Grad School is Different- Reflections

Graduate School
1

<p>After spending the last 6 months working my way through the grad school application and admissions process, I wanted to share a few things that I learned throughout the process.</p>

<p>I've been a regular on CC for years, ever since I was admitted to USC in high school. I went into the graduate school process with the expectation that it would be somewhat similar. I was surprised by some of the differences that I found throughout. While my experience won't be the same as everyone else's there might still be something to learn from it.</p>

<p>A piece of advice that I was given in my senior year was not to apply to grad school until I was excited about the thought of going to class again. After 16 years of schooling, it is okay to take a break, try out the real world, and wait before starting the process again. I'm grateful that I had a 2 year break in between my undergrad and grad. It gave me some real world experience, and helped me figure out my priorities for life. I also earned a bit of money to help pay for grad school. My parents helped me out with college, but it was always part of the equation that I would be responsible for paying my way through grad school. Working for a couple of years helped that become possible. </p>

<p>The only disadvantages to the two year break were the break between school and the GRE, and the break for getting letters of recommendation. I took the GRE last August, after studying over the summer. I found the test to have a similar difficulty to the SAT in the math section, and be somewhat harder in the other two sections. I hadn't taken any math classes since high school, but I am an English major, so that probably had something to do with it. I felt awkward asking professors from a year and a half before to write me a letter of rec, but I had built enough of a relationship with them while is school that they both were fine with writing the letter. Purposefully getting good relationships with professors is one thing that you need to think about in undergrad. I took two classes with both of them, and one was an unofficial advisor who I spoke to every semester for advice. </p>

<p>I went into the application process somewhat blind. I never went to any of the seminars on applying to grad school while at USC, so I didn't really know the basics. Also, my situation is somewhat weird, as my undergrad major was completely unrelated to what I am getting my Masters in. I never got any research experiences in undergrad (though I wish that I had), so I was an unusual applicant. </p>

<p>It was far more difficult for me to look up comparative information for my area of interest. It is completely true that the prestige of a university in undergrad can be completely unrelated to the strength of their graduate program in a specific department. I applied to three schools: University of Delaware, North Dakota State University, and Florida State University. These schools had the best programs in the field of Emergency Management that weren't entirely online. I was constantly subject to confused looks when I explained to where I had applied. It really was a mental shift to get used to being interested in some basically unknown schools, especially after the undergrad process, where name recognition player a larger role (for better or worse).</p>

<p>More in a minute- I don't want to lose what I've written thus far.</p>

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<p>The timeline once the applications are in are also very, very different. I submitted applications between December 1st and January 30th. I got my first few acceptances in late February. I didn’t find out about funding until about a week ago! Funding is very different in grad school than undergrad. For a PhD student it is expected, and for a Masters student it is nice. I was lucky to get full tuition and a stipend that will cover living expenses, as well as seriously discounted health insurance. However, despite that fact that I was accepted to all three schools, I only even heard funding mentioned at one. I specifically looked at programs that mentioned that there were funding opportunities for Masters program. Otherwise, Grad school would have been more expensive than I could afford.</p>

<p>My field (emergency management) is far more experience based than research based. This isn’t true of most grad programs, but there are some similar ones out there. The two years I spent as an Americorps volunteer getting experience in the field really helped in my applications to the schools. I was lucky to find a program that fit into my needs as well as the Americorps one did. Not every school will accept work experience instead of research experience, but some will, and it is worth it to figure out if yours will.</p>

<p>This is sort of rambling and random, but if you have any questions about this that I could help out with, I’d be happy to.</p>

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<p>Very good advice for people applying this year,like me.</p>

4

<p>Another comment prompted by your observation: rankings, with respect to the strength of the program applied to, matter a <em>lot</em> more in graduate school than they do in undergrad; in the latter, the US News rankings should be largely ignored on any kind of fine scale.</p>

<p>I.e., #10 vs. #30, university vs. LAC, has less objective merit than various elements of fit.</p>