How to go to graduate school

A year before the anticipated date of entry to your program, take the GRE.

A year before taking the GRE, mention to your network of pals that you're considering taking the GRE and going to graduate school. (If you have been talking about this plan for six years, consider using more emphasis when discussing it now, or consider saying, "No. Really. I mean it this time.") Someone in your network will inevitably have just finished taking the dreaded GRE and will want to unload the huge General Test study book and homemade flash cards. You will end up making your own flash cards.

It's a great idea to pay attention to the suggested study schedule in the GRE. They're the experts. I gave myself 3 months to get through the horrid math and challenging verbal portions. I graduated undergrad in 1999 which has given me about 1 year of thorough practice in the arts of customer service and 6 years writing experience so I didn't really focus much on the writing portion except to time myself with unusual subject matter. It's good to refresh yourself with the standard 5-paragraph format and practice faking yourself into believing that either a ban on indoor smoking is a good or bad thing but never both.

Here's a wonderful good calendar for preparing for the year up to the first day of graduate school. Of course, remember that European schools start accepting applications in September/October.

Here's my personal time line from June 2006 - May 2007, from I'm pretty sure to holy &*%$ I'm going to school in Paris!!!




June 2006 – January 2007 This part is free!

Contact the school/s to request program information. Browse the department/school website. Read the frequently questions under admissions and view last year's entering class profile. If the school is nearby, attend an information session or contact the school to schedule a visit. Bookmark any and all pages you might think relevant to your interested pursuit. Trust me. Every university needs a head webmaster to tell them how to make their sites user-friendly. Not a single one was all-encompassing. Several are terribly mismanaged and a few were so horribly designed I was turned off from applying. Also, print out pages of department courses, professors, their suggested application steps, housing information, financial information.

Start determining what exactly you want to study at graduate school. Daydream about becoming anyone in the world and how you'd do that. Fantasize about the ideal place to live and the best colleagues ever. Essentially this will keep you happy during the tedium that is applying. It will also hone your goals which in turn makes for a better personal statement. And, finally, it gives you something to shoot for because for god's sake, you're going to be working your ass off for the next decades paying off the loans.

Links:
Guide to Grad School
Grad School Tips
Rain on your parade Negative Nelly but good info
The Grad School Handbook

June 2006 – September 2006 This part costs $130 for the exam, $free book from friend, $change for index cards and pens/pencils, $5/transcript ($10 rushed), $ for booze.

Study for and take the standardized test required for admission (GRE). Select up to 3 schools/programs to receive your results the day of the exam. [Maybe a shoe-in, a medium challenge, and a shooting-for-the-stars school].

Links:
GRE download library
GRE Free General Test Preparation Materials

Also, begin rounding up at least 2 professionals who can submit letters of recommendation (3 letters are needed for those applying to the PhD program and 4 letters are needed for Sciences Po). On-line recommendations are the more common option for those applying online. [If you're not applying online you're crazy.] Be sure you select your recommenders carefully. I chose my immediate superior who is totally awesome and a great professional writer. I also lucked out -- remember when they said to establish a relationship with one of your undergrad professors? Well, I did my freshman year, dropped out, went back for a year, went abroad, and then finished the next year. Not a lot of time to establish a relationship. I remembered a TA/pre-PhD student who taught Spanish during my spring semester of my senior year. Thank the bejesus that the Spanish department at my undergrad gave me the almost-expired email information for him - after 7 years! And, thankfully he was directly behind that email address and was interested in working with me on the recommendations.

Request your official college transcript(s). Some people have them directly sent to the graduate school but a lot of grad schools request you send everything in a bundle. So, I recommend you have your transcripts sent directly to you and you can keep them sealed and send to them later with any other supporting documents. I thought I was going to apply to 10 schools. I bought 11 transcripts x $5 = $55. Not cheap.

October 2006 - February 2007 This part costs $postage to send any materials to the school that are not accepted through the online process. Also, $15/GRE to a school. Plus, no more money for booze, replaced by gym fees. No one wants to write a personal statement on a gin&tonic buzz to realize in the morning that the sent personal statement contains 7 misspellings and a lot more grammar mistakes.

Plan on having your applications complete and submitted before the preferred application deadline.
LSE: 10/16 rolling [personal deadline 11/16]
UCL: 11/16
UChicago: 01/03
UMn: 01/05
Columbia: 01/05
NYU: 01/15
GWU: 01/15
AU: 02/01
CMU: 02/01
Hertie: 02/10
Sci Po: 03/02

Applying is an exciting adventure in red tape, self-discovery, patience, investing in your future, spell-checking, making lists and sticking to them, and finding the cheapest toner or sneaking prints at the office.

I'm a fan of lists. For each school I wrote out a list of what it needed and the best links for info on the program I was interested in.

Here's an example for Columbia:
Columbia University – SIPA
Deadline: January 5, 2007
Master of International Affairs with a concentration in the Human Rights Program

3 letters of recommendation - electronic submission of letter of recommendation

John Doe
Jane Smith
Mary Jones

GRE
Transcripts 12-18-06 go to post office!
Statement
Resume
Office of Admissions and Financial Aid
420 West 118th Street
Mail Code 3325
408 International Affairs Building
New York, NY 10027

Each school got the same GRE transcript [4 schools on 1 request form] sent kindly from GRE. Each school got the same transcript [ordered previously]. Each got the same general resume, only changing the objective to "My objective is to be granted admission to [full school name] where I will pursue a [Master of xyz] with area of concentration in [list 2]." Each got the same template personal statement with details highlighting its program, 2 courses, 1-2 research institutes and/or professors of note.

The three names (Doe, Smith, Jones) represent the three recommenders. I wrote each of the letters with their specific viewpoints and then asked them to add any additional pt of view. For each school, I would submit my application and give the recommenders about 3 weeks prior notice of that date. Each week I'd check in with them. Almost every school sends a notice once the recommendation is received and also provides an electronic way to remind them.

The Princeton Review
College Application Essays with EssayEdge
EssayEdge.com: Statement of Purpose Writing, Personal Statement Samples, and Graduate School Essays
GradSchools.com Personal Essays

January 2007 - March 2007 This part can or cannot cost $.

I took 2 courses to beef up my skills and get me in the groove of thinking collegiately. Since my background was in art and Spanish, I took an Intro to Economics course and Intro to Statistics course at our local Tech College. This cost about $1,000 for books, courses, calculator, pencils, and cool pencil case, but the benefits are plenty.

Work on FAFSA (free application for federal student aid) – not available until Jan. 1 each year. Only domestic students can apply for a guaranteed student loan. Explore external funding sources and scholarships. I didn't focus as much on the latter and I should have. I generally accepted the fact that this is good debt and good debt is my friend.

December 2007 - April 2007 This part costs drown-your-sorrows or celebration $. Additional $ for trips to visit schools.

You will likely receive a decision by mid-late March. If admitted, visit the admitted student website. Or, go back and re-read all the info you gleamed from the website on the first go-round when you applied. It's a good refresher.

You'll also be told if you were granted financial aid or a scholarship. Do not let a rejection of free financial aid, your almost-empty checking/savings account, your tight-wad friends, your concerned parents, your content colleagues (who go on and on extolling the virtues of working at XYZPDQ business which you're about to leave for debts-ville), or your quickly maturing age deter you from going to graduate school. Yes, sometimes it can cost as much as a 2-bedroom house with a NNW facing yard and 2-car garage. But it's YOUR dream.

I didn't visit schools prior to applying because there just weren't any in close distance. By March, I was accepted to 7 schools, denied by 2, and Hertie was too late in their response. I narrowed down the 7 to my top 4 and was able to visit 3 of those. I was focusing on studying international policy and I was debating between UCL and Sci Po. Paying the money to fly over to London, train it to Paris, train it back to London, and fly home within 6 days was well worth it. It gave me a better idea of locations, who I could be going to school with, who the professors or admin were, the lay-out of city and school, the vibe of the place. UC actually reimbursed me for $125 of my visit, while other students got a full ride and others got nothing.

May 2007 This part costs deposit guarantee $ and celebration $.

Take a deep breath and commit. No decision is a wrong decision. Then, make it real by paying the deposit to guarantee your seat in the fall. Go out, order champagne - or stay in and collapse. Either way, celebrate your endurance, persistence, and ability to get the bottom of what's really in your soul.

Start planning the next phase: How to go to school in Paris, France.