Applying to Graduate School

During Your Junior Year 

Assuming you have done well in school and have made yourself a well-rounded candidate with good working relationships with faculty, you should begin in your junior year to:

1. Gather Information. Look for strong graduate programs in your field. Check in your academic department, the library, and the Career Design Center (Erwin Hall) for further information. Look carefully at the websites of graduate programs in which you are interested; these sites will include catalogue and course information. If you look at ratings indicators for programs, remember that school ratings for individual graduate programs are not the same as a school's overall or undergraduate rating. 
2. Use the Geneseo faculty as a resource. Talk to faculty and staff members who have graduated from schools which interest you. Check to see if your academic department maintains a list of alumni, check this to see who has recently attended graduate school, and call or write these alumni who are usually very happy to share their experiences and suggestions. 
3. Get ready for testing. The Graduate Record Exam and the subject tests in your area of specialization or the GMAT, MCAT, LSAT and others are required by most schools but not all. You should plan to take this exam early enough that you can retest if need be. It is not unreasonable to prepare for these exams. Some students are eligible for a fee waiver. 
4. Enroll consistently in challenging courses. Make sure you have courses on your transcript which reflect the high quality of your preparation. Courses that are generally viewed as being “tough’ are often those that prepare you the best for graduate school.
5. Make contacts at prospective schools. Attend a professional conference in your field of interest and present. Ask a trusted professor for recommendations of which conferences it might be fruitful for an undergraduate to attend. Go to sessions in which people from prospective schools are giving papers. Later you can write a note or email saying how much you enjoyed the paper and perhaps even share a bit of correspondence with an interesting professional. Such an elaborate strategy was unnecessary a decade ago but is fairly common practice among savvy students now. Be bold. Many graduate applications even have a space that asks for names of any faculty on their staff you have been corresponding with. This procedure won't work if you wait until a few weeks before applications are due; it requires advance planning.

During Your Senior Year 

Most schools give more careful attention to early applications. If a school has two deadlines or rolling admissions, make sure your application is among the earliest. This means you may need to begin in the summer preceding your senior year and will be overwhelmed with the application process during the fall semester. Plan your schedule accordingly. 

Applications can be expensive. A few schools offer application fee waivers to students with high GPAs or meet certain demographic criteria - these are worth searching out. Despite the expense, the prudent student should probably apply to a minimum of five or more schools. 

Before you spend time and money applying, make sure you talk to faculty members about the schools you have selected. Remember that the reputation of a graduate program changes over time as stellar faculty come and go. Faculty will also know how competitive the graduate school admission process has been for recent graduates and can give you information you will not find in writing. 

There are usually two important components to most applications in addition to your transcripts and test scores: 

1. Letters of recommendation. See Getting Good Recommendation Letters. These weigh heavily with admissions committees. If, by chance, a professor who knows you well happens to have graduated from a school to which you are applying, this is often an advantage. 
2. Personal statement. These usually begin with a statement of goals and reasons for continuing your education. Requirements vary: some schools ask for much information about your personal life and extracurricular interests. These are hard to write well. Make sure you have several faculty members or staff read your drafts before sending them in. Always check with each graduate school to which you applied to make sure that your materials have been received.

Final Thoughts 

Remember that if you are accepted into a number of graduate schools, you may have the opportunity to compare offers and even ask for better packages depending on your needs and how much the graduate school wants you. Don’t be afraid to ask for more. You may not get into the graduate schools you hoped for but may get in others. 

Before you accept admission to a school you have reservations about because you have been rejected by the school you were really hoping for, consider the possibility of taking some time to strengthen your qualifications and applying again. Graduate school is largely about who is there and what those faculty members can do for you to help you reach your goals. 

Ask lots of questions. Visit the schools if you can (often PhD programs will pay to bring you in for a visit if you are accepted). Don’t be afraid to bargain if you are in a position to do so.