For those who do not know me, my name is Matthew Williams and I am from the 2012 class of SELF Fellows. I grew up in Kansas City, KS, and attended Tonganoxie High School (with Austin Smith), just up the road from KU. While at KU, I studied aerospace engineering and worked part-time at Wetzel Engineering – a wind turbine design firm in Lawrence. But the most enjoyable moments of my time at KU were spent with friends that I made over those four years. Going to sporting events, playing intramurals, nights out on Mass, and Wednesday night wings at Brothers (just ask Sida or Garrett) are among some of my favorite memories of KU. Those friends are the reason I often come back to Lawrence.
In January, Sarah Elizabeth gave an excellent description on whyshe chose to go to graduate school (if you have not read it, check it out). However, I want to spend the next several connections explaining how to go to graduate school. Mostly I want to share the experiences that my peers and I went through as we planned, applied, visited, and chose a graduate program.
Now, every student will have a different experience, and engineering will be different from business or medicine, but hopefully this will provide some insight for those considering graduate school. I wish that I had some of this information before applying to graduate schools.
1) When and where do you start?
I seriously began considering graduate schools towards the end of my junior year. This consisted of discussing programs with professors and family, as well as taking a look at U.S. News College Rankings. If you purchase the U.S. News Compass (~$30) you can have access to average GRE scores of accepted applicants, research expenditures, acceptance rate, and faculty in the NAE. In the long run $30 is not much, and you can split the cost among friends. Throughout the summer I also took a closer look at individual departments at these universities to figure out what research was on-going.
Every SELF fellow that has come before you will express how much networking can help in every aspect of life. The same is true for graduate programs. Your professors or bosses may have contacts in academia, and you can utilize these to get a foot in the door, even if it is not the research group you want to join.
Personally, I took these conversations, rankings, and research and made a list of schools and ranked them by preference. I made a simple spreadsheet with school names, rankings, due dates, and other basic information. This later proved to be very useful as I was completing applications.
2) Take the GRE early!
Most of my peers and I took the GRE test in August/September of our senior year, but there is no reason you cannot take it earlier. With senior design consuming much of our time later in the semester, I would not have wanted to deal with the GRE in October/November. Also, if you are not satisfied with your score, then there is time for a retake (you have to wait 30 days before you can retake it). Do not quote me on this, but if your score is around the average for the school you are applying to, then you should be fine. The GRE is sometimes just a checkmark for acceptance and not a major consideration. Having spoken with an admissions reviewer here at the University of Illinois, the only time it becomes a major factor is if two candidates for financial packages are very close in all other categories.
KU offers several GRE practices that can be beneficial if you want to get a feel for the test. At the end of the GRE you can select several schools to send your scores to for free. Make sure you have a feeling for your top 3 choices before you go take the GRE!
3) Contacting recommendation letter writers.
Select several professors, research advisors, or bosses at least two months in advance of application deadlines (typically December-January), and do not be scared to send reminder emails when the deadline is approaching. I applied to about seven graduate schools, but I did not ask the same three people to write recommendation letters for each. Try to spread the workload across several letter writers if you are applying to a handful of schools. In all, I had six different letter authors with the strongest writers sending their letters to my top three schools.
It can also be helpful to you and the authors if you provide some sort of reference for the author to review. This can typically be covered by a resume, but you may need to supply other materials if you want them to highlight certain capabilities. Very few authors will have a problem if you ask them to focus on a certain skill or trait.
I’ll end it there for now, but next week I will discuss applications, personal statements, and what is sought after when reviewing applications.
For something off-topic, if any of you get the chance to head up to Chicago, I would definitely suggest taking a trip to Kincade’s bar. If you go for a KU game, ask to be escorted to the KU bar. They will take you out the back of the bar to a special KU bar that feels just like you are back in Lawrence.
You stay classy, SELF Fellows.
Matt Williams