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.

“Never forget the good reasons that motivated you to pursue the PhD in the first place.”

Dr. Derron Wallace is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wheaton College (Massachusetts), where he studied sociology and the African diaspora. He recently received his Ph.D. in Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Marshall and Gates Cambridge Scholar. For his dissertation, Derron was awarded the 2015 Distinguished Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association. Here are his five tips for getting your PhD done.

• ME:  Thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom, Derron. What was your motivation for pursuing a PhD?

Derron: Anger. I pursued a PhD because of an overwhelming anger, an unyielding frustration with the influence and impact of educational inequality in the Caribbean and its diaspora communities. To my mind, this was a productive form of anger—the generative kind needed for social change.

From my earliest days in Jamaica, I can recall being asked to leave school because my parents had not paid tuition on time (and in one instance, at all). Though but a child, I remember thinking to myself, how can a just nation say to its youth, say to its future leaders, that your participation in public schools is contingent on wealth?

My five-year doctoral study has been a critical and imaginative inquiry into the origin, development and maintenance of educational inequality. I am hopeful that the anger that still animates my questioning will ultimately lead to significant policy and programmatic changes in the field of education.

• ME:  What kind of social support helped you get through the hard times?

Derron: To ease my spirit, I avoided stuck-up nerds at all cost. I also threatened to discontinue my friendship with people who wished to talk about research day in and day out. For the health of my spirit, I invested in a network of leaders and bonafide friends who forced me to laugh about Portia’s never-shifting ‘helmet’, Jamaica’s three ministers of finance—each affectionately called ‘one-third’, or any of Ity and Fancy Cat’s antics. I should also add that I left the hallowed halls of Cambridge University every week after classes to live and work in South London. I searched for the company of fun-loving creatives with whom I could cook, play and laugh until my abdomen hurt.

• ME: Which one thing do you wish you had known about the PhD journey when you were applying to various programs?

Derron: You should not pay for a PhD. Accessing significant funding beyond what is needed for tuition and living expenses is extremely important to your development as a researcher and scholar.

The prestige of the university is arguably of value, but I believe the quality of the (financial) support offered can, in some cases, be far more important than going to an Ivy League institution. You will need resources to go to conferences, conduct fieldwork and collaborate on research projects with senior faculty. Make sure you have a strong financial aid package as part of your offer. Otherwise, find another school.

Derron’s Five Tips to Get to PhinisheD

1. Make writing a daily habit. Kiss the days of binge writing goodbye, and commit to writing less more frequently. In the long run, this will enhance the quality of your work.

2. Think of writing, not as a chore, but as an act of self-care. The more you write (well), the brighter your future will be, especially if you choose to become a lecturer or professor.

3. Find a very good supervisor who believes in you. There is nothing worse than working with the proverbial ‘negative Nancy’ who lives to demean you and your work. I got rid of a supervisor who, for some odd reason, believed she ‘owned’ me. Well, I don’t do colonial relationships of any sort and I made that clear to her one day until her cheeks flushed red. I ruined that relationship, but left freed to build so many more.

4. Avoid showing early drafts of your work to people you do not trust. Accessorize your lives with good ride-or-die people who can help you edit your work deftly.

5. Never forget the good reasons that motivated you to pursue the PhD in the first place. Whether it be the discovery of new knowledge, the creation of it, or the change that comes from it, always remember these important goals.

ME: Thank you, Dr. Wallace. Congratulations on being PhinisheD!!!

An experienced community organizer, Dr. Derron Wallace has wide-ranging experiences in educational activism, analysis, policy and research. He has worked with immigrant youth and consulted with local education authorities in London. He has also worked with nomads in Ethiopia, economically disadvantaged rural youth in Jamaica, English language learners in Thailand and gifted students in New York City. In addition to having worked with young people with disabilities in Rwanda, he has served as Special Assistant to the country’s Minister of Education.

Prior to his doctoral studies, Dr. Wallace was also a Fulbright Scholar, Watson Fellow, and Davis Projects for Peace Fellow. You can find him on Twitter.

The post How To Finish Your PhD: Derron Remembered Little Derron appeared first on Memorable Essay.

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Dr. Laura Edwards graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology in 2008, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a doctorate in Human Development and Education in 2015. I asked her to share the wisdom she gained from her PhD journey, because she had been “vocal” on Facebook about overcoming myriad obstacles in order to complete that degree.

ME: Hi Laura, thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom. What did you pursue a PhD in, and why?

Laura: I did a PhD in education because I was interested in designing curricula for children with autism and other developmental disorders. As an undergrad, I had studied biology and participated in my school’s Teacher Preparation program. I spent time after undergrad doing autism research, but I didn’t have an extensive background in actual teaching. So I did my degree in education in the hope of getting the exposure necessary to do work translating neuroscience research into meaningful educational practice.

ME: What social support did you rely on to get through your program?

Laura: Pretty much everything I could find: I commiserated with friends and colleagues in my program, or in similar programs.  I also asked students who were ahead of me in the program, or who had already graduated, how they dealt with obstacles similar to those I was encountering.

I was very open with my advisors when I was having issues in the program, such as when I needed to pick up extra jobs for money. I asked them about which grants to apply for, and spoke with them about what I was struggling with both academically and emotionally. I was lucky to have advisors with whom I could talk about these things most of the time.

I took advantage of university health insurance and got a therapist to talk with regularly about personal issues. Perhaps most importantly, I made sure to have a life outside of my academic one, so that it didn’t feel all-consuming, so that I was regularly interacting with people in fields other than academia, and so that I was therefore able to keep the experiences I was having in the PhD program in perspective.

ME: I am glad you found the support you needed, but it sounds like much of the journey was not so fun.  What was the most enjoyable part of your PhD journey?

Laura: The autonomy that I had over my schedule and routines.

Laura’s Five Tips to Get to PhinisheD

1. 1. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

1. Keep up your work–life balance so you don’t get burned out; don’t apologize for or feel guilty about taking time off when you need it.

3. 3. This is not always possible, and it’s probably obvious but makes a huge difference: Take advantage of any opportunity you have to get paid for the research you’re already doing for your dissertation instead of taking on additional research assistant positions.

3. 3. Apply for any fellowships you might be eligible for, to eliminate the need to spend extra time “TFing” (being a Teaching Fellow) or “RAing” (being a research assistant) purely for money.

3. Break big tasks (qualifying papers, dissertation proposals, your dissertation) into smaller steps that get you to your deadlines with a bit of time to spare. I think it’s preferable to have daily goals, such as “Write 1000 words every day.”
   

   When you complete your daily goals you have made progress, you have a tangible stopping point every day, and you don’t have to feel guilty about stopping for the day even though you still have a long way to go.

ME: That daily goal method sounds efficient and encouraging. It reminds me of a book I recently started exploring, The One Thing.  Focusing on writing 1000 words each day is just one thing that makes your future work easier. I love it.

Thank you again, Dr. Edwards. Congrats on the thousands of words you have written to be PhinisheD!

Dr. Edwards’ research focuses on the neural bases of learning in children with developmental disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), in order to inform the design and implementation of developmentally-appropriate curricula for these students. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Educational Science Research Core of the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta.

– Interviewed by Shawna-Kaye Lester

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