Making Graduate School Appplications
You are probably reading this because you want to make an application to a US school. In this write up, I will give you tips that will help you set you apart from the thousands of students worldwide who will be competing with you for the limited spots that the admission committees of these grad schools hand out each year.
If you are wondering the moral authority I have in giving you advice on a matter such as this then here it goes. I am currently in grad school( second grad school) and I have made applications twice and I was successful on both occasions by following the same principles that I outline below.
Do's
1. Apply early
I don't know how much to stress this point but it is very important to submit your applications ideally as soon as the application window for the semester for which you want to apply is opened. The reason why I say this is because even though grad schools state applications deadlines on their websites, their admission committees start making offers long before the published deadline is up. Off course if you submit your application on the deadline it is possible to get admission but your chances are slim. By the time the deadline is up, most of the admission spots will be filled up and the few spots left becomes very competitive and the only people likely to get it are the truly exceptional students.
2. Take your exams early
You should plan to take your exams early enough so that the results get to the school around the same time you submit you results. Admission committees will most times not review your application until they have your exam score (GRE, GMAT, TOEFL etc) especially if the exam score is critical for their evaluation of your application.
3. Get transcripts and recommendation letters in early
Make sure you impress upon your undergraduate or former school and professors giving you recommendation to send the required documents early. Again your application is not considered to be complete until these documents are received by the schools.
4. Call the department
When you know your exam score, transcripts and letters of recommendation are supposed to have arrived at the school, call the person in charge at the department in which you are applying to to verify that they have them. There are situations where people lose their application packages in the mail.
SO I will end here for today and continue tomorrow with more dos and some donts with respect to grad school applications. see ya.
