How the Heck Do I Apply For Graduate School? Part Three
After-Application Management
Are you wondering how the heck to apply to graduate school? In my previous article Part One I covered all of the preparation which goes into researching schools and contacting people before applications are even started. Then, in Part Two, I discussed each of the standard application items and how to approach them. This article covers how to manage your applications after they are submitted. What? You thought it was over?
When all of the applications are submitted the finish line is within reach. However, there are some stumbling blocks which may appear and some items which need to be managed. By keeping an active hand during this process you increase your odds at having a desired outcome.
Part Three — The End Game — Early Winter to Early Spring
The Waiting is the Hardest Part: First thing is first: that acceptance letter is not coming soon. Your stress levels may be through the roof. I assure you, everyone else feels the exact same way. Take a breath and enjoy a small break from thinking about graduate school.
With that said, if you have any late applications which need to be submitted, finish those as soon as possible. I know it will happen, especially if you have a higher number of schools to apply to. Acceptance is not exactly a “first come, first served” system but submitting early is better than near the deadline. Double and triple check with your letter writers that they’ve sent their LoR’s to each school. If you are accepted to graduate school, you will soon find out just how many demands professors deal with. They are scattered all over the place. I had one tell me that he “lost the email” because his “desktop lost all of his data”. I gracefully accepted his explanation and reiterated (politely) that my entire future rested on the next 72 hours and could he please let me know if there was anything I could do to help.
Within 2–6 weeks after the application deadlines your acceptance letters should arrive. I know that mine came within a week of the deadline closing but every graduate school is different. It will drive you crazy during this time but there’s not a lot you can do to change the outcome or speed the process along.
Keep Communication Open: This is a critical time during which you must try to keep your relationships with any potential professors open and productive. Remember, your goal is to secure a fully funded assistantship to a graduate school. The best chance for this is to have a professor you want to work with before you even start school. This may take the form of a research assistantship from a professor or a teaching assistantship from the school. I identified my first PI and was squarely in her lab before setting foot on campus but my first semester was still under a TAship as a trial period.
However, you don’t want to overstep your boundaries. They can’t really invest in giving you work until they know you’re in. Most questions about projects and working with them will be met with, “let me know when you’ve been accepted.” Keep them informed about your acceptance and anything else which would be useful to them. One task which is both productive and improves your image is asking for topics for literature review. Anyone can access Google Scholar and find a lot of journal papers. If you ask them for a few choice authors/topics it will keep you productive and give them a good impression of your work ethic.
Free Vacation: There are many unspoken rules for graduate school applications. One of them is that invitation to that school’s open house substantially increases your exposure to professors and indicates there’s a good chance of your acceptance. Shortly after the application deadline closes, the department will convene and select a limited number of students to tour the facilities and meet prospective faculty. If you are invited there is an excellent chance you have been selected to receive a teaching assistantship with full tuition coverage and they want to evaluate and woo you.
If you are not invited, don’t panic. Often times the same students will be invited to three, four, or more university open houses due to being high potential candidates. However, they can only select one school. Typically, there are still full offer spots open for students who did not attend. These assistantship offers are also a bit more complicated for the department to draft up, and so they take longer than just the acceptance letter due to pay being involved.
Contrary to my title this is not a free vacation. This is your chance to audition with potential bosses and change the course of your career forever. Treat it with gravitas and prepare for your meeting with professors by reading some of their recent work and relevant work in the field. It’s completely normal to not understand most of it, but you would be surprised by how much better communication flows when you’re speaking the same language.
That’s it! You’ve researched potential schools, applied, and managed those applications all the way through to their conclusion. I hope you are accepted to your school of choice. However, sometimes this doesn’t happen for reasons totally outside of your control. I was lucky enough to only need one application cycle. If you didn’t get the outcome you wanted, know that the next application cycle will be significantly easier because of your experience. Either way, the journey has ended and a new one will begin.
Hey everyone! If you enjoyed this advice and want to learn more, see part one and two of this series where I cover the pre-application research and the application itself. If you’re interested in getting some help with the process head over to www.Gradvantage.co to see what we offer. Thanks!