Grad School Application Aid

There are two ways to search for your university depending on the field/country:

1. By University Department: in some fields/countries, you apply directly to the department. You do not need to contact a professor and see if you they'd want you as a student, although contacting them might help if they agree to advocate for you.

2. By Advisor: in some fields/countries, you have to first contact a professor and ask them if they would accept you as a future student. After they give you the green light you can apply and mention them as your future advisor in the application.

How to Search:

• Method 1: If you know academics in your field of interest, ask them about departments or advisors that would be good for you and create a list.

• Method 2: Search online!

  • Go online and use ranking lists like "QS university rankings by subject" to guide your search. Don't take the exact ranking too seriously.

  • Visit the websites of the university departments you find and go to the "faculty" page.

  • Take a look at faculty webpages, their research interests, their publications, their labs, their future students, etc.

  • Save departments or professors that best match your interests

How to Write an Email to a Professor:

Click Here to See Tips and Samples

Once you have a list of places you want to apply to, create the spread sheet below.

• Preference Tiers: Divide the places into three tiers:

  1. Dream Options: These are places that are the best fit to your interests and would be a dream to join.

  2. Competitive Options: These are places that fit your interests and you'd be very happy to join.

  3. Safe Options: These are the places that are acceptable for you and you'd go if you don't get into other programs.

• Application Deadline: Make sure to enter the correct application deadline date and sort the spreadsheet later based on these dates

• Fees: for each application enter how much application fee you have to pay. This will help your budgeting

• Requirements: add the requirements as columns like "cover letter", "statement of purpose", etc. For each program enter the relevant information. For example, for recommendation letters you can add how many you'll need for that school, or for transcripts you can say whether they need to be official or unofficial

• Apply Link: make sure to add the website link with the application info for each program so that you can go back to it

• Submission Link: include the submission links for each program as a column so that you can submit quickly when the time comes

An example spreadsheet is below.

Use the application spreadsheet in the previous section to create a to do list for preparing your applications.

First list all the requirements for all the universities.

Then group them into clusters that you can work on together.

Finally, assign due dates for each of the items.

You can see an example below.

Think of your application as a music ensemble or an orchestra! Different components or requirements

Application requirements vary by institution and the expectations about them may vary too. Always follow the guidelines provided by the institution you are applying to. Below we list some common requirements to most grad school applications. If you click on them you'll find out more about how to prepare them.

Statement of purpose or cover letter, recommendation letters, sample writings or publications, and CV are those that make you truly shine. You probably need to focus more on those. The rest (transcripts, language tests, GRE) often guarantee that you meet som minimum expectation for the program.

To submit your application you typically need to create an online account and then upload the application requirements.

Make sure you create the online application early, at least a month in advance to give your recommenders enough time to submit their recommendation letters.

For recommendation letters, you are typically asked to provide the email addresses of your recommenders.

For other requirements, you typically upload them.

You may be asked to pay some application fee. Many universities are willing to waive the application fee if you face financial difficulty so look for application fee waiver procedures on their websites or email them to ask about waiving the application fee.

The spreadsheet below shows some universities that waive application fees and under some conditions.

Long List Stage:

• In departments with admissions committees, a group of professors goes through all submitted applications and creates a list of those that seem strong and best fit the department. This is sometimes called the "long list".

• Standardized tests like TOEFL/IELTS or GRE and academic transcripts (course grades) can be used here to disqualify some applicants because they have had very low scores. However, many departments consider a "holistic" approach and do not disqualify applicants solely based on one factor.

• The number of people on the long list may be 10+ depending on the department size.

• Some schools invite the applicants on the long list for a virtual or in person interview.

Short List Stage:

• The committee sometimes will get feedback from other faculty members on their long list

• They may also ask for interviews at this stage to create a final short list of students. You can read more about the interview in the next step

Some departments may ask for an interview before their final offer.

Your interview may have one or more of the following components or formats:

1. Questions about Your Application and Academic Work

2. A Short Presentation

3. A Discussion of a Research Article

1. Questions About Your Application/Work

There is no standardized format for interview questions about your application. Different schools and departments may ask different questions. But here are some example questions that they could ask:

• Tell us about yourself

• Tell us a little bit about your research.

• What are your research interests?

• What is your thesis about?

• Where do you see yourself in five years?

• What are your career goals?

• Why our school/program?

• Why do you think you would make a good student here?

• Why should we accept you? How will you contribute to our program?

• Why are you interested in this field?

• Why are you pursuing this degree (PhD)?

• What do you see as the major trends in your field of study?

• What do you plan to do if you join our department?

• I have noticed that a lot of your background is in X but our department does not do X, would that be a problem?

• What is your greatest strength/weakness?

• How do you deal with failure/disappointment?

• Do you have any questions for us?

You can see more tips and questions from Lehman school here.

2. Short Presentation

They may ask you to prepare a short (5-15 minute) presentation about your previous research.

3. Discussion of a Research Article

This is not that common but some departments may have it. If so, make sure that you read the paper thoroughly and you understand its main logic. You should be able to answer a question like:

• What is the main claim of this paper?

• How does it argue for this claim?

• What type of evidence does it provide for its arguments?