Navigating the Postgraduate Application Process: A Comprehensive Guide

Embarking on a postgraduate journey is a significant step, demanding careful preparation and a strategic approach. This article aims to provide a comprehensive guide to navigating the postgraduate application process, focusing on understanding the requirements, showcasing your strengths, and ultimately, increasing your chances of acceptance into your desired program.

Understanding the Landscape

Applying to graduate school can feel overwhelming. It involves assessing yourself, writing personal statements, seeking recommendation letters, and trying to keep track of all the logistics and deadlines. The key strategies include starting early, maintaining your momentum, and organizing all of the logistics. With these strategies, you’ll also be able to anticipate and tackle problems as they appear along the way.

The competition for places in top-tier programs can be intense. It is typical for a single program to receive about 200 or so applications for between 5 and 8 admission spots, making the chances of being admitted less than 5%. It's crucial to recognize that factors beyond academic achievements play a significant role in the admission process.

Initial Steps: Reflection and Research

Before diving into applications, take time to reflect on what you want to achieve. Pursuing advanced graduate education is a big investment, so it is critical to understand how your unique ‘why’ connects to your future goals. Self-reflection is important for the entire graduate school application, since you “will use these insights about yourself in your essays and interviews to tell a compelling story about why you want to pursue an advanced graduate degree.”

Narrow down the “what” in terms of what you want to study. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook can help you understand career paths by industry and educational degree requirements.

Allow enough time. Experts advise giving yourself at least six months of time to research schools, prepare for and take any required tests, and complete all the application requirements. Applying to graduate school takes a substantial amount of time and effort. Therefore, making sure you are prepared will ensure a smooth process. Not all schools have the same application process or requirements, so you will need to keep this in mind as well.

Key Components of a Strong Application

The overall application for most graduate programs generally includes the following:

Personal statements
GPA and transcripts
Letters of recommendation
Biographical information from your essays or résumé/curriculum vitae that describes your academic, research, and professional experiences
GRE scores (check if the general and/or subject exams are required, recommended, optional, or not accepted)
Writing sample (for some programs in the humanities and social sciences)
Interview (for some graduate programs, often in the biosciences; can be virtual or in person)

In general, faculty and admissions committees use these components to determine if you are a suitable candidate for graduate school. In particular, they are trying to determine if you are a suitable candidate for their specific program.

Standardized Tests: The GRE

Check if graduate programs in your field require, recommend, or accept GRE exam scores for the general and subject tests. Recently programs have changed their policies regarding the GRE exam, so you’ll need to check. If you will take the GRE, start preparing early (junior year of college or about 1 year in advance of applying for grad school).

Take a practice test early on to know where you stand. While test scores are not the only factor admission officers consider, they are one of the most significant metrics used in the application review process. Take a practice exam to determine where you currently stand. Some free samples are available at www.kaplan.com or www.princetonreview.com. For an actual past exam, you can purchase the ETS Official Guide to the GRE General Test. Or get both the Kaplan and Princeton Review GRE prep books.

Letters of Recommendation: Choosing Wisely

Typically you are asked to submit three letters of recommendation along with your application to graduate school. The best letters of recommendation come from those who know you well and can speak about your abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Letters of recommendation from those who do not know you well or with whom you have had little interaction are not as strong. Students will often ask a faculty member with whom they have taken one course to write them a letter of recommendation. If you can avoid this, do so. Although typical, these letters are not considered strong letters of support as the faculty member cannot speak to your abilities if they only have limited interaction with you.

If you must obtain a letter from someone with whom you have only had one class, try to ask a professor from a class where you could interact meaningfully with them. For example, senior-level seminars with many class discussions or courses where you had to write papers or conduct presentations might be a viable choice. These more interactive classes will allow the professor a better chance to assess the abilities and skills that will be important in graduate school. If you have worked or volunteered at a clinical facility, get a letter from your supervisor. If you have worked with faculty members on research, get a letter from these professors. These letters will be the most influential for your application. These individuals will have had the opportunity to work closely with you and observe you in a research environment. They will also know what it takes to get into graduate school.

The Personal Statement: Telling Your Story

Most graduate programs require you to submit a personal statement for your application. This is an opportunity for you to tell the program why you are interested in pursuing a degree with this program. The personal statement is a writing sample, so you must submit a well-written, grammatically correct statement.

Application essays allow an applicant to present a narrative that connects past achievements with career goals and detail how a graduate degree from a particular school can help bridge the gap. Crafting an effective resume involves tailoring it to emphasize qualities valued by graduate schools, such as leadership potential, teamwork, and strategic and analytical thinking. Your resume should concisely summarize your professional achievements, educational background, skills, and experience.

Research Experience: A Valuable Asset

Research will be an inevitable part of your doctoral program, so individuals with research experience will be more competitive in their applications than those without. It allows you to begin to understand how to conduct research, which is vital to graduate programs. It gives you something to discuss in your graduate school interviews (most programs will interview their top candidates.. more on that later!). Many times students will say that they did not get involved in research because there was no faculty interested in what the student wanted to study. However, students should consider getting involved in research of any type since the experience itself is valuable.

Read also: Postgraduate Certificate Details

Strategizing Your Application

Often, students will decide to apply to graduate school and then use a shotgun approach to the application process-applying far and wide without considering what program might be a good fit. However, taking a more thoughtful approach will likely yield better results. If successful, you will spend the next 4-6 years in a doctoral program, so ensuring the program is a good fit for you is crucial. The easiest way to begin this process is to create a "short" list (which might not be all that short!) of programs you are interested in and then look in detail at the program’s materials. How many credits of coursework are required? Will you complete a master’s thesis as well as a dissertation? How many students does the program accept each year? Is the program accredited? What types of clinical opportunities are available?

Holistic Evaluation of Programs

Avoid overfocusing on rank and reputation of graduate schools, experts say. Consider the full universe of graduate school options, which include the professional schools of medicine, law, and business, as well as master’s and Ph.D. programs. Think of creative ways to combine different interests.

Find a program that has the depth of faculty expertise in your intended specialization area. Graduating with an expanded knowledge base and skill set is key. Students should also look into cocurricular features, particularly the opportunity to take on high-level research or participate in opportunities to apply what you learn. This way, you can pair your academic training with distinct projects and professional experience.

Connecting with Faculty

Once you have a sense of which programs are the top ones of interest for you, you should invest your time in researching the faculty and determining which 2 or 3 faculty members you would most like to work with at each program. Look at the research interests of the faculty in the program’s promotional materials but remember that these materials are typically printed once every few years and that the research interests may have changed or may not be up-to-date. The strongest applicants go beyond the program materials and will conduct a literature search (using Google Scholar, PsychLit, PsychInfo, or some other psychology database) of the faculty they are interested in. Look for their most recent publications and read one or two of the most intriguing or frequently cited articles. This task will give you the best sense of whether the faculty member is active in research, whether they work with students on their research (are students listed as co-authors?), and whether this interests you.

Once you have researched the programs of interest and decided which faculty members at each program you are interested in working with, attempt to contact them to see if they are accepting students. Depending upon the model used by the graduate program, you may or may not be “assigned” to work with a faculty member upon admission. For those programs that use a mentoring model where a particular faculty member admits a student, applicants who apply to work with a faculty member who is not taking students are thus disadvantaged and may not be considered. Consequently, knowing whether a faculty member plans to take a student is essential. Of course, these things can change (and who gets a student can be a political issue within the department).

Reach out to programs to learn more about them and to establish contact and show your interest. Campus visits are a wonderful option to feel the pulse of a program. You may get to sit in on a class and meet with both students and faculty. Try to attend online information sessions or meetings with admissions staff, and have questions ready. Engaging with a program representative, such as a faculty member or admissions officer, “is an opportunity to convey a strong impression of your candidacy and intentionality in applying to a program." Your efforts to connect with and demonstrate knowledge of the program and your personal reasons on how the program fits your goals, she adds, “will help you stand out to admissions review teams.”

Addressing Weaknesses

Most often, the "elephant" is low GRE scores. If you did not do as well as you would have liked on the exam and do not believe this is a good indicator of your abilities, say so in your personal statement. It is common for bright, motivated students to do more poorly than expected on a standardized test. If this is the case, spend a paragraph on this in your statement. Without going into lengthy detail, provide an example of how your critical thinking, verbal reasoning, or quantitative reasoning skills are better reflected by your GPA or some other indicator of ability.

The Interview: Making a Lasting Impression

Most clinical programs will hold an interview day where prospective students can visit the campus and meet with faculty and students at the program. If you are invited to an interview day, congratulations! Only the top students are invited, so you have solidified your spot as one of the top applicants. The interview day is the program’s opportunity to showcase itself and meet with prospective students to determine a mutual fit.

Do your research ahead of time. Ask with whom you will meet (most programs will provide an agenda for the day). If you are not given a schedule ahead of time, show up prepared to speak with any of the clinical faculty members. Be ready to discuss your research and clinical interests and your research and clinical experience. You will likely be able to meet with and talk to other students in the program. Make the most of this opportunity.

Alternative Paths: MA vs. PhD and Joint Degrees

Think first about what kind of program will fit your career goals.

Consider applying to some PhD only programs; there aren't a ton, as far as I'm aware, joint PhD/JD programs; they're usually MA/JD. Maybe also apply to just a few MA programs for backup options and perhaps just a few law school only programs. I'd recommend asking yourself if you're committed to the joint degree or really want to go the academic route or professional route. Do you want to teach law? If so, the MA/JD with an LLM option might be better. Do you want to be a prof in a philosophy department who focuses on legal theory? Then the joint degree might be a good idea, but if you want to be housed in a philosophy department and do work on legal issues implicated by ethical theory (for instance), then I'd just do the Ph.D. route and take a few legal theory courses at the law school housed at your future university. That way, you get the courses you want but don't have to trudge through things like civil procedure, property, and criminal law. This way you also will be fully funded whereas the joing JD/MA(or PhD if you can find them) programs are unfunded or only partially funded. A PhD offer will likely include tuition, stipend, and health insurance.

A Note on Confidence and Perspective

It's understandable to feel apprehensive about your chances, even with strong credentials. The competition for top programs is fierce, and it's natural to wonder how you stack up against other candidates. Remember that admissions committees consider a wide range of factors, and your unique experiences and perspectives can be valuable assets.

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