Directories such as Peterson's Guide to Graduate Programs are critical to the first stage in your process of choosing a graduate school. Besides giving an idea about the breadth and scope of programs available, they will provide you with complete listings of school addresses, program directors, faculty members, and number of applicants/enrolled students.
This sort of information can help you to identify the twenty or thirty programs in which you have at least some interest. Throughout this process, however, you will need to keep an open mind -- schools that you never would have considered may suddenly sound intriguing, and programs that you supposed were top of the line may turn out to be less than advertised. Keeping an academic diary with a list of schools under consideration, the date, and perhaps the reasons for rejecting each program will be both informative and interesting to you as the time passes.
Once this initial stage has been completed, you are ready to request forms, brochures, and application materials from each school. This is best completed in July or August, as most programs do not have the new forms or lists of current faculty printed before then. Don't bother asking specific questions; most schools start by sending only the basic information in their "prescreening" process. Not that they are evaluating your credentials yet, but they do try to identify the "I love this place!" students from those who are "Just shopping, thanks." Once you have received the standard materials, you should certainly address these specific questions to the graduate secretary or program director; that is, if you haven't already learned the answers through the initial mailings.
The majority of graduate school guidebooks are ludicrously inadequate insofar as offering specific criterion by which to choose a graduate school. The assumption is, I suppose, that you know what you are looking for, and that therefore the main factor will be completing the applications. I disagree. There are many programs out there that could be right for you, and finding as many of them as possible will increase your chances proportionately. An improved selection process therefore should enable you to choose from significantly more admissions offers and better financial aid packages. By considering the many factors involved, you will forge a process more reasonable and clearheaded from the start.
Reputation: Emphasized more than anything else, this factor is, in fact, probably the most important thing to consider. Besides helping you to obtain employment and learn from some of the very best professors, a school with a solid reputation gives your degree some gravitas, an aura of universal respectability. Most guidebooks, professors, and people in the field place this "reputation" factor quite apart from and above the many others which follow. And with the difficult job market ahead and the many additional resources that generally accompany a school with reputation, I would be loathe to contradict them. But, of course, it is not the only thing.
Competition: Who will you be competing against for admission to this program? Are your scores and undergraduate grades comparable? Don't get hooked on a school for the wrong reasons, especially if your qualifications do not approximate the level of competition for that particular school. By the same token, realize that you bring a unique set of academic abilities and personal traits to any graduate program. Could the Harvards of this world accept only summa cum laude varsity lettermen from the Ivy League? Possibly so, but could you imagine this class?! They aren't looking for cookie-cutter people, after all. Convince them of your merits, and they may be looking for you.
Geographic Location: For personal or family reasons, applicants sometimes have only a certain geographic range of schools to which they can apply. Being as open as possible to different areas will increase dramatically the prospects available to you. It also may help you to get in to certain schools, as the University of Idaho might want to diversify its student body with a true Southerner, for instance. But you will also need to consider that the school's reputation and alumni network will be strongest within a few hundred miles of the school, and therefore many of your post-graduation job prospects will emanate from this region. If you can't see yourself living in the area for very long and are applying to a school without a nationwide reputation, you may be doing yourself a disservice.
Recommender's Recommendations: Where did the people who are writing your references get their degrees? Since admissions teams habitually evaluate the qualifications of the recommenders (and what could be better than their own alumni?), these schools might be well worth considering. Alternatively, ask your recommenders if they know anyone at the other programs to which you are applying, or if they recommend any particular programs for your interests and background. Remember the saying: "it's not what you know; it's who you know." Get to know as many people as possible, and utilize their insight as fully as possible.
Number Of Students: This is important both for your own personal tastes (can you stand being in a program with just a handful of students… or one with several hundred?), as well as for future job prospects. Some applicants believe that a smaller student body will translate into more personalized attention and a better chance of being "top dog," whereas others see additional classmates as resources for program reputation and name recognition. You must also keep in mind that the more faculty and alumni a program offers, the bigger that program's "network" will be. Under relatively larger programs, your chances of being introduced to "people in the know" -- and who may help you to find jobs -- will increase proportionately. (This final point, however, assumes that the people who graduate from the program are able to obtain employment with their degree, no mean feat in itself.)
Urban/Rural Campus: Where do you want to live? With M.A. programs generally taking two years to complete, and Ph.D.'s stretching to about six or seven years, this urban/rural difference can become a pretty important factor. Of course, it need not be similar to your undergraduate institution, and there may be advantages to a new perspective that you have not yet considered. You may also find that a novel setting is "acceptable" as long as you are sufficiently pleased with the other, more substantial aspects of your environment.
Research Interests: Certain schools have reputations that emphasize particular facets of their curricula. If you have areas which you especially enjoy or dislike to concentrate upon, this can make a big difference. In fact, the school with the best overall reputation may not be the one that excels in your particular area of interest. On the other hand, however, you may decide to change your specialty after you enter grad school. How much will this affect your happiness with this particular school?
Academic Resources: Library size is something you always hear about in brochures. You think, "Who cares? How many of these 19.3 trillion books, 42 million dissertations, and 97,000 journal subscriptions am I actually going to read anyway?" Answer: a very small percentage. BUT when you decide to do a research paper on some obscure topic (aren't they all?), you will be pleased to have one or two special resources on hand (or at least, under the mattress of one of your super-competitive classmates). Things like science labs, computer centers, departmental fellowship funds, and archival holdings in your field of interest similarly represent the institution's dedication to providing resources for its graduate population. You will appreciate them when the time comes; find out what they offer up front.
Curriculum Choices: Be certain that the school offers the exact degree you are interested in pursuing. If you are interested in more than one possibility, see if the school has both. It would certainly be easier if you could just change programs without also having to change addresses, wouldn't it?
Social Life: A school's social life will be reflected partly by the strength of the graduate community, partly by the scope of public attractions available, and partly by the atmosphere within the department itself. Articles, advertisements, and crime reports in the school newspaper are all time-tested methods of judging the tenor of social activities; talking to current students is another. When choosing whom to interview for this purpose, try to approach people who look like they've seen natural sunlight at some point in the last few weeks... and the skylight in the main library doesn't count.
Job Placement: All schools will say they have a solid record of success, but how can it be possible to have a tough job market when all these schools tout "94% professional placement rates"? Check the figures, ask students, look at employment listings; in short, do whatever you can to ascertain the true story on this score. This will, after all, be the most important thing to you in a few years (aside from the excitement of adding a few initials -- M.A., P.A., M.A.T., M.F.A., Ph.D., whatever -- to your newly-acquired promissory notes). Many schools are accepting students into dangerously oversubscribed professions. Although the numbers are difficult if not impossible to obtain, a rough guesstimate will be an important distinction between programs for you to consider.
Rate Of Attrition: Some departments do a better job of weeding out graduate applicants after they arrive on campus than in admissions. Again, the numbers are difficult to determine. Check the size of the entering classes versus those graduating, query the admissions staff, and ask students currently enrolled for the real story. If the students have no idea what you're talking about, fine. If they do, listen carefully... and ask a few more students.
Graduate/Undergraduate Status: Graduate students quite often are an afterthought to the strategic planning of university administrators, especially since they comprise a relatively small, self-regulating body of adults who don't tend to cause problems (e.g., tearing up the newly-seeded football field, puking on wealthy benefactors, leading demonstrations against cafeteria food). This is even more likely if the vast majority of students (i.e., "tuition income sources") are undergraduates. Check the ratio of graduate to undergraduate students to see how outnumbered you will be. This ratio also will tell you something about the school's social priorities. If undergraduates seriously dominate the landscape, the academic and social life probably will also be skewed in that direction. As long as you don't mind buying beer for nineteen-year-olds and giggling at sophomoric jokes, this won't matter to you. Otherwise, ask.
Accreditations: After you spend several years working towards this degree, will professionals in the field universally acclaim you as one of their own, or will they look at you like you just bought a Cracker Jacks license? Check the number and status of the various accrediting agencies if you have any doubts.
Well-Known Faculty: The opportunity to work under the academic "giants" in your field of interest is one of the most exciting thing about graduate study. Be careful about basing your decision on this, however, as this great faculty member may die, leave, take a sabbatical, or other such thing. It is true that a faculty advisor who transfers to a different school often can bring his/her promising students to the destination program; those who die, however, leave their students plum out of luck.
For Master's Students: It may be advantage for you to consider schools which offer the Ph.D. as well as the M.A., since they often can offer richer resources, stronger faculty, and a broader base of students and alumni. On the flip side, however, you will want to determine the prevailing attitude towards masters students in such programs. Finding yourself on the short end of a preference for doctoral students can easily make graduate school a much less pleasant experience than it might otherwise be.
For Doctoral Candidates: Keep in mind that the major purpose of most doctoral programs is focused upon publishing, and use that as an important yardstick for your own choices. What is the average length of time to complete a dissertation at the various programs? What subjects have been featured in previous candidates' dissertations? Is funding available to students after finishing the comprehensives? Such questions will illuminate the priorities and problems that may define your post-Master's work at this school, or alternatively force you to consider transferring... and unnecessarily endure this application process again.
And there are a few more things you may or may not want to consider…
Age Of Professors? It may be a drawback to have professors at the twilight of their careers, possibly unmotivated and not abreast of current conditions in the profession. Or, it may be bad to have young professors primarily concerned with making a name for themselves and moving on to a bigger name school. You decide if you care or not.
Possibility Of Funding? Institutions with larger endowments sometimes will offset high tuitions, but don't count on it. Unless you are in the hard sciences or independently wealthy, you're either going to need to scramble for fellowships or go into hock with a government loan... or probably both. Greater opportunities for funding may come as you move down the academic food chain to schools of lesser reputation, but will it be worth it? It is best to decide after you are accepted.
Big Fish / Little Pond? Should you blend in among the myriad geniuses at top Brand X University or instead be one of the brightest students who ever attended Whatsa Matta U? There are advantages to both. While the former option may offer greater challenges, better contacts, and wider recognition, the latter may provide a more responsive institution and more enthusiastic sponsors. Most professors, students, and guidebooks recommend the former choice as the only sane academic decision to make, and better in the long run. Again, this is a good question to decide after you've been accepted.
Language Requirement? I include this only because every history program I applied to required reading knowledge of at least one language for the M.A., and two for the Ph.D. Believe me, I took special note of those schools which had lesser standards, and you may want to as well. (I've now got to relearn Latin from eight years ago: in rivo fimi sine remo sum - Latin for "I'm up the creek without a paddle!")
Costs or Workload? Grad school costs a small fortune and requires your best academic efforts no matter where you go. Any program that cuts corners to increase enrollment probably will prove quite disappointing when you receive your degree. Graduate school bargains, limited workloads, or "Get Your Degree By Mail!" options should therefore be discarded. However, there is one exception to the cost factor: public universities sometimes can offer subsidized tuition rates significantly better than private schools without a corresponding drop in quality. These may be worth investigating.
Special concerns? Add these to your list. Any means of making your choices broader and more informed will lead to a more fruitful application process.
Once you've completed your list, you will need to locate the appropriate resources for information. Professors, current students, and professionals in the field often can provide useful anecdotal information. For questions of relative reputation, however, books such as Educational Rankings Annual and The Gourman Report are indispensable. Probably the most popular and widely-discussed source of relative rankings is the U.S. News and World Report graduate school issue which arrives each March. Though the various sources often disagree in their relative rankings, check how they tabulate their results to decide which you find most appropriate. It also may be useful to compare from one year to another to see if your school is rising or falling in the rankings.
More specialized reports can be found in most journal subscriptions or association reports within your field. Since these sources reflect the ideas of working professionals, they hold special weight. In addition, Ph.D. candidates can find information by reviewing the list of doctorates awarded by particular departments or by consulting Dissertation Abstracts, published monthly by University Microfilms International. Humanities doctoral candidates may also check the academic journal Lingua Franca for job placements of recent Ph.D.'s, noting whose graduates are getting hired and by whom these graduates are being employed.
Most students apply to far too few programs their first time around. Don't make such an "Andrea Average" mistake. When you finally emerge from the piles of brochures and personal recommendations and yearly program rankings, have a solid number of schools to which you can apply. You will be better off sending applications to a wide range of programs and deciding between the several acceptances -- and financial aid packages offered -- than having few or no options. Applying to a dozen or more schools is probably overkill, and applying to just three or four is too few. Seven to ten applications is probably the most reasonable figure for your targeted approach.
Choose some very ambitious schools, so that you will know that you got into the very best school that you could, and choose some real safety schools as well. Perhaps these latter schools won't provide the status or resources that you had wished for, but this is worst-case planning. Ask yourself, "would I rather go to this mediocre program or not get the degree at all?" After doing so, you probably will find one or two lower-dwelling institutions to fulfill your needs satisfactorily.