Free Advice

Going to graduate school is not supposed to be easier than getting a job. To get admitted and get funding, you have to show them that you are more valuable than a bunch of other people (just like getting a job). This requires work. To know what work you have to do, read on.

How do I show a graduate program that I am worth the money?

You have to show specific examples of your qualifications including:

• Academic Horsepower
• Ability to do Research
• Special Attributes (enthusiasm, administrative/organizational skills)

Academic Horsepower

The most competitive grad schools can pick whomever they want, and are therefore going to pick the best students. Because the meaning of a given GPA varies from school to school, they rely fairly heavily on GRE scores. You may want to prep for this at least as hard as you prepared for the SAT or ACT test. The people you are competing with on the GRE are all college graduates and are the ones who self-selected for graduate school. In addition, most of them have spent four years reading, analyzing written work, and writing papers. If you want to compete with them in the verbal area, you should definitely do some prep work.

GPA is also important. 3.25 is probably a good lower bound for the competitive schools and 3.0 is probably a lower bound for most schools. If your GPA is low you may get admitted but funding is not very likely, at least until you can demonstrate that you can do useful work.

Ability to Do Research

Specific examples of this can come from summer REU (research experience for undergraduates) programs, or from projects with faculty at Rose or at Ventures. If you have written papers or given conference proceedings from that work, the evidence is even better. Other good sources of research experiences are at national laboratories like Sandia labs or at NASA summer programs. (See Research Projects.)

Some faculty at a school like MIT may expect that you have a website that outlines the work you have done in some research area. (No we are not kidding.) This website would be a true electronic portfolio of research quality work. Other schools may not be this demanding.

Special Attributes

Employers (and if a graduate school is paying you, they are your employer) are impressed by evidence of enthusiasm, leadership, and organizational skills. They are unlikely to be impressed that you were elected vice president of an honorary society, unless you can document some outcomes of substance. Documenting substantive work is usually easy, since most work leaves a paper trail. Industrial work experience, research projects, or projects like the Efficient Vehicle or Challenge X have the potential to provide that evidence.