So, you’ve decided to pursue a Master’s degree. You’ve decided to surrender your freedom and $60,000 for the privilege of enduring marathon classes, all-night study sessions, and cutthroat competition from your fellow students, with no guarantee that your new degree will help you get a job once you graduate.
Hooray!
Because you really, really want to earn a graduate degree and are willing to take on all of the accompanying burdens, right?
Right?
Any grad school application guide begins the same way: by attempting to dissuade you from applying. Would you be able to give up your social life for years at a time? Do you mind parting with enough cash that you could have bought a car, or maybe even a house with? The decision is harder if you’ve already started a family. Will you mind if your young children start calling the babysitter “Mommy?” If all this gives you pause, that’s good. It should.
I’ve considered these questions myself. The decision to apply was easier for me, because I have no family to traumatize with my perpetual absence and a good fifty years left on my life expectancy to pay off the debt. Because the unemployment rate is still so high, the opportunity cost (the money I could be making working instead of studying) is probably as low as it will ever be. I also am not so far from undergrad that study habits have atrophied. Plus, as we all know from the first entry in this series, it’s not like there are any other opportunities to seize on right now.
I’m ready to apply, and no doomsday prophecies will sway me. So, where to start? First, I have to make sure that my basic, universal requirements for applications are fulfilled.
1. Did I graduate from undergrad? It seems like a dumb question (“Duh, could l have all this post-grad angst without graduating?”) but schools are going to need proof of such, usually in the form of your transcript. You are going to need several copies of your transcript for even one application. Send off to your undergrad’s registrar and get a few official transcripts. Get an extra one that you can tear out of its envelope, photocopy, and use for “unofficial” purposes, such as multiple copies in the same application packages.
2. Take those standardized tests. For my purposes (international relations), I will need to take the GRE, however, other tests are often required or accepted. Business schools are usually looking for the GMAT, law school for the LSAT, and so on. The debate over standardized tests and their ability to measure academic aptitude has been debated as long as they have been in use, and I won’t spend any time rehashing the controversy here. The fact is you have to take one. Preparation can help ease anxiety and sometimes even raise your score. Companies that offer test prep books, software, and classes are Kaplan and the Princeton Review (full disclosure: I work part-time as an ACT teacher for the Princeton Review). I have yet to take the GRE officially myself; when I do I will cover preparation and test-taking strategies in a separate post.
3. Assess how much cash you are willing to part with and how much debt you are able to take on in pursuing the degree. Look at your assets, your savings, and your current debts. Take stock of the money you have RIGHT NOW—don’t be distracted by your future possible earnings, financial aid, or sudden lottery jackpots. Those are all imaginary at the moment and may never materialize. Be brutally honest with yourself. Once you have that number, write it down, stick it in a drawer, and forget about it for a while. Later in the application process, when you start receiving acceptance letters from universities (let’s pray) you can pull out that number and compare them to the schools’ tuition rate and their offered financial aid. If you come up with an accurate assessment of how much you can afford before applying, you have less chance of having stars in your eyes once the acceptance letters roll in.
4. Justify your existence. Make a list accounting for your whereabouts and occupation for past 5-10 years. For most people, this would be a resume. Be prepared to explain what you were doing, how much you earned doing it, and what skills/experience you picked up along the way. Don’t lie or even over-embellish, but put the best face forward that you can. Your grad program will want to know not only what you want to study, but what assets you will bring to the school. Your resume and work experience says a lot about your motivation, your stability, and your future potential. Be sure to account for periods of inactivity: were you traveling? Writing a novel? Taking care of your sick mother? If you don’t address these gaps, admissions committees can assume the worst.
5. Google yourself. Google your name and all nicknames/aliases/screen names you have used in the past. Do you like what you see in the results? Does your Facebook/MySpace/Twitter page come up? Do you WANT it to? Be sure that all your pages’ privacy settings only allow your friends to view them. Check for photos of yourself posted by friends that may be shared. Consider cleaning up your online presence, or better yet, keep it clean to start with. Don’t overshare or brag about your illegal activities. Even if you delete something incriminating, it could linger in archives or in other people’s files and still surface at inconvenient times. A good rule of thumb: if you would feel uncomfortable shouting out some piece of information in Time Square, in front of foreign tourists, the NYPD, people of all races, all your exes and your future spouse, your grandmother, your children, and the twitchy guy on the corner who may or may not be a serial killer, then DON’T post it online.
To build up positive results about yourself, you will have to put the content out there yourself. Consider using your website, Facebook, or Twitter to promote yourself and your accomplishments. Work for a reputation as an expert in your chosen field: review books about your field of study, write your thoughts on current events in your industry, post a portfolio of your work. Start on this early. The longer you put out positive content, the more likely it will be to outweigh anything incriminating or unflattering out there.
6. Think about who might recommend you for a grad program. Two types of references are essential: one, a professor from your undergrad to attest to your academic accomplishments; second, a work superior who has known you a while and can vouch for your work habits and enthusiasm for your chosen field. Avoid using family members (even if you’ve worked for them) and friends or work peers. Committees just aren’t going to take this type of recommendation seriously.
Also avoid falling into the trap of going for prestigious references over ones from people who really know you. For example, if you interned for Microsoft, it is better to get a personal, detailed letter from the office manager you worked with every day than a mass-produced form letter from Bill Gates. Admissions committees can spot a form letter a mile away, and you risk looking phony.
Getting good references isn’t something that you can throw together in a few days. Typically you will need to maintain a good relationship with mentors, teachers, and bosses for years. Get started early, ideally in undergrad or earlier. Don’t burn bridges or let relationships falter even after you’ve left school or a job. When you do need a reference, it will be easier to reconnect.
Grad school applications’ exact requirements will vary, but these are some basics that most all schools will require. Start pulling these materials together as soon as possible to avoid being caught up against deadlines. In coming posts, I will cover each of these points and more of the admissions process in more depth.
What preparations for grad school would you recommend? How soon should someone start preparing? Answer in the comments of the blog, on Facebook, or in LinkedIn.
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