How I did it:

• First, I knew I wanted to go to grad school after graduation from the moment I worked in a research group in college. I like research and I'm not opposed to more time in academia. So I did the resume building stuff most people do: internships, conferences, a few awards here and there, and a nice GPA.
• Then the summer of my junior year happened and I knew I had to study for my GRE. Listen, I don't know who you are out there reading this in a panic, but if the rest of your application is good and you have letters of recommendation, you'll be FINE. ABSOLUTELY FINE. I got the worse GRE scores of all my friends, both subject and regular and I got into EVERY school I applied to.
• So yeah, I took a Kaplan course, I studied, and I didn't improve my score at all, in fact, I panicked test day and did worse than my practice tests. So the best advice is not to worry about GREs because they really don't mean that much when looking at the whole app.
• The school selection process was harder than I expected. I knew I didn't want to live in California, the south, or anywhere REALLY cold in the winter, so I stuck with the NE and NW schools in the US. I thought a bit about the political climate of the states I could live in and about the people I'd met from there. I looked up the top funded schools on the NSF website, I looked up the departments individually and checked out the faculty, their publications, and their grad students. I emailed grad students at the schools I wanted to go to and I emailed grad students at schools I probably didn't want to go to so I could ask questions that could have been embarrassing if I asked someone at a super great school. I emailed some of the faculty about what they're interested in and in order to get access to some of the publications that I couldn't get a hold of. I looked at the ranking websites, but not very hard-- asking people is a better gauge. I asked the people I knew about the reputation of the school and if they knew any alumni/ae, or if any of the names on the faculty list meant anything to anyone. A lot of the people I know knew faculty from publications-- that was a good sign for sure.
• The longest, worst part of the whole process was writing my personal statement. I wrote it and then gave it to nearly everyone I knew to edit it both for content and for grammar. I had planned to give myself at least two months to do it, but I ended up squeezing a month of editing into about two weeks. I think the personal statement and letters of recommendation are the key. Also, if you mention exposure to instrumentation and different kind of ideas/fields on your resume, that's a good thing. Breadth vs depth, I feel like undergraduates are only expected to have been exposed to a lot.

Lessons & tips:

1. Don't count on GRE scores to make or break your app. I have a friend who had a mediocre GPA but then got killer GREs and got into his first choice. I had a great GPA but pretty terrible GREs and I got into my first choice. You may be panicking, but it'll be okay!
2. Give yourself time to work on your personal statement! GIVE IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. Especially mentors, especially English majors, especially the people writing letters of recommendation for you! You'll think it is good, then you'll think it is corny and embarrassing, and then bad and then good, and it will get better. I recommend saving your first draft and looking at it later when you have a final draft. You'll be surprised how much better your final draft is.
3. Ask other students what they're doing. It'll give you a timeline. Unless, of course, they're all overachievers and it'll drive you nuts. If that's the case, do it at your own pace and don't listen to the crazies. Mark deadlines on a calendar, follow up to make sure everything gets there (ESPECIALLY TRANSCRIPTS!)
4. If you go to conferences, and you meet people in the app process, they'll ask you everything about what you're doing, where you're applying, what fellowships you're going after. For me this was hard, because I found out my friends were actually competitors, and I was not really willing to play that game. If you don't play the game, the process is not as bad, and you find out that EVERYONE is insecure about some part of their application, everyone is nervous and unsure, and all anyone can do is put together a good application and hope. It is entirely unnecessary to try to make others more insecure about their app, but some people like to do that, so be ready for it. Don't let anyone make you feel unworthy.
5. APPLY TO FAR AWAY PLACES! Even if you aren't totally serious about applying, you're investing $100 of less to apply and you'll probably get a $500 plane ride somewhere sweet!
6. Apply to schools you don't think you can get into as through you think you can get into them. There is no such thing as aiming too high at this point. While you're at it, don't forget to apply for outside fellowships! You'll get a sweet package anyway, if you're in science, but a fellowship makes life easier.
7. If someone tells you to go for a masters instead and you think that might be a good idea, don't! Go for a Phd! If you decide you want a masters instead, at least you won't have to pay for it. Plus, if you can't find a job with that masters degree, why not stick around for the phd?
8. Remember, if it's not your first choice, you can be sure you'll have other chances: postdoc postdoc postdoc!

Resources: Google Calendar, the track changes feature in any application, spreadsheets to keep track of deadlines and what's been done, a binder full of a print out of the app requirements and the faculty I'm interested in's publications/research descriptions, and sometimes also their graduation requirements or a description of the facilities. Apply yourself  and thegradcafe will be your friend/enemy, I guess. I wouldn't put too much stock in thegradcafe though, it mostly just made me sad :(

Feb 12, 2011, 10:50AM PST | 0 comments | 6 cheers