The Ultimate Search

Thoughts About Going To Graduate School

Who should go to grad school?

I will not attempt to cover that topic here, but rather refer you to an already existing article on the web about such a question. See Is Graduate School For You? for more information. That article, and the other articles at the bottom links of its page, are great articles, and should be read thoroughly. As good as those articles are, however, they are somewhat vague with quite a few questions left unanswered. The following paper is presented to provide some general information about how the application process works for grad schools in general, and to illustrate some key problems the author has had in his own search. This will hopefully help you identify witht the questions being asked in those refered articles, and allow you to see things from an "eyewitness" point of view. Many things must happen before one arrives at a school to start earning their higher degree. First, you have to know where you re going. This may sound simple at first, but with as many choices as there are in the US (this paper will focus entirely on US schools), this may not actually be an easy choice. Specifically, what are you interested in studying, and who has such a program? Next you have to decide how you're going to pay for this education. Here there are a variety of options such as having your employer foot the bill, scholarships, assistanships, loans, parents, the lottery, etc. Then, do you meet the entrance requirements, and can you complete the course schedule in time? And if you think these are a lot of questions already, you're in for a long day. But, while this opening may sound ominous, things can be ok, as long as you remember the golden rule: START EARLY!

Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?

Well, allowing your dog to roam around colleges until it finds one it likes to excuse itself on the most, may be a solution for those who really can't make decisions, but there are more informed ways of deciding something that can have a great affect in your future. One way may be to have your employer pay for a local university program. This is somewhat common, but not to be counted on. Also, it carries with it its own advantages and disadvantages that will not be discuss ed here. Even if this option is available, there is more to the process than that, so continue reading this paper carefully.

If, like most of us, you don't really know much about all the possibilities outside your current (or previous if you are returning) school, or any school your friends or parents may have gone to, you need to establish selection criteria and become in formed about the possibilities. Outside this small realm of information, you need to make a list of things that will be important for you in a graduate school. You may have done this to select your undergraduate school, but most likely that was more limit ed by who was paying for the bill, your parents wishes, and where your friends were going. Graduate school can actually become easier to pay for (see Assistanship section further down), you no longer want to be anywhere near your parents, and if you have the grades and desire to go to grad school anyway, you probably don t have any friends because they may have distracted you from your beloved computer and the Internet. In other words, you need new criteria.

One important factor that is usually a subconscious thought is the weather. A more well known concern is local crime rates. And, of course, there is cost of living. Things like this constitute a place rating, and a great way to find out about such sp ecifics is to get hold of a book/software package titled The Places Rated Almanac . Undoubtably there are other sources available, either on the net or magazines like Consumer Reports or some such. The important point is to get hold of this information to better organize your criteria. Avoid stereotypes; all cities in California are not expensive surftowns, and many cities in the US have more volume of rain than Seattle and Portland.

Be warned, however, that acquiring this information can be difficult and time consuming. Then organizing and evaluating it will take more time. Of course, many students stay within some self-determined radius of either home or current school, and this type of thinking can help narrow the search down (though it has the possible disadvantage of overlooking a great school).

Of course, the school itself has some important properties such as reputation and drive towards academic excellence. Often, one can turn to ratings for school in general, a specific college, or possibly a specific department. These ratings can come from various sources, but some common ones include the Peterson s Guide, USA Today, Newsweek, and word of mouth. Then again, once you start looking through these lists, you'll begin to think national football rankings seem just as good as anything else. This is due in part to a football schools effort to show it is more than brawn, and the fact that these schools gain more money through such athletics (and sponsorships thereof). This actually seems to be ok for general business and engineering majors, but certain branches in those, or other specific majors may need to resort to the previous lists.

Assuming you ve gathered enough info on places and college ratings overall, the time has come to start looking into specific programs. A school may seem good in your overall area of interest, but may not be such a good choice for your specific area. An example would be a school noted for a good engineering program, yet the mechanical department is lacking in a few areas. The school will still rank high because it draws a good budget to be divided among the disciplines, and probably has a strong electrical program, but it just isn t right for you. But how do you find this out? A few quick things to check for are courses offered, research performed (particularly that which is financially supported), research facilities, and general budget items.

As mentioned before, some of the bigger schools seem to rank high in academia. This can be attributed to higher budgets - allowing for more research and better facilities; broader range of disciplines - larger student body can justify more minor areas and more variance in class schedules; better reputation - bigger is better , and how bout those (football nickname) . Although this may be a good general guideline, each school should be evaluated on a separate basis to ensure accuracy. Of course, many smaller schools can have excellent programs, especially in one or two areas. These tend to be harder to find, but worth it if you do.

Another thing to keep in mind is research interests of the department. Usually you will spend a great deal of time on one or several research projects during your stay at the school, either as a research assistant, as part of a paper for a class, or for your thesis (if that option is chosen, see below for more detail). The possibility certainly exists for more than one of these events to occur during your studies, therefore it would help if you enjoyed what you were working on. Many schools may have your department of interest, but what do they do? This can vary a great deal, and here's where a small school can certainly become more appealing than a larger one. The best way to get specific information on this topic is to contact the department office directly and request a research brochure for the department (usually can be done through the web easily enough). An alternative (or additional) way is to contact individual professors directly (since most web pages include professor profiles and research interests - except our wonderful ME page here at ODwho?, ahem!).

Another important factor should be course offerings. Whether going for only the masters, or as far as the Ph.D., courses will be vital to success. GPA requirements for continuation in grad school are generally much tougher than undergrad, and since you take fewer classes, there is less room for mistakes. Scheduling classes can also be harder since a lot of grad classes are offered only during certain semesters, and/or require prerequisites. In general, ideas about narrowing school selection should follow guidelines given above concerning research areas as the two are hopefully related (though not always, and this itself can be a major concern).

DEADLINES (or Wasn't I suppose to do something today? - far too many)

At this point you're probably feeling good about yourself because you had a general geographical area in mind already (which limited your selection), you made a list of all the big name schools, did some minor research on a few smaller schools in the area, and actually crossed out one or two schools from your list already. Good enough? Hardly. By the time you've read this and actually accomplished the above statement, the deadline has passed. What, a deadline? Where did that come from? Most likely from hell, but that's another topic all together.

What most people fail to realize is, yes, there is a deadline for applying to grad school. Not only that, but deadlines for specific departments are usually earlier than those published for the school as a whole, and if you want any funding, you should have had your parents apply for that at the same time they were getting your birth certificate. Schools are tough. They have reputations to keep, and little budget money to do it with. Only the smartest, the most hard-working, the best leaders, and the punctual get funded in these meccas of academia. Well, it's not exactly that bad, but if you ve missed a deadline, you can kiss your hopes goodbye. Deadlines at these places serve the same function as Human Resource departments at large firms; to keep you out of the building.

Now that you have some fear in you, let's talk timing. When are these unyielding limits? Most schools want only FALL entries, and the deadlines for such usually are posted as the preceding February. Of course, that's for the school in general. Normally you have to beat the January deadline for any financial aid or funding, and a specific department may have a December deadline. Note: the previous was for US citizens - non-citizens should prepare to beat any deadline by 3 months and expect to be ineligible for financial aid for the entire first year regardless of GPA.

For those few schools that will allow someone in other than in Fall, the following seem to be standards:

     Jan (winter if quarter, spring if semester)
        Sept 1 or Oct 1
     April (spring quarter)
	Dec 1
     May (summer semester)
	Extremely difficult for this
     June (summer quarter)
	Extremely difficult for this

Again, those deadlines reflect school, not department or financial aid. The summer entry problems I understand since they are so close to the normal fall, but spring/winter is different. It is difficult to get into programs at these times (especially to get money), but it doesn t make sense. During my recent efforts at this, I became frustrated.

Financial Aid (Who gets the bill?)

Financial aid can actually come in a variety of forms in graduate school. The main difference between grad school and underrgrad is assistanships. This is technically a work-study program if you will, but usually is more focused on your academic interests, and pays better.

     RA - Research Assistantship. 
        Usually 20 hours per week work for 12 months gives you tuition waiver
        +$1000 per month stipend
     TA - Teaching Assisistanship. 
        Usualy 20 hours per week work, but normally only for 9 months and 
        slightly less stipend.
     Fellowship - 
        scholarship for excellent academia, usually coupled with work 
        requirement for local industry (though not always).
     Scholarship - generic, varies from school to school
     Need-based money - loans, grants, etc

Now that you know what's available, it's imperative to find out how to get it. So, who gives this money and how do you start the process?

RA - usually you have to contact individual profs to see if they have anything open and are interested in you. This can be almost like a phone/email interview, and it should be taken seriously. Going this route can entail a certain amount of risk since funding isn't always known too far in advance and since funding can be cut sooner than expected.

TA - This is usually assigned without much thought to your interests, but since money comes from the department, funding is known earlier and is safer.

Fellowship - awarded from University

Scholarship - varies, but normally comes from department

Need-based - Uni or Gov

How to Officially apply for fin aid?

VARIES - always read everything on entire application. Many admissions forms to the Graduate School in general have separate financial aid forms or checkboxes. Some departments have separate applications for RA/TA. Be careful, and read everything.

Of course, knowing all the concepts behind doing this sort of research and actually being successful are two different things. Below are some pointers to help make this search a little easier. As mentioned before, the best place to start looking for info is the web. This is quick because most universitiess put their catalog (or significant parts of it) up on their homepages. Once you've narrowed your choices down by some geographic criteria, and perhaps reputtaion, start looking for the remaining schools' homepages (hopefully your list is less than 25). Once on their homepage (if you have trouble finding it, use any net search tool), you may want to bookmark it. From here you will need to find several areas on their page including the Graduate School overall, your particular College of interest (like the College of Engineering), and perhpas your specific department of interest if known (like Department of Mechanical Engineering). The last can be a decent assignment all by itself! If you are exploring new opportunities like getting a MS in a field outside your BS (like getting an MBA if you have a BS in engineering), or changing your department (like getting an MS in Biomedical Engineering when your BS was in Mechanical). Since these fields may be new, you may need to take some extra prerequisites to get on track. This means paying attention to specific requirements for that field will be important, and more work may have to be done on your part in this researching stage. You may want to bookmark these more specific areas to save time returning to them.

In any case, there are a few things you should look for when delving into the depths of these homepages. Some helpful headings include: Current Research , Courses (or Course Schedule ), Faculty/Staff, Requirements, Program , etc. (These assume you are in your specific department's section). Dont worry if this sounds alien to you, after a few days of looking around you will be familiar enough to know what to look for. The good news abuot doing all this looking is you can usually directly print out most of this information. This should help speed up the process of getting the information, but you should always request the following by US mail as well as trying to get it off the web:

Department's Research Brochure

University's Graduate Application and Requirements

College's Requirements (and any separate applications such as Assistanship)

University's Housing info

Department's Course descriptions (and schedule)

The above info will serve as the foundation of your academic selection criteria. As noted above, research can become more important than courses in some iabove, research can become more important than courses in some instances, but courses will still be important. Get all this material early so you can famialarize yourself with it. It will be important to give Letters of Recommendation to your professors early so they are not rushed. Course descriptions will be invaluable if you are altering your emphasis (or major) as discussed above. Housing must also not be forgotten, as that is simply a basic necessity.

Housing

Housing arrangements for Graduate Students can be somewhat different than that of undergrads. This refers to university sponsored housing of course, but can be important if you plan on moving to an unknown region. Universities usually have separate housing arrangements for graduate students. This can be separate dorms or apartments, more available single rooms, nicer places, or more perks in the housing facility. These can all be benifical at this stage and is a good option to investigate. Again, look to their homepage for contact info. Another source of living arrangements can be found on the web also - apartment finliving arrangements can be found on the web also - apartment finders. These services (usually free since they get sponsored by advertising, and kickbacks from local truck and furniture rental companies) can be a great help for those embarking on a long journey to a "foreign" land. If nothing else, it allows you to have more information to compare choices with to get a feel for the environment. While the fear of getting "burned" may be present, some don't find dorm life, even with perks, the best choice. It would seem the best choice would be single room, separate graduate apartments, sponsored by, and near to, the university. This has the advantage of freedom with perks, usually close, safe location, similar thinking neighbors, and a landlord you know. Keep in mind this is the opinion of the author only, and is only valid in those situations where you don't know the area.

Some other interesting thoughts to keep in mind:

Some say it really doesn't matter where you go to get your masters, or what research you do, as long as you do it, and do it well. The idea here is you've taken a big step, and a challange, an accomplished your goals in a good manner. Therefore, you have completed the process well, and the specifics of it are not as important as the process itself. This is an interesting opinion, and one only time can tell for each person. This is not usually held foronly time can tell for each person. This is not usually held for PhD work though, as your research there intimately represents you and your goals, and will probably shape your future work.

Also, for those returning for their MS via a work sponsored program, the choices are probably a little easier since most likely your geographical region is limited and you course of study will probably follow along the plan of your current work or some plan your superiors have devised for you. In this case, you may want to explore a few options to see if something else of interest catches your eye, and then present the idea to those in charge. If the above asumptions are not correct, you will be toughing it out as described in the body of this article above.

The decision making process about whether to get only the Ms or go straight through for the PhD is left as an exercise for the reader (: Keep in mind though, the main ideas are:
straight through to the PhD

fast

sharp mind for academia

no "real world" experience (getting hired at a deserving salary may be a problem)

MS only (for now)

break from school

earn needed money

gain work experience

possibly gain direction for eventual PhD research (maybe more/better financial support).

family, relative wealth, lost touch with academia, may keep you from returning

probably take longer (especially if done part time)

Now that you're thoroughly exhausted from reading this article, it's time to begin your search!

This page was created with

Clayton Berry, 1996.
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