After you have gotten clear on why and how you will apply to grad school, and identified and contacted those who will help you along your journey, it is time to zoom in on “the little things”. Breaking your application journey into small, daily tasks is key; do each task to the best of your ability, and your final product will shine. Here are the steps to take in months two and three.

MONTH 2: WRITE YOUR WAY IN

Week 1

• Find your CV/ resume. Ensure that it reflects your latest and most relevant achievements in a convincing way. Your CV, like your personal statement, functions as a marketing document. It must be clear, cohesive, and as convincing as possible. If your CV needs to be updated, start tweaking it, and approach a friend or professional to help you review it once you are done.

• In month 1, week 3, you approached your recommenders. Now it is time to give your recommenders an information packet to refer to as they write on your behalf. It should include the main message you will explore in your personal statement, your CV, and information on your chosen program(s). Give them a specific date by which to submit their letter, and make them aware that you will remind them about the deadline. Add the dates to remind them to your personal calendar.

• Continue studying for your standardized test. Take a timed practice test at the end of the week, review it thoroughly, and note the areas which need improvement.

Week 2

• Begin writing your personal statement according to your time table. Create an outline that expounds on your main message, and start fleshing out the outline. If you are writing multiple statements, prioritize the one for the program you most want to get into or the one which will require the most effort (research, writing, editing). As much as is possible, work on one statement at a time.

• Continue updating your CV/ resume. Ensure it is focused on the impact you have had in relevant professional roles, not on the tasks you have performed in these jobs. Admissions officers don’t care that you “Entered data in a spreadsheet daily,” they care about what you made possible by doing that.

• Open an application at all the schools to which you will be applying. Thoroughly review each application form—ensure that you are aware of any and all short essays/ commentaries requested and the format in which you are expected to submit your CV (as a Word document or PDF file, or typed directly into a form the school supplies). This will help you accurately estimate how much time you need to complete each application.

• Continue studying for your standardized test. Take a timed practice test at the end of the week, review it thoroughly, and note the areas that still need improvement. Block out a few hours on the weekend to complete and review as many practice questions focused on your problem areas as possible.

Week 3

• Continue writing your main personal statement. Give yourself a deadline, by the end of the week, to send a completed draft to those reviewing your statement.

• On Thursday, use these three tips to make sure your personal statement draft is as strong as it can be. On Friday, send your draft, the writing prompt, and a description of the program to your editor.

• Continue updating your CV/ resume. Ensure it complements the main message in your personal statement. The information in your CV should corroborate what you explore in your personal statement. It should also tell a story of its own—one that has no holes.

• Continue studying for your standardized test. Take a timed practice test at the end of the week, review it thoroughly, and note the areas that require that you fine-tune your knowledge.

Week 4

• Send your CV/resume to a friend or a professional to be edited. Get help. Two sharp minds are better than one. It is much better to do everything you can to prepare a strong application and ensure that you only need to apply once than to submit a mediocre application and run the risk of having to reapply.

• Edit your main personal statement based on feedback you have received. It is important to find reviewers who you trust so that you don’t question the validity of their feedback.

• Check in on the delivery status of your recommendations and transcripts. Communicate with your recommenders in a respectful, eager manner, but not in an entitled manner.

• Review the application fees for each school and ensure you are on track to pay them.

• Continue studying for your standardized test. Take and review at least two timed practice tests during this week. Once you have mastered your problem areas, exposing yourself to as many past questions as possible will increase your confidence.

MONTH 3: TEST, FINALIZE YOUR WRITING, AND APPLY

By now, your main personal statement and your CV should be in robust shape. This means you should be able to complete both with as little as 30 minutes of work each day over the next few days.  It’s time to focus on writing additional personal statements, filling out your application forms, and taking any outstanding tests.

Weeks 1 and 2

• Review what you wrote down in month 1, week 1. Remind yourself why going to graduate school is the best move you can make in your life right now, then remind yourself that as important as this is to you, you have an abundance of options in your life. You don’t need to worry, because your ability to create and enjoy a fulfilling life does not rest solely on getting into your top choice school.

• Devote just an hour or two each day (or every other day) to writing and editing your remaining personal statements. As before, try to work on one statement at a time. If you find that you are staring at the computer screen but not making progress, ask those supporting you for help rather than letting the time go to waste. Sometimes a quick conversation is all you need to get ideas flowing.

• Remind your recommenders to upload their letters on your behalf. In your email, include the web links they must use to do so. Check each program’s application system for confirmation that the letters have been delivered.

• Take and review at least two timed practice tests during each week. In week 2, test closer towards the beginning of the week, and leave a few days between your last practice test and the actual test.

• Take your standardized test. You did it!

Week 3

• Devote three to four hours each day to editing and copyediting your personal statements and CV/resume. Ensure that you have followed all formatting directives, including margin widths, fonts, placement of your name and applicant number etc.

• Triple check that your recommendations and transcript(s) have been submitted.

Week 4

• • Upload your personal statements and CV/resume.
  • Complete your application forms. Review your forms to ensure you have uploaded the correct documents, according to submission regulations.

• Submit your applications.

Take a few days to rest and celebrate this bold step you have taken towards achieving the goals you have for yourself. Be sure to thank those who supported you during the process.

In the weeks to come, if you need to, start searching for scholarships that can give you more discretionary income with which to enjoy your graduate school experience. Otherwise, start thinking about how you want to spend the last few months before you head off to school. If you managed to impress the admissions committee, it won’t be long from now.

Found this helpful?

To get our one-on-support with your match application, email the word “GRADUATE” to shawna (at) memorableessay.com.

The post How To Apply To Graduate School In Three Months – Part II appeared first on Memorable Essay.

When overwhelmed by an impending deadline, applicants often go into complete paralysis. Others do the opposite—jump straight into hurried action—they open applications with a few schools they have been eyeing, ask for references, start studying for a standardized test, and begin editing their CV, all at once.  While you must take action, the best first step is to develop a big-picture view of why and how you will complete your application. Creating an informed strategy will save you time in the long run.

MONTH 1: STRATEGIZE AND START

Week 1

• Write down the three life goals that are most important to you. Beside each, write how going to grad school will help you fulfil it. This simple process helps you to come up with your “Why,” the main reasons you are applying. You are about to invest hundreds of hours, and maybe dollars, in this process; your “Why” will help keep you going when it gets challenging. Stick this list on your mirror or laptop, or inside a book you open often.

• Write down two fulfilling alternatives you can pursue if you choose not to go to grad school at this time. While it is important to believe that your application will be successful, acknowledging that you have other options can help you keep calm as you apply, when you interview, and as you wait for feedback.

• Take stock of your financial situation. Specifically, determine the budget you need to apply to, move to, and pay for graduate school. After doing this, you should know exactly how much external funding you need to pursue your studies, which will influence the schools and scholarships to which you apply.

Week 2

• List the attributes in a school that are most important to you, and start researching your options. Create a spreadsheet for recording the places that meet your criteria: Include their deadlines, contact information, as well as links to their selection criteria pages. Make note of the schools that require standardized tests, and record the average score of the last incoming class—if they don’t have the average displayed, call and inquire about it. This way you know the bar you have to reach.

• Review your list of schools and ensure that it includes at least two you are not overqualified for. Apply to some schools you are more than qualified for, ones you are a competitive candidate for, and a few that seem (objectively) just a bit out of your league. Each one must be a school you would be happy to attend. Depending on your field, ensure your final list has just the number of schools you need in order to have high chances of being admitted to at least two; you don’t need to overextend yourself.

• If you need to but have not already taken a standardized test (such as the GRE), do a practice test to see how close you are to the score you need to impress your top choice (above average). Depending on how far you are from the mark, get test prep help from friends, or register for a prep course. If possible, you can also target test-optional schools, programs that don’t require an entrance test at all, or places that put more weight on non-test achievements. Register for a test date 6–8 weeks away. If you excelled in the practice test, you can book a test date that is closer.

If you did not include travel tickets, food, and accommodations on test day in your budget (Week 1), go back and add these expenses.

• Conduct an audit of your social media accounts. Use a professional-looking photo for LinkedIn, make your Instagram account private if the message it portrays could undermine the message you will try to communicate through your application, remove Facebook photos and videos of you in compromising positions, and start ranting less on Twitter.

  Be aware that your applications might attract thorough scrutiny of your online footprint, and an admissions officer can use this digital trail to make conclusions about whether you would be a good fit for their school. It is in your best interest that your social media profiles portray your personality, values, and motivations in a way that complements the message in your application.

Week 3

• Create an application timetable similar to this one, but include dates and other details that are relevant to your situation. Include blocks of time to: study and practice for standardized tests, write your personal statement, update your CV/ resume, respond to emails from your schools and recommenders, and fill and review your application. These are priority hours in your life now; block them out on your calendar and show up for yourself.

• Get in touch with those you will ask to write your recommendations. Hopefully, these are people you have remained in touch with, but if not, update them on what you have been doing and how going to graduate school will help you achieve your life goals. Give them a date when they will hear from you with more specific guidance about what you need them to write.

• Identify a backup recommender. Don’t tell this person they are your backup. Simply email them to say hello, and update them on your latest activities. Sometimes those we trust disappoint us, and in case your chosen recommenders do not deliver, or if they deliver slapdash work, you must have someone else you can call on. You don’t want to be the qualified applicant begging someone you last spoke with three years ago to quickly write and submit a glowing recommendation on your behalf. Worse, you don’t want to be forced to submit a lazily written letter, because you had no backup.

• Begin studying for your standardized test according to your time table, and do a practice test at the end of the week. An integral part of studying is doing practice tests then carefully reviewing them. Don’t ever skip review. Go over questions you got wrong or found difficult, to ensure you understand their underlying concepts. Also, double check the soundness of the methods you used to arrive at the answers you did get right; guessing is not an ideal method.

• Contact the programs to which you will apply. Ask any genuine and relevant question on your mind. When doing so, without pandering, tell them briefly why their program is of interest to you. If you are located close to the school, one question you can ask is whether you can shadow a class in the program. Follow and interact with their social media accounts.

Week 4

• Order your transcript(s) for delivery to your schools or to you for uploading. This process can take many weeks, especially if you owe an institution money; take care of it now so you can submit your application on time.

• Review your transcript(s) for any period of prolonged poor academic performance (below what your dream school requires). Make a note of how you will explain these patterns, either in your personal statement or on the application’s “more information” section. If you experienced poor academic performance because of traumatic events like tragic family accidents, this is something recommenders can address on your behalf.

• Figure out the main message you will convey in your personal statement, regardless of the specific school to which you apply. If you have no idea where to start, use this free download. Once you have this down, go back and tailor this message to each school. Conveying a clear, coherent message about why your school and program should choose you is a must if you want to get an acceptance letter.

Continue studying for your standardized test. Consider alternative methods of strengthening your problem areas—YouTube videos, audio lectures, your old college notes, study groups. You can also email friends or former professors for help.

That’s month one! In month two, you will begin to write your application essays and sharpen your CV while still studying for your standardized test. If you don’t have to take such a test, or if you have already gotten it out of the way, you will be free to focus on writing. In month three, you will take your standardized test, buckle down on reviewing your application essays, and submit your application. Applying to graduate school in three months is not ideal, but it is doable.

Found this information useful? Be sure to share it on social media!

To get our one-on-support with your graduate school application, email the word “GRADUATE” to shawna (at) memorableessay.com.

The post How To Apply To Graduate School In Three Months – Part I appeared first on Memorable Essay.

Yes, it can seem non-serious to delay making a positive change immediately, especially when there are no barriers to doing so. However, I have found that at the end of the Gregorian calendar year, there is a widespread upsurge in expressing gratitude, doing self-reflection, and envisioning possibilities — a kind of communal momentum — that makes late December an enticing time for planning; of course, if you receive Christmas vacation days from your job, it is also a convenient time.

So it is understandable that acting on these intentions would start right afterwards: New year, new you!

Are you committed to a “new you” for 2017? And does your renewal plan entail applying to graduate school? If so, here are six things you can do before 2016 ends to increase the chances of making your application successful.

If you wish to pace yourself, do only one each day. Block the time off on your calendar and keep the appointment:

1. Take Yourself On A Date

You will be writing about yourself when you apply to graduate school. Specifically, you will be trying to convince a selection committee that what you have accomplished and experienced makes you desirable, and what you have to add to their campus and the world makes you a unique asset.

You must know yourself well in order to advocate for yourself. Spend two to five focused hours with yourself over the holidays and ask yourself some questions like the ones below:

• Are you ready to commit your time, attention, effort, and finances to graduate studies, or are you applying because others are telling you you’re at that age and stage?

• What do you most value in life? How will going to graduate school help you to have more of what you value?

• Which problem or issue in the world did you think about or research the most in 2016? Is this issue what you will be focusing on in graduate school? If not, why?

• When did you realize that 2017 was definitely the year you would start graduate school? Why was that moment or those moments so definitive?

• Which academic or professional achievement in 2016 are you most proud of?

• How did you grow in 2016, and how do you want to keep growing in 2017?

• Which of all the grad schools that you’ve seen most perfectly fits your needs and wants? Why?

• When you look over your list of schools, are you settling out of fear of rejection?

• What is the one thing you most want to accomplish before you die?

• How will you use graduate school to help you accomplish your one thing?

Write your answers, or record voice notes to yourself. Have follow-up conversations in the days after the date; if it is hard to get alone time, you can do so when you shower. When it’s time to apply to school, read your notes, listen to your answers; you will have plenty of ideas about why this move is important to you and how you can package and present yourself.

2. Review Your Finances, Including Your Plan To Pay For Grad School

It doesn’t matter how excellent the school you are admitted to is or how hard you worked on your application. If you can’t pay your fees, you cannot attend. In my experience, if you can’t pay your fees and living expenses comfortably, think twice before attending.

Enter free time this holiday season: Take a few hours and fill out a pre-made annual budget planner. Google “Free annual budget planner template.” Not a monthly or quarterly one — one for the whole year.

An annual budget will allow you to:

• See how your expenses will change when you are applying, moving to, and attending graduate school

• Verify that your income can indeed cover those fluctuating expenses

• Make any alterations to your grad school application strategy, such as applying for additional scholarships, adjusting your school list, or changing your degree program based on funding available

3. Create An Application Timetable and Strategy

Get organized. In what timeframe will you be applying to graduate school? How many schools are you applying to and when is each school’s deadline? When will you have the most free time to work on your applications? In which ways are you networking to get into your top choice school? In which area and when will you need support from your friends, family members, or professionals, and who can you start recruiting to help you?

Right now you are at Point A. The grad school of your dreams is at Point B. Use the holiday break to map out a step-by-step plan to successfully land on Point B in 2017.

4. Brush up your CV; Locate your transcript

There are two documents that will be required at most of the schools to which you apply: A CV/resume and transcript(s). Your December into January break is a window in which you can take one to three focused hours to improve your CV/resume: Ensure all your latest achievements are reflected, play up the achievements and experiences (eg. leadership, service) most relevant to grad school, and find stronger ways of wording each entry.

In just a few hours, you can also locate and review a copy of your existing transcripts. It is not uncommon for graduate school applicants to have very little recollection about how they performed in college or in other graduate school programs. This becomes problematic when applying to graduate school on a tight deadline. All of a sudden, they are grasping for “the right words” to describe discrepancies and downward patterns on these transcripts.

If you can’t find your transcript, order a copy from your alma mater (and while you are at it, find out how long it takes and how much it costs for them to send official ones).

Once you have a copy of your transcript in hand, study it and decide on if and how you will explain your past pursuits and performance.

5. Connect With Potential Recommenders, Especially People You Haven’t Spoken With All Year 

The holiday season is a perfect time to reopen communication doors that have been closed for too long. Hopefully, you genuinely care about the people who will be writing on your behalf, so you do want to know how they are doing and how their year went. Few people will question your motivation for reaching out to them at the end of the year, even if you have been silent all year long.

Once they respond, slowly bring them up to date with how you spent your year. Keep the conversation going into the new year. You will get a feel for if they still remember nuances about you, respect you, and are invested in their success. This will help you determine whether or not you indeed want them to write on your behalf. It will also make it feel less awkward if and when you ask them to help you.

6. List 10 Things You Excelled in During 2016

Application processes can be tedious and expensive. You might need some support —that you can outsource. What you can’t get from someone else, however, but will need plenty of, is self-confidence. You will need to believe in your ability to successfully gain admission to your dream school as well as in your ability to thrive in life whether or not you go to one of your Top Three choices.

Use an hour during the next week to make a list of 10 things you did well this year. Here are some ideas:

• Did you consistently make time to listen to a friend or stranger in need? You have remained kind; the world needs kind professionals.

• Did you walk away from a situation that denied you access to what you most value? You lived by your values.

• Did you attempt anything new? You opened yourself to growth. This indicates maturity, an essential ingredient for graduate school success.

• Did you save a portion of your earnings? Clean up your credit? Or did you rely on previous years’ savings to stay solvent during a crisis? You have financial savvy. That will take you far.

• Did you research a project idea as thoroughly as you could, even if the project did not launch or soar because of things you did not forsee? Congratulations on taking initiative!

• Did you finally make a big decision you had been avoiding? You felt fear but moved forward anyway? Boom. Understand that that took courage.

• Did you work on a project every week (your business, talent, health), even when you did not feel like it? Congratulate yourself on mastering consistency.

• Did you end a relationship (of any sort) that did not make you feel valued, safe, or worthy? Or did you amp up your commitment to a relationship in which you feel respected? You can choose healthful environments for yourself, congrats.

• Did you read a book, research a topic, watch a documentary, attend a seminar, talk with an elder, or expose yourself to any kind of continued education? You remained curious about your world; this is worth celebrating.

• Did you handle responsibilities to others while paying attention to your own needs every day this year? This can be difficult, so be proud that you persisted.

Have you displayed consistency, courage, curiosity, kindness, and maturity in 2016? Have you identified and placed yourself in environments that help you thrive and been willing to try new things? This is how you know that you are indeed ready for graduate school in 2017.

Are you planning on doing any of these things this holiday season? What did you excel in in 2016? I would love to hear from you in the Comments below.

The post 6 Ways To Work On Your 2017 Grad School Application During The Holidays appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Doing extensive research into the curriculum ahead of enrollment is a critical step in being well prepared for absorbing and managing your MPH academics.”

Tigest Tamrat is a Consultant at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Reproductive Health and Research headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where she focuses on digital health innovations and their impact on reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH). A Master of Public Health in Epidemiology (2012) from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health helped lay the foundation for her daily work. Here she shares countless gems from her MPH journey.

ME: Tigest, thank you for taking the time to give us a behind-the-scenes look at your educational and professional paths. Let’s start with your “why”.  What was your single biggest motivation for pursuing an MPH?

Tigest: For my undergraduate degree, I had majored in history at a liberal arts college. As with most students who have ties to their home country, I knew I wanted to do something that would bring about practical change and impact lives. However, I was always confronted with questions about how I would apply my degree in a meaningful way to achieve those humanist ambitions.

I had always gravitated towards medicine and truly wanted to contribute to this field, but I knew that I could not stomach the blood and gore.  Immediately after graduating with my first degree, I worked at a medical organization in Ethiopia, my home country, and was involved in a lot of non-clinical yet public health activities, including coordinating nutrition programs, facilitating births at health facilities and understanding stopgap measures that can be taken for home-based births, responding to health needs of incoming refugees, and controlling issues sparked by water-related illnesses.

While being a physician is critical in these situations, there were also many other structural and systematic challenges that needed to be addressed. My liberal arts degree was useful in helping me to analyze contexts and articulate ideas in the form of proposals, but I also had to read and educate myself a lot on clinical protocols and health management. After two years of stretching out my history degree, I knew that there were limits to what could be self-taught, as well as that I needed to have the appropriate credentials to be taken seriously in a such a clinical and professional field.  An MPH seemed like a good fit for equipping me with the necessary tools for moving my career to the next phase.

ME: Yes. That took me some time to realize as well, but working on structural and systematic healthcare frameworks, like being a physician, can lead to practical and lasting change. It can be a relieving epiphany for healthcare lovers who think “big picture” or who don’t like “blood and gore”.
So when you were at Columbia, what was the most surprising outcome of your studies?

Tigest: I realized that I actually didn’t know what I was getting into and should have explored the different departments prior to enrolling. MPH programs are not monolithic, and there are various departments and study tracks. In addition to the uniqueness of the topic areas, these different study tracks also have their own implications on employment opportunities and types of exposures in practicums.  I studied Epidemiology and going in, I just thought it was about disease control and learning clinical procedures.  It was in fact very data/statistics heavy, which ended up being useful and made me feel a bit more marketable than peers from other departments.  However, I think doing extensive research into the curriculum ahead of enrollment is a critical step in being well prepared for absorbing and managing your MPH academics.

ME: That is priceless advice! It’s so important to truly understand all that is on offer at a graduate school before you apply. Interview alums from as many departments and tracks as you can, go to open days, sit in on classes, look over syllabi, look at the skills required for entry-level jobs in your field, and understand the trends in your field and which skills you will need to be marketable—or management material—years from now. And once you enroll, don’t hesitate to switch if you realize another department or track can better equip you to crush your short- and long-term goals.

Speaking of alums. Now that you are out of school, tell me: How has your master’s degree helped you in your professional life?

Tigest: My master’s degree has provided concrete skills that have translated to my work.  My immediate job following my MPH was a research manager for an adolescent health program, and this role required operating an SPSS statistical package and monitoring data on implementation efforts.  Having this degree essentially made me the core person for producing all related data for informing implementations and evaluating the effects of our interventions. The degree has also been important for empowering me to be in relatively senior roles for leading public health research and managing large-scale interventions.

ME: That is exactly what you wanted — the appropriate credentials to be taken seriously. I am glad that you are already leading.

For those on their MPH journey as we speak, what would you advise them to do in order to finish strong?

Tigest’s 5 Tips For Finishing Your Master of Public Health (MPH)

1. Find a professor or faculty member to whom you can reach out for guidance and mentorship:
I know this may seem easier said than done, but this is literally what got me through graduate school.  At the end of my second semester, I had to a do a thesis and was essentially left on my own to figure out a topic, obtain a dataset, and identify reviewers. This was a similar experience across other peers.  What helped me was finding a faculty member who could point me to areas for getting a dataset, someone who was willing to review and give me feedback on ideas for my thesis topic.

2. Take advantage of the chance to be placed in a practicum:
It doesn’t need to be for a long duration, but having an international placement early on can not only establish good networks for future employment, but also help you to reflect on what exactly you want to get out of the MPH.  There are a lot of critical managerial life skills that an MPH academic program cannot teach, so a practicum and any related work opportunities will be important for shaping what you want to get out of your MPH.

3. Form/join a study group:
I like to study by myself, but having a small group of peers in your cohort is really helpful for reviewing your work and just keeping everyone abreast of updates that someone may miss.  For example, a professor may have posted a useful resource, and the study group may help to make sure you don’t miss updates.  It’s also great to have different perspectives to tackle assignments and discuss topics that may further stimulate interests.

4. Do your best and challenge yourself with new courses and campus research jobs:
This seems pretty obvious, but use the MPH opportunity to learn about new areas that you may not have otherwise had in mind. A lot of my current work now focuses on the use of digital technologies for health. During my MPH, I worked off campus at a research lab on digital technologies, something that I was very much unaware of prior to my academic program.  Dipping my toes into this completely new area ended up serving me well and opening a completely new area of health interests that I ever imagined.

5. Take advantage of guest lectures and nonacademic opportunities provided by your MPH program:
One of the great things about an on-campus MPH program versus an online program is that you can be exposed to events and high-profile visitors who are invited to deliver lectures and presentations.

ME: Whew! That was more like a masterclass on how to get the most out of your master’s studies! Top-notch, actionable strategy. Thank you, Tigest.

At the WHO, Tigest Tamrat facilitated the development of a mobile health assessment and planning for scale toolkit and other resources targeting the global digital health community. Previously, Tigest served as a research officer coordinating multi-country adolescent and reproductive health programs at the Population Council based in Ethiopia. In addition to an MPH, she holds a Bachelor of Arts from Swarthmore College.

The post Get The Most Out Of Your MPH: Tigest’s Masterclass appeared first on Memorable Essay.

Let us use a visit to where you grew up as an example. If you have ever moved away from home, a return in the summer or December vacation period can feel too short. As soon as you take care of your commitment, like a visit to your house or ancestral home, there is something you make time to enjoy—the meal, place, or person’s company you must have as soon as possible. You want it, specifically, because it has no substitute.

When interviewing for a scholarship, adopt the mindset of making yourself a must-have. The reason is simple: The likely scenario is that there will be more people applying than there are available spots, and a large percentage of these applicants will align well enough with the priorities of those providing the opportunity. If you want to give yourself the best chance of winning, you have to move yourself from the “nice to have” pile to the “must have” shortlist.

I’ve been thinking about this over the past two weeks as I have done practice interviews with a bright young person vying for a selective scholarship. The individual is accomplished, driven, and meets each criterion the scholarship creators say they are looking for. However, by the end of practice, the person had not converted me into a “raving selection committee member”. They felt “very nice to have”; however, I was not so sold that, if it came down to a tie, I would call home and ask someone to shelf my dinner, so I could remain in the selection room and hold out for this applicant all evening. I think the person will be a must-have on interview day by using three simple strategies. You, too, can use them:

1. ARTICULATE YOUR UNIQUE VALUE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE INTERVIEW

The direction and pace of an interview depend largely on the interviewer(s). However, at all times, you are in charge of your interview; take charge of that ship, or it will drag you to any old place. This is especially true for interviews known to at times be aggressive (Rhodes and Truman, for example). If you are not sure about a scholarship’s interview style, ask a few recent winners.

Set the tone of the interview by sharing upfront the unique way in which you plan to use the scholarship to address the primary issue the scholarship is geared towards. Your uniqueness makes you interesting, and by articulating it, you remind the committee member(s) that you are who they are looking for.

If you prepared well, you will also be ready for some of the obvious spin-off questions. When you set the tone, you even reduce the number of questions that surprise you.

2. SHOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SAY YOU KNOW

Whereas the use of jargon is sometimes discouraged in the classroom, in scholarship interviews, especially in ones with experts on a selection panel, strategically use jargon. Also deliberately introduce concepts, historical context, statistics, landmark research projects and policies, and trends. For niche scholarship interviews, you will be talking with panelists who have read (and perhaps also written) thousands of pages of information about the field to which you are saying you want to contribute. Be as thoroughly informed as possible. More importantly, when you are informed, do not assume people know this; show off. Start and facilitate authoritative conversation.

3. DIVULGE YOUR PERSONAL CONNECTION TO THE SCHOLARSHIP

The scholarship you are applying for will fund a specific area of study. What personal experience or conviction bred your interest in this issue? Yes, some people are more comfortable with being vulnerable than others are, and you should not overshare. However, sharing your emotions remains a powerful way of connecting with people. Do not pander to emotions, lie, or be insincere, but do be open and speak openly.

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, people remember how you make them feel. Make the scholarship committee feel the urgency of your mission so deeply that they eagerly appoint you to become an ambassador for their own mission. There will be time and money for you when you meet the committee’s needs in a way no substitute can. Use these strategies to make yourself a must-have.

Which other strategies have you used to win selective scholarships? Share them below, and share this article with anyone who you know is applying for a competitive scholarship.

The post Scholarship Interview? Make Yourself A Must-Have appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Assess how you are going to pay for school, research scholarship opportunities, be frugal with living expenses if need be, and design a future plan for paying off loans that you are committed to working towards.”

Ashley Szczesiak describes herself as a visual artist, educator, and explorer. At Middlebury College, she earned a BA in Film and Media Culture Studies, with a minor in the History of Art and Architecture. She went on to pursue a master’s degree (MAT) in Arts Education as the recipient of a New Artist Society Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

ME: Ashley, thanks for giving of your time to share with the Memorable Essay community. I am happy that others will be able to learn from your wisdom and journey.

Can you tell us what was your single biggest motivation for pursuing a master’s?

Ashley: I decided to pursue my master’s degree because I wanted to be my own boss. What I mean by boss is that I realized that I wanted to have more autonomy over how I spend my time and energy at work and over the course of my future career trajectory.

I am a visual artist who spends most of my time teaching. Initially, I began teaching to support my personal practice, but lately, teaching has become part of my practice of creating and managing what I see to be “social projects.”

For years after pursuing my bachelor’s degree, I worked in assistant positions to support the needs of other artists, art historians and art educators in professional studios, art museums, and pubic and private educational settings.

While each of those experiences proved to be very valuable in developing my art practice, and essential in teaching me the practical skills needed to apply the knowledge I acquired as an undergraduate, after four years of various apprenticeships (the equivalent of another undergraduate period of development and growth), it became clear to me that assistant positions were no longer appropriate for my skill level and the scope of my professional aspirations.

I noticed that I was approaching each day at work with an increasingly unsatisfied feeling that I was not fully exploring and applying my potential, that I was working too hard for too little pay, and that all my hard work was not actually going to pay off and lead me in the right direction to grow, because I was not on the right track; I needed to jump levels.

I distinctly remember working as an assistant again before committing to apply for that year’s application cycle and realizing, “You know what? I can do this. I’m ready to be in charge. I want to manage my own students, my own assistants, my own classroom. Boom.”

ME: Boom. And what was the biggest sacrifice you made to successfully complete your master’s?

Ashley: I left a city that I loved to move to a city that I did not love.
My homesickness was so severe that I often found myself crying in class during my first semester. A quick look at my resume could show that I might in fact be a professional vagabond, since I have moved annually all over the country — and even internationally — to take various social justice-driven art education positions. But the move I made to attend graduate school was the first move I made that felt contrary to the wishes of my heart.

I was heartbroken. NYC has always felt like home to me; at the time, I had a deep sense of connection to my family and friends who were there, and the last thing I wanted to do after years of moving was to uproot my recent sense of settlement and solace for an entirely new city (and culture) that I would need to make my home for at least two years.

In the end, I managed to heal my heart by merging my own personal experience in the midwest with my pedagogical practice by focusing my graduate thesis research on phenomenological and autobiographical accounts of how teenage Chicago Public School students also conceived of the concept of “home.”

ME: I understand. I think for many people who suffer from homesickness while in school, they choose topics of study that serve as its catharsis. I definitely did.

Master’s studies can be a trying road, so I am happy you made it! Tell us, what should anyone contemplating a Master of Art consider before applying?

Ashley: Be realistic and disciplined about your financial plan.

Assess how you are going to pay for school, research scholarship opportunities, be frugal with living expenses if need be and design a future plan for paying off loans that you are committed to working towards.

Graduate school is supposed to catapult you into a new social position that eventually affords you more happiness and freedom. Having a smart financial plan and sticking to it is one clear way to work towards that very freedom that we are seeking from our studies.

ME : You could not have said that more perfectly. Thank you. And what advice would you give someone who wants to successfully pursue their master’s?

Ashley’s Four Tips on What to Consider Before Starting a Master’s:

1. Be serious about your commitment. A healthy dose of doubt and readjustment to what could be a radical shift in lifestyle should leave within the first semester. Remember, graduate school might only be four semesters! You owe it to yourself to be solidly committed to your reasons for being there. Be serious enough to give it all you can and get all you can in return.

2. Build relationships with your professors to develop professional mentorships that will last after graduate school ends. Networking is not the right word. It was helpful for me to acknowledge that the relationships with my professors that seemed most special were not mutually equal “professional friendships” in which we took turns giving and receiving. They were ones in which expectations were explicitly established that one person would whole-heartedly give more, and the other would receive the wisdom and generosity of their shared experience as an act of goodwill that would then be passed on / paid forward.

3. Call on your colleagues (cohort members) for support and healthy competition. It was amazing how much harder I could work when I realized that I had a receptive audience to listen and constructively challenge me to think through my ideas/actions even further.

4. Devise a plan to take care of yourself by setting aside time for just you each week, regardless of what is due or demanded of you by others. The rigors of graduate school beckoned me to finally confront my tendency to run myself ragged and merely get to the end of whatever I set out to do. I took the time to finally figure out what it might look and feel like for me to practice healthy “self-care” and accept (and manage) that from now on, the nature of my professional career and personal life lies in the marathon category.

ME: Indeed. Life is not a sprint race. Thank you, Ashley!

Ashley Szczesiak, MAT, is licensed to teach visual art in the State of Illinois (Grades K-12) and holds Initial Conditional Professional Licensure (Grades K-12) in New York. She views travel as part of her personal practice and has pursued social justice art education opportunities in Vermont, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Arizona, China, Illinois, and Colombia. Currently based in New York City, Ashley works as a full-time visual arts teacher and advisor at a private Quaker high school for students with learning disabilities.

The post Earning A Master’s But Crying : Ashley’s Story appeared first on Memorable Essay.