, many people view the job market
as increasingly stratified, with good jobs for highly educated
people on one hand and limited opportunities elsewhere. Graduate
institutions have therefore been faced with the choice of either
accepting as many students as apply -- without regard for
employment prospects - or alternatively, limiting acceptances.
Indeed, since graduate school implies more than simply the
attainment of a degree but rather professional training in a
field, a lower acceptance rate actually may help save people from
needlessly pursuing dead-end career paths. Nonetheless, there are
many out there who would still follow this dream, and hurl
themselves towards the goal with great hopes. The point to
remember, then, is to consider your dedication to the graduate
school endeavor and the post-graduation prospects before
applying yourself to this difficult and misunderstood process.
There is one "truth" to the graduate school
admissions process that stands above all the others. It will be
stated and shown in many ways over the pages which follow, but it
must always be kept in mind, which is that graduate school
admissions are fundamentally different than any other admissions
process you may have witnessed or endured. This process is not
like applying to college; Grades, Scores, and Recommendations are
only the beginning. Therefore, given the variety of
strengths and weaknesses that admissions teams are likely to see,
it becomes incumbent upon you as a graduate school applicant to
set yourself apart from and above the competition. For this
reason, focusing solely upon the ordinary procession of grades,
scores, and recommendations will not help. Indeed, considering the
relative immutability of your Grades, Scores, and Recommendations
(what I will call your "GSR"), it is the grand
sum of things that you do to supplement these "standard
items" that can make the largest degree of difference in your
application process. Certainly you can worry about the relative
power of your GSR, and try to enhance these things as much as
possible, but you ultimately have more to offer than the these
numbers alone. Use your strength, creativity, and sheer willpower
to bolster your candidacy; these traits ultimately will be
essential in catapulting you towards your goals.
The ordinary commencement of graduate school efforts -- the
standard application process -- is at once familiar and sadly
misdirected. Based upon the aforementioned fundamental
misconception of graduate admissions, the experience of a
hypothetical "Andrea Average" may help to illustrate the
common woes of first-time applicants.
To begin her graduate school odyssey, Andrea Average is going
to review the various schools and programs available to her, and
express disconsolate alarm over the very high standards required
for admissions. In order to get in, Andrea decides that she will
have to do something serious about her GSR. So, she'll worry
interminably about her grade point average, and possibly take
extra night classes to get closer to that 3.x range that she has
been coveting (she's pretty sure that people with these kinds of
grades get in). She will spend feverish months studying for the
GRE's, shooting for some pie-in-the-sky score which, she will soon
find out, is not only likely impossible but also not nearly that
important to most programs. Regardless, to round things out Ms.
Average also will spend much anxious time with the employers and
professors from whom she hopes to get a few letters of
recommendation. She is not sure exactly what to say, but she
smiles broadly and absentmindedly at them. They smile back
slightly unnerved by her attention.
A few weeks before the deadlines, Andrea is ready to choose
three or four schools from among the brochures scattered about the
room, and she begins her final preparations. She'll finally ask
her convenient authority figures for letters of recommendation
(she thinks there may be another form to fill out, though, and
promises to bring it early next week). Andrea has also begun to
request her GRE score reports and college transcripts (one at a
time for each school, as it occurs to her). And she may even begin
to write a draft of the personal statement, starting off with
"Ever since I was a little girl" and ending with
"change the world, in my own way." Soon mail will be
flying everywhere: transcripts, score reports, faculty
recommendations, and replacement copies of marred application
forms careening about in postal chaos. And luckily, she's an
organized type; all but one of her applications should arrive on
time.
Then, she'll wait. And she'll worry. And after five months of
telling people of her plans and publicly bemoaning her fears,
Andrea Average will not be packing her bags to move off to
graduate school. She'll be staying home.
Though this scenario with Andrea Average clearly is
embellished, the pattern of failed applicants is genuine. Typical
graduate school applicants like Andrea come with an honest and
deeply-held commitment to the goal, even without comprehending the
process by which to achieve it. And the blame sits not with
Andrea's GSR -- which she probably faults for her fate -- but in
her poor methods and preparations. Underlying all of it are her
strongly-held, widely-perpetuated beliefs that, A) only the GSR really
matters, B) being earnest, caring and creative will only win you a
nice eulogy, and C) the process is genuinely quite similar to
undergraduate admissions. The sooner these beliefs are dispelled,
the better.
I will state this just once more: it is not that GSR's do not
matter or that the standard ways of applying to graduate school
are bad. There are simply other facets to exploit and additional
means for compiling an application with greater chances for
success. I have learned these things partly from listening to
others, partly from scouring every available resource for ideas,
and partly from the experience of personal failure (the worst, but
most common, method of education). Above all, I stress the fact
that your efforts are paramount: that being earnest, caring, and
creative not only will win you a nice eulogy, but also may
help you to get into graduate school... the first time you
apply.
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