Applying to Graduate School

Section 1 of the Online Guidebook  [ return to the table of contents ]

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.