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CHM Undergrads - Graduate School
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Considering Graduate School?
Students at CHM often ask for advice about graduate school applications, the pros and cons of a gap year, and what it's like to work as a scientist. Hearing this prompted organizing a panel discussion for Afchron study students, which is now available for anyone to view. Watch a panel of CHM scientists and trainees address these topics of interest (Agenda). Panel held on September 16, 2022.
Grad School Panelists FAN Meeting Video (Kaltura)
Filepath: Undergrads - credit\FAN Meetings\FAN recordings\FAN Recordings Archive\FAN 2022, 09.16 Grad School Panel
Panelists and their positions at the time of the panel:
- Anna Finley - Post-doctoral researcher with MIDUS
- Christy Wilson-Mendenhall - Associate Scientist at CHM
- Dan Grupe - Associate Scientist at CHM
- Danielle Carrol - Post-doctoral researcher in Melissa Rosencranz's lab
- Gabriela Valdivia - Research Specialist (with clinical experience doing therapy)
- Natalie Minix - Master’s student working with Sarah Short
- Stacey Schaefer - PI of Afchron study and the MIDUS Affective Neuroscience project
Applying to Graduate School
This is a bit of a work in progress, and should NOT be your only reference, but hopefully it will provide some helpful hints!
Anybody with experience is, of course, welcome to add helpful information or to edit mistakes by contacting Jane Lambert at jane.lambert@wisc.edu.
Know Your Focus!!!
You need to choose an adviser whose interests are extremely in line with yours, as they will be mentoring you for the next five (or more…) years!
This is very different from choosing an undergraduate school, in that you are applying to work specifically with a mentor. Just because a school is prestigious does NOT mean it would be a great place for you to go.
**You have a constantly updated curriculum vitae (CV), right? Submit it to the career center on campus after any somewhat major updates. They’re an amazing service. You’ll get line-by-line analysis on your CV.
Timeline
As soon as possible after deciding you want to attend graduate school: Figure out whose work interests you:
Hopefully you’re interested enough in something that you research it independently. Who has been writing articles on your topic of interest? Even if you haven’t been doing independent research, I assume your article researching techniques are well honed if you’re planning on attending grad school. Put them to good use looking up recently published articles in your field of interest.
This should be a constantly updated thing! Know who is working on your topic of interest and at which university they work. It will also be important to know whether they have advised students before. Professors will commonly list past graduate students either on lab websites or in their CVs. Contact them! Let them know that you plan to apply to graduate programs during the upcoming application cycle. Tell them a bit about yourself and your intended topic of study, explaining that because of X, Y, and Z, it seems like you would be a great fit for her/his lab (assuming you’re applying for a research program). Ask them whether that interests them, and if they plan on accepting graduate students in the coming year.
Hopefully this can turn into an ongoing interaction. As stated above, the graduate school application process is MUCH more about whether you’re a good fit for their program, interest-wise, than about how stellar your GPA/transcript/test scores were, unlike undergraduate schools.Thus, having an ongoing, positive conversation with your potential mentor is certainly going to be a HUGE boost to your application.
Early spring or summer before you plan to apply (i.e. if you want to start in Fall 2025, I would begin this around May or June 2024):
Look up program websites for application processes. Even if they don’t have the correct applications up yet, you will be able to get an idea of when they were released & due the year before.
If you are experiencing financial hardship, it is especially important to begin early!
Applying is expensive: $50-$170 per school for application fees, plus GRE test scores and transcripts. However, many schools offer fee waivers if you can demonstrate financial hardship. Take advantage! I simply told them how much student loan debt I had accrued in my undergraduate years, offering to attach loan statements if they would like verification (nobody who didn’t specifically request it in their online material took me up on that offer, though).
Mark on your calendar the dates on which your schools' applications will be released!
Begin constructing essays (at least roughing them out) explaining what your interests are and why your interests make you a perfect fit for each potential mentor and their school. What kind of research does your main professor of interest there do? How do your past experiences and current interests make you the best candidate for him/her to accept? Is there anyone else at the university that would also make good co-advisors or collaborators? Why? Remember they will be investing a lot of time, energy, and money in you! Because of this, they want a perfect fit, not someone who just “found out you guys have the best ranked psychology program!”
Lengths of these will vary by school, but roughly one page, single spaced, is a decent target to aim for (~1000 words). Hopefully you can find specifics on their webpage or the past year’s application. Once again, you really need to explain why you and the program to which you are applying are the match made in heaven (noticing a pattern here?).
Finding Funding!
There are a lot of sources out there, and finding some outside funding will help your odds of being accepted. Not only is it less for the school to worry about, but it shows that you're motivated enough to go beyond just the application process. Also, as a researcher, your career will be one long search for funding, so getting practice early is obviously a plus.