Internship Podcast: Internship: Graduate School Application Process

Welcome to the Internship Podcast Number 8 for Summer 2008 brought to you by the Career Services Center at Jacobs University Bremen. With the approach of your final year, you may be thinking about the future already - about what is going to be happening in a year’s time. Planning on going to graduate school? Now is the time to start planning. One of the options that appears to be popular among your peers is graduate school. Today’s episode is dedicated to this topic and it may be longer than usual. Together, we will briefly cover what you would need in the most general scenarios, as well as when you should start preparing. The application process is a long one and can take up a lot of time. Basic planning will assist you in getting to the school and program that you dream of. before going deep into the topic, let me give you some inspirational statistics about the graduates from the class of 2008 about their graduate school prospects. A large percentage of the graduating students this year decided to go to graduate school and of the ones that accepted Jacobs graduates were spread evenly geographically speaking. A large portion of the students remains at Jacobs while the US and UK have garnered another big portion of the applicants. Some of the US schools that have accepted our students are: Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, MIT, Rice, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and others. In the UK, we will have representatives at Imperial College London, Liverpool University, LSE, Southampton, Bath, Cambridge, Edinburg, Essex, Oxford, Sheffield and others. The great variety of countries that Jacobs students go to, there are some common requirements that graduate schools would ask for during the application process. The 4 most common requirements are: standardized test scores, essays, recommendations, and transcripts. Although some schools will not require standardized scores, for example, and may ask for several essays rather than just one, these 4 are the types you will encounter if applying to several different countries. It is important to make your research in advance to determine if the school of your choice needs you to prepare something additional. Let’s have a look first at the standardized tests as you need to start planning these NOW since the majority of the US universities have admission deadlines in December. You have already made up your mind for sure that you will be applying to the US, right and you know by now that there are standardized tests for the graduate programs just as there was for your undergraduate programs at Jacobs. The tests for graduate schools are quite similar to the ones for bachelor programs. However, you need to register for them in time. The most popular ones are the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Tests) tests but you may also need LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) and MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). There is plenty of information on these online but let’s go through some things to consider from now. The GRE general test is the most widely requested test by US schools and it comes in two flavors - paper-based and computer-based. Registrations and test-taking places vary. The computer-based offers more flexibility as it can be taken any time year round. In germany, the computer-based test can be taken in Berlin, Frankfurt or Munchen and the test fee is $170. You can find more information about other options, payment details and registration contact details on the ETS website ( www.gre.org ). Apart from the general GRE, there are also subject GRE tests and you may want to double check if a specific program you are interested in applying for does not require one of the specific tests as well. Keep in mind that you cannot take any of these tests more than once a month so if you would feel at some point that your scores are not reflecting the best of your performance and you want to retake them, you need to have some time between taking it and the admissions deadline. Should you be applying for a management program or a business school and some other programs, you may need to take the GMAT test. Law schools require the LSAT and medical schools will ask for results on the MCAT test. Again you can find more information about them online but make sure to check that early enough. Some of these tests have registration deadlines as early as August. Next let’s look briefly at the transcripts requirements. As you know, the transcript is the summary of your academic achievements on record and can be requested from the registrar’s office. What we would like to point out, however, is that your transcript is only a small part of the reality behind your academic achievements. So, do not despair should you be dissatisfied with some of your results. Discuss that with your academic advisor, come to the CSC for advice, talk to colleagues - there are always ways to improve. Perhaps the most time-consuming part of the application process is the preparation of your essays. Let’s see how one can approach this process. Writing a graduate school letter is not much different than writing a motivation statement of any other kind. The famous AIDA approach of attention, interest, desire, action still applies here. Although each university is likely to ask you a slightly different question, the main building blocks of the personal statement are basically the same. You will be asked to motivate your choice for the school, to describe your background and your fit with the program and your ambitions and aspirations. Let’s look at an example of such a question and how to approach it. Boston University asks: In this personal statement, you may wish to discuss or draw the attention of the committee to one of the following 1) any social, economic, or cultural obstacle you have overcome; 2) particular achievements or qualities not otherwise revealed by your application; 3) your ethnic, cultural and/or linguistic heritage or any unusual or interesting family or personal background; 4) specific reasons you may have for choosing Boston University. This statement asks clearly of you to discuss ONE of the suggested topics. Ideally, however, you should be able to integrate your answers to all questions in your main answer. What this means is that you have to choose one of the 4 approaches and interweave your answer to the remaining three. It is also important to determine the following things while preparing your motivation statement: determine the purpose of writing this statement, determine the content of the statement, and determine the style of your statement. To keep the purpose of writing the statement always in mind, make sure to exclude all extraneous content that does not fit. Your aim is to convince the admissions committee that you are an applicant of great potential and a motivated applicant. Remember that there is someone reading your statement and evaluating each part of it. You are the amateur standing before the professionals, the experts and have to convince them that you are a good fit with what they are looking for. The good fit is something you need to ascertain extremely careful. Be sure to answer all the questions of the admissions committee. Think about your purpose in graduate studies - it is not something to take on lightly. Why have you chosen this field of study and what do you envision for the future? (sounds already like an intense therapeutic questioning, doesn’t it?) What are the special unique preparations, skills, interests, experiences, and special conditions that qualify you better than any other candidate? And most importantly - who are you? This is a motivational statement - YOUR motivational statement - your motivational statement about YOU. How does one put all that in words? Well, here we have to disappoint you - no one can tell you, least of all a 15-minute podcast. There are some things you can try to avoid though. For example, it is advisable to NOT use the approach “what I did with my life so far is the following:”. Rather be objective and self-revelatory with your examples. Stay away from cliches such as “I’ve always wanted to be a fill-in-the-blank”. Rather be specific and give examples of careful persuasive writing quality. Another thing - there is nothing more off-putting than being lectured in such a situation. The graduate admissions committee already knows what they want to read. Don’t tell them what they ought to be looking for. Tell them why what you can offer fits their needs beyond their wildest requirements. The 4th point of the usual requirements are the recommendation letters. This is the time for all your time and invested intelligence to shine through the impression you have made in your professors. Although the recommendation letter is actually outside your direct control, the indirect control you have is of crucial importance. It goes without saying that you should request recommendation letters from professions that know you well. What you can do for this letter is to provide the recommender with all the information that they may not know and ALL THE INFORMATION THAT THEY DO KNOW. Point out to them what is important to you, what justified your choices and your priorities, what lead you to choose the particular school you are applying to. Normally, this meta-information will be used indirectly to your advantage by a skilled recommender. Due to your dependence on the recommenders’ support, you need to understand that no one OWES you a recommendation letter. You are rather REQUESTING one. As such, it is important to openly support the recommender to the fullest and be as courteous as possible. Ask them in person and way in advance. Wait for the enthusiastic “yes” and only then hand over the official stationery that you have already filled out with your name, address and all the other things that you can fill out. Give the recommender ample time for the recommendation letter - give them at least 2-3 weeks and avoid the peak periods - ask early in advance. And most importantly, don’t forget to thank them!!! Let’s revise again: First thing that you can perhaps do is look at the standardized tests that you may need to take and start preparing for it. At the same time, it would be great if you are already trying to focus your graduate school search on some concrete schools and programs. Don’t go by name or popularity but by fit. Think about your personal statement and work on it draft after draft. And finally, put your positive thoughts together towards the professors that you would ask for a recommendation letter. You can find some more detailed information on the CSC website although the information is currently referring to last year and may be out of date until August. This was this week’s overview. Don’t forget that should you experience any difficulties in your communication, you can always contact us at k.mihov@jacobs-university.de or l.godineau@jacobs-university.de , i.folkerts@jacobs-universty.de . If you would like to contribute to the podcast and share your experiences, feel free to send us your pictures, to record a question or to simply drop us a line. Send them to us and we will include your stories in the shows to come. The song for today is by the Clintons - we have had them before - this time from their album Strange Day in Mexico.

Mevio | July 22, 2008

Tags:. .dedic. .process. .prepar. .brought. .career