The summer before you apply to graduate school, you should research the universities you are interested in attending. This can be a very long process of sifting through department websites to see the research of each professor. The advice I received is that you should screen for at least three faculty members you would be happy to work with. This will give you a good chance of one of your top three choices having the funding to take new students. You should not rely on receiving a federal graduate fellowship – it is very competitive and many qualified candidates are rejected each application period.
The authors recommend applying to around six to eight universities. Application fees can stack up quickly, along with sending GRE scores and transcripts. Inquire with the university if you are in a situation where it is difficult to meet this. Most programs will have application fee waivers for students in financial hardship, check to see if you qualify. Some universities offer summer programs that come with a fee waiver. Similar to applying to undergraduate institutions, these six choices should have a range of achievability. One or two should be “safety schools”. Most should be your dream universities. Rank of a school is not everything. Often times, the reputation of your PI is more important than the rank of your university.
A great place to start in your search for programs with research you are interested in is to talk to a professor at your university that does research in the area. They can help point you towards programs doing interesting and promising research, and they can tell you about professors who tend to take advantage of their graduate students or don’t treat their students well. A bad advisor situation can make your PhD miserable and take a toll on your mental health or can cause you to switch groups or universities and therefore extend your PhD.
The next step is to do research on programs through their website. Websites typically have a section for research, which you can use to find professors in your general area. Sometimes these are not completely accurate or up to date, so you may have to go through the faculty list manually and see which professors match your interests. This can be a very long process, be sure to start as early as possible to narrow down your choices or you may end up applying to far too many universities.
If you can only find one faculty member in the whole university that does what you are interested in, it might be in your own best interest to find another university with more faculty working in that area. You don’t know the funding situation of faculty at the time you apply and it could be that faculty has no funding for new lab members or you might not get along well with the faculty member.
Furthermore, it would be pertinent to consider other non-academic factors when selecting schools. Location is a major choice: proximity to an airport or recreation (skiing, the ocean, concerts, etc.) are perfectly valid considerations. Some consider proximity to family a major influence. Weather is another aspect: it does get hot in the southern U.S. and cold in the northern U.S. Decide what is most important to you.
Journey to Grad School 