Quick Tips: Your New Best Friend

So you've been accepted into a prestigious graduate school.  Who is the first friend you should be making once you arrive at your new program?  Your advisor?  Your roomie?  The professor who is your boss as a teachers assistant?  Nope.  Your new best friend is the department's Graduate Secretary.  Different departments give him or her different titles - but they greese the wheels in your department.  

Graduate Secretaries make sure forms get signed, they can put your interdepartmental application at the top or the bottom of the pile, and they can smile and be friendly enough to brigten your day - or they can rain on your little graduate school parade.  

When you arrive at your program, be sure to introduce yourself to the staff of the department.  Treat them with the same respect that you treat the faculty.  This is crucially important.  That can turn a form being two hours late from being a, "no problem, sweetie!" to a, "tough shit!" moment.  

Here is another quick tip: over the course of the next several years and months, the staff may offer hints that can help you and the department Physics, History, Anthropology or Sociology (or whatever else) Club make nice at the end of the year.  They all seem to like wine?  Wouldn't giving them a reasonably prived bottle for Christmas be a nice gesture?  They like flowers and all happen to be mothers or fathers?  Wouldn't a Mother's Day flower arrangement brighten the office.  Offer this suggestion to the Sociology Grad Student Club and see what they think.  

More important than the nice little gifts or gestures, just be polite, treat everyone with respect. You never know who you will need to call when you need a favor. 

What to do while waiting to hear back about graduate school applications

When I was waiting to hear back on my second round of graduate school applications, I spent a LOT of time thinking about the my personal top three programs.  All of these programs had something interesting to offer.  All of them had great faculty, better than average job prospects (which were still terrible in our field, but whatever), and they were all in what I considered to be desirable or interesting locations.  On top of that, they all had cache.  I had a big chip on my shoulder stemming back to my days as a middle school student, and dammit, I wanted to sound impressive at cocktail parties. 

I would ask dozens of hypotheticals in my head while waiting to hear back from grad schools. What if I got into my favorite program and my third favorite program - but got a better financial package from my third favorite school?  I asked my friends who knew nothing about the programs just for another opinion - "Where would you rather see me go?" 

What I didn't realize at the time, is that much of this thinking was simply wasted energy.  I should have just spent a bit more time studying the ins-and-outs of each program.  It turned out that I was admitted to two of my top three programs.  While I had a good experience talking with the faculty from one of those two programs - the faculty at the second school (which was initially my third overall choice) suddenly started blowing me away with phone calls and e-mails.  They were friendly, knowledgeable and did a great job selling me on the program.  

What I should have done while waiting on those applications is taken up a new hobby.  I should have played a few more rounds of golf or gone snowboarding.  I should have spent less time thinking about where I would end up until all of my cards were on the table.  

So - if you're reading this waiting to hear back on graduate school applications.  Maybe spend some time making a few files, filling each file with information about each program to which you applied.  Then go outside.  Go for a hike.  Spend some time at the gym.  Learn a new hobby. 

Don't get too caught up in worrying about hypotheticals.  Let the chips fall where they may and often the decision will essentially be made for you.  

Quick Tips: GRE

Between the two of us one did very well on the GRE and the other did . . . well, let's just remember that at least one of us did quite well.  The GRE, or Graduate Record Examination, is a standardized test that a large number of graduate programs use as a criteria for admission.  

Learn from both our success and our failure by following these tips.  

Tip 1: Don't let the GRE take away from other, significant application building experiences - but spend some time studying.  In other words, if you have to choose between an extra opportunity to work in a lab or taking a GRE course, go with the lab experience.  Most graduate programs will care much more about a unique experience than a GRE score that nearly any intelligent person can replicate.

Tip 2: Take it early.  Or take it late.  Depends on your schedule.  Think about when the added burden of taking a timed exam will add the least amount of stress in your life.  All things being equal, however, we'd suggest taking it early because you can always take it again.

Tip 3: Study.  Buy a book or take a class.  Classes are more time consuming and cost more money, but they absolutely will help your score.  If you have the dedication to buy a book, brush up on your math and memorize some vocabulary words on your own - then take that route instead.  

Tip 4: Take practice exams.  Lots of them.  The best way to learn how to take the GRE is to practice.  Take a practice exam when you sign up for the exam (the GRE website gives you access to several) and take one later after you've spent some time studying.

Tip 5: Finally, on the day of the exam, don't psych yourself out.  Be sure to take your time and get the first few questions of each section correct, and from there - simply relax and do your best.

Questions to Ponder - Quality of Life

Part of the benefit of running an anonymous blog is that we can give potential grad students advice that others might normally be embarrassed to mention.  One piece of advice I wish someone had mentioned to me would be to consider the quality of life of graduate students attending the institutions where you are considering applying.  

Ask yourself, will I be able to keep my sanity for the next several years on my life in the geographic locations of the schools where I am applying?  

Typically, most academic advisors will encourage you to consider only issues related to "the life of the mind".  In other words, will the program be able to do for you intellectually what you need to become a high quality scholar.  And while you'll be giving up a large chunk of your life to your graduate program - you will have some free time.  Many potential graduate fail to consider beforehand that they will, in fact, be spending some of their time doing something outside of school.  Potential students should be able to enjoy the area around where they go to school. 

When you visit a potential graduate program, be sure to talk to graduate students away from faculty about what their life is like at their school.  Do they enjoy the other graduate students? What do they do when they aren't working?  What is the weather like during other times of year? 

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Contacting Potential Programs and Advisors

Once you've narrowed down your list of potential schools, you will eventually want to consider contacting at least one faculty member at each school.  The best way to do this is through a simple e-mail describing your academic interests and your intention to apply to their program.  I sent a few e-mails to faculty at each of the seven schools I applied to - and even sent a couple of e-mails to faculty at other schools where I chose not to apply.  The latter group of faculty actually advised me not to apply to their programs - given the nature of the faculty politics and an honest description of how their interests didn't really match up to mine.  Keep in mind that while being advised not to apply to a school you otherwise like may be frustrating, it will save you both time and money in the long run.  

Also keep in mind that applying for graduate school is different than applying for undergraduate programs.  Graduate programs in the humanities and the sciences are often looking more at your potential "fit" than your GPA, GRE scores, and overall background.  The graduate admissions committee will ask - is the applicant hoping to study something that we're also interested in?  Do they meet the minimum qualifications for our program?  Do they have any publications or research experience that makes them stand out?  

Obviously, when slogging through (often) hundreds of applications for a few number of slots, graduate admissions committees will have to take a hard look at the entirety of your application.  But one thing that can help you stand out is a pre-existing relationship with the faculty you are interested in working with.  This, however, is far from a guarantee that you'll get in to your favorite program.

Once you've decided who you want to write to at each school, craft an e-mail with your academic interests and reasons for applying to the program.  Have your parents read this, have your friends read this, have your friend's friend read this - avoid any silly mistakes or typos. Then send the e-mail off and wait for a reply. 

When you hear back from potential faculty advisors at your list of schools - consider a few things.  First, what is the tone of the response.  Do they sound as though they are interested? Uninterested?  

I applied to two of the top five programs in my field.  The faculty of one of the programs responded back to e-mails quickly and professionally.  Their responses showed interests in my potential research and they were even quite friendly - written in an overall positive tone.  The second program responded to e-mails as though their keyboards were stuck in molasses.  They were far less friendly and appeared generally uninterested.  This caused me to switch the two programs on my own personal list of schools.  

To conclude, don't be afraid to contact potential advisors at the schools that you're interested in applying to.  Be polite, craft an e-mail that avoids silly mistakes, and read between the lines a bit in their responses.  

Narrowing Down Your List of Graduate Schools

In our last post, we discussed putting together a large master list of potential graduate schools. My first list included about 24 schools and a variety of programs that overlapped with my interests.  Of these I would eventually apply to 7 and be admitted to 4.  But how did I narrow the list down to only seven schools?  

My first step was to hit Google.  I spent a lot of time looking up each program that interested me. My top concerns for entering a doctoral program with the hopes of securing an academic position in the future were ranking and prestige of the program, funding, and high quality faculty.  In particular I wanted to find a list of faculty where more than one overlapped with my areas of interest.  I was concerned about the horror stories I had heard where people were admitted to work with Famed Brilliant Dude, Ph.D. and he turned out to be a complete wreck.  Working with several faculty while in graduate school is a reality for most of us and I wanted a broad network of support.  Looking back, I am really happy that I took this kind of approach.  

This combination of factors brought the list down to about 14.  My next move, probably the one that I can only really share because this an anonymous blog, was to cross a few off the list due to being in an undesirable location.  Intellectually, some of these places were reasonable fits, but I simply had no desire to move to a location I knew that I would hate for 6-8 years.  This brought my list down to about 10 schools within two related disciplines.  It is hard to ignore if the perfect school for you intellectually is in an undesirable location, but it is something to consider - after all, the reality of moving to this place to start your new life in graduate school will set in at some point.  Don't you want to be excited about that move rather than ambivalent or apprehensive?  

The next step was the most important.  I looked at the faculty listings again and I e-mailed two or three faculty at each institution.  The subsequent responses brought my list down to a manageable number - 7 schools.  I will expand on this particular process in my next post.