Hi there!…
We are more than happy this meets you well. We trust you are still very much passionate about your dreams and assiduously taking baby steps towards graduate school application. It could be tedious, yes. That’s the more reason you want to calm down and be strategic.
In our previous article, we shared tips on how to be deliberate with your graduate school application. We hope you found them useful and we’ll be glad to hear from you.
In this new article, we will be sharing with you more helpful tips even as graduate school application windows for most schools open soon. Now, we expect you are learning to keep important notes already (Tip 3 of the previous article).
3 Extra Tips for Securing Graduate Admission and Funding
Sequel to the first 3 tips, here’s more for your knowledge bank. Sit back and relax, but grab a pen…
- Get Familiar with Your (Program) Graduate School Application Requirements
What are you required to submit?
GRE, GMAT, English Proficiency Tests (IELTS, TOEFL), Undergraduate Transcripts, Letters of Recommendation, Statement of Purpose, Motivation Statement, Research Statements, Research Manuscript, Graduate School Application Fee and so on…
You should be familiar with these requirements now as a prospective applicant. All you need do is look up your specific program requirements for each school of your choice.
For instance, application for Ph.D. Chemical Engineering in Georgia Tech might have requirements somewhat different from Harvard university for the same academic program.
Using hand-written note pads or some other form of data device like Microsoft Excel, ensure you tick your checkbox to arrange your graduate school application file. Don’t forget to ask questions when they are necessary too.
- Contact Graduate Coordinator for Enquiries
You are likely to reach your destination effectively and seamlessly with the aid of a signpost direction. That’s exactly what graduate coordinators and directors do for you on program websites. (Drop your shyness at this point; they won’t be seeing your fine face yet!). You can be sure email contacts with grad cords return warm welcome responses.
Whether you are making enquiries before/during the application or you are awaiting admission decisions when reviews are still underway, contact graduate coordinators by email. Rather than join the team of applicants stating ‘a friend said this or that’, there is someone waiting to give you guided first-hand information on your graduate school application.
- Submit Early Graduate School applications
While keen attention to details may take a big chunk of your time for you to be productive, we remain strong proponents of early application, regardless.
Early applicants stand higher chances of admission positions and funding decisions especially, so you need to understand the game and never leave things to (time) chances. Since you probably don’t want ordinary admissions without funding fueling them, early graduate school application is a must for you.
So, here’s an action point for you – bookmark deadlines and attend to them way before they come knocking at your door. That’s what we mean when we go by the popular slogan – ‘shoot your shot!’
Conclusion
Never forget your dreams are highly attainable and so worth every jot of the chase. Go all out for it now!
By: Oluwadara Olasupo
2 Responses
Hey Olasupo, thanks for the articles. I would like to ask if there’s any need to apply for funding for PhD in the US or there’s no need for that; funding is automatic
Awojulu,
MSc and Ph.D. are awarded by various top universities in the US, Canada, and other countries.
But to win these scholarships, candidates often have to write graduate examinations such as GRE and TOEFL.
However, these examinations are “expensive”, a situation that often denies young scholars from Africa the opportunity to make their dreams come true.
To address this situation, the i-Scholar Initiative was set up to support such scholars by helping them pay for their GRE and TOEFL exams.
So, courtesy of the i-Scholar Initiative, you get to write the required examinations free of charge and also get top-notch mentoring that helps you make your biggest academic and career goals come true.
So, we encourage you to apply when the next application window opens.
Bookmark our website and follow us on our social media channels.
Information on the next application window will be announced soon.
Success.