ADVICE FOR APPLYING TO GRAD SCHOOL…
BY KATRINA DLUGOSCH (PhD Student 2000-2006 hopefully)
*NOTE:
THE ADVICE GIVEN HERE IS A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE, ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR A FRIEND. IN PARTICULAR, IT IS NOT MEANT TO GIVE OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR GAINING ADMITTANCE TO THE UCSC EEB PROGRAM. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. There are five components of most graduate school applications. I'll go through them one by one, with suggestions for addressing them this year, but also with ideas for improving your chances next year if this round doesn't work out. At the end, I have some suggestions for the etiquette of contacting people and interviewing, as well as a few potential uses for a grad degree. But first, take some time to ask yourself why you want to go to graduate school. If the answer is ‘because you don’t really have any better ideas’ stop now and think of a better idea! Grad school is very challenging and a lot of work. You WILL be unhappy if you don’t love studying your subject. Taking a year or two off of school – and getting a job – is a great way to gain some perspective and potentially some really valuable experience (not to mention cash). I didn’t think that I wanted time off when I applied, but by the end of senior year, I felt differently. I worked for two years, and it was fabulous. I highly recommend it. [A note about some of the verbiage below: Many people don’t know this, but the word ‘lab’ is often used to refer to all of the grad (and undergrad) students that a faculty member advises. This can get confusing, since ‘lab’ also refers to the physical space/offices that those people occupy, as well as to actual laboratories with fumehoods and centrifuges etc.] APPLICATIONS Okay, so this applies specifically to applications for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology programs, but is also relevant for the National Science Foundation graduate fellowship and the Environmental Protection Agency STAR fellowship – both of which you should apply for too – look them up on the web. 1) Grades from college. Now: Obviously better grades are better. Grades in courses related to your interests are going to be particularly important. If you are not getting excellent grades in upper level courses that are focused on your favorite subject, the other parts of your application will have to be very strong. (You may also want to ask yourself whether your favorite subject is really your favorite subject). Future (if you’re out of school and past grades were ‘not reflective of your true potential’): If you live near a university, ask an instructor for permission to sit in on a (small, upper level) course that interests you. Explain that you are applying to grad school, and you'd like to brush up. Many professors would be happy to let you attend. If they are willing to grade your work, you should even do assignments. If you do well in the course, you will also have someone who can write you a great letter. 2) GRE scores Now and Future: Not much to say here. Study up and good luck! This is a particularly good place to counteract past problems with grades. Do get some practice books. 3) Research experience Now: Not all applications ask for this directly. When they didn't, I included it anyway! For the professors, this is key. If you did research and liked it, then they can expect that you will like doing research in grad school. If they
think you have no experience, then they will take someone who does instead. They don't want to risk their time and effort on a student who will end up unhappy in the program. For this, rack your brain. Any quasi-independent project that you've done is fair game. That includes things assigned in a class, like a major insect collection or independent field study. If you have done a senior thesis or worked in a lab, you should highlight that experience. You should also find out if any of your work was ever published. If you were listed as an author, that is really great! Even if you weren't an author, but you were acknowledged for contributing, you should still reference the publication after your description of the project. Future: I could think of absolutely nothing better for improving your application to grad school than working with a lab group. You will gain research experience as well as contacts that can write you good letters. Get a job or become a committed volunteer. 4) Letters of recommendation Now: The qualities that you will need as a grad student are 1) enthusiasm for your area of research, 2) analytical thinking skills, and 3) an ability to formulate a plan and carry it out independently. Think about which people through the years could speak to those qualities. The more recent the connection and the better they know you, the better. Current EEB faculty will be the best choice, but if there is someone else in a position to write a lot of highly relevant and in-depth things about you, they are okay too. If you will be asking a faculty member that only knows you a little, set up a meeting. The goal here is to let them know more about you, and to talk them up about why you want to go to grad school - so that they can write these things in a letter. If they don’t already know your name, don’t even ask. Future: Get a job with a lab! 5) Your research interests statement Now: You want to express four things with this: 1) you have a genuine interest in a field that you feel is important, 2) you know something about what cutting edge research would be in this field, 3) you have a sense of what would fit into the lab to which you are applying, and 4) you have some idea of what you want to do with your degree. The last one is the least critical, but you definitely want to have thought about that (see interview comments below). There is absolutely nothing better for making your statement solid than having a professor help you with it!!!!!!!!!!!! (Can you see that I really mean this?) Future: Get a job in a lab group who’s focus is similar to what you want to do. You will gain insight into your own interests, and the prof will know you, and so will take lots of time to help you with your statement. OTHER 1) Contacting profs Even if the application for a department doesn't have a place to say which professor you want to work with, if you haven't already contacted someone who is looking out for your application, you're toast. You won't get in. That's the simple truth. (Okay, star applicants will probably get passed around for a better look, but don’t assume that means you). As you look around on department websites, it is absolutely fine to contact multiple professors at one institution, if they all interest you. E-mail is the best way to contact them. Be sure to use your e-mail account that looks a little more professional than 'sillynicknamefromhighschool175@yahoo.com'. Professors are getting used to weird e-mail addresses, but you want them to remember your name (and correctly) and to see you as an adult. Before you write, look around on their webpage (if they have one). Note whether the grads all work on the same thing as the advisor (some labs work this way) or if they've all come up with their own projects. Either may appeal to you, but they are very different styles of running a lab. Look up some of the prof's papers. The abstracts
alone should give you a sense of the type of work that people in that lab are producing. Read up more on particular areas that excite you. When you write to a potential advisor, address them as Dr. so and so. If they respond with their first name, you may be able to move on to first names quickly, but never start with this. Even really laid-back profs will understand a bit of extra formality at first, and lots of them hate it if strangers use first names. For your first e mail, keep it short, but indicate 1) that you are someone who is applying to graduate schools this year, 2) what you find interesting about the work in their lab, and 3) what your own interests are that might fit into that group. Ask if they will be accepting students for the Masters or PhD program (whichever you’re looking for) next fall – profs don’t take students every year. If they write back in the affirmative, you may want tell them a bit more about yourself, or if they are local, you may want to set up a meeting before even applying. 2) Interviewing This may happen either before or after applying. Some schools have money to invite accepted students, others do not. You may also end up talking to the prof and/or students over the phone. Dress: To my first interview, I put on really nice dress pants and a nice sweater and jewelry – the whole bit. In addition to being too hot, I felt ridiculous sitting there talking to profs wearing their jeans and T-shirts. For Ecol/Evol types, you are going to want to be in tidy, clean, comfortable, and casual clothes. You might even get taken on a walk to a nearby field site. Be sure to have some cash in case you end up going on an informal lunch with some students. Random people: If you are invited after applying, a lot of departments will set you up with meetings with several faculty in the department. Invariably, because nerds are like this, some of them will be great and some of them will be weirdos. My very first meeting was with a guy who basically said that what I was interested in was crap. Don't be put off by this behavior. (I nodded and smiled and asked him about his research). The faculty member to which you are applying knows these people too, for better or worse. Students: Hopefully you will get taken to lunch or offered a meeting or meetings with grad students already in the department. They will usually have lots of things to tell you about what it is like there, but you should try to come up with a bunch of questions to get them going. If you have multiple meetings, go ahead and ask the same questions over again – you may get different answers. Ask them what they do and do not like about the dept, faculty members, grad classes and requirements, housing, cost of living, grad social life, money for research and for stipends (some profs provide, some depts provide, sometimes you have to TA the whole way through to support yourself – you are not supposed to go into debt as a science grad), and anything else you can think of. Potential advisor: This is the most important meeting. You want to have thought about what you are interested in and what you want to get out of your degree. You want to be able to talk about why you've been out of school (if you have) and why you want to go back. Ask them questions about what they see as their role in mentoring students, how students in the lab generally settle on projects, what sorts of things they'd be interested in seeing explored by a new student, what financial and technical support there is for different types of projects… Finally, ask them where their own research is going. Scientists often take paths that are very different from their past publications – make sure it is a direction that you like. Breaks: If you need to be alone for a minute – ask for the bathroom. Or if there is dead time, ask where you can check your e-mail or see more of the campus. Do turn off your phone (if you have a cell) during all the meetings. 3) Finding your focus and employment goal. Figuring out what subject you want to pursue isn’t easy, and you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. Think about what it is about biology that excites or inspires you. Then look up some current articles about those things. Spend some time in a science library just looking around. Flip through recent copies of Science, Nature, Evolution, Ecology, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE). Just look at abstracts – don’t overwhelm yourself with reading the articles in their entirety. Also do searches on BIOSIS and/or Web of Science (a librarian could help you if you don't know how to do this) for recent articles on topics that interest you. If you find some papers that you think are really cool, do read through those. Focus on the introductions and discussions – these will give you a feel for what is going on in the field, and they will cite books or review papers that might be good for you to look up.
As for employment… this is really hard. Grad students change their minds all the time about this subject, but to the frustration of their advisors. So you shouldn’t feel like you have to have all the answers, but you need to have thought about it a lot. Consider whether you want a Masters or a PhD. If you’re on the fence, consider the following things: Masters students get more attention when developing their projects, which is particularly great if you don’t have a lot of research experience. It's really easy to flail around when starting a PhD otherwise. You can often start as a Masters student and switch to a PhD part way through. Even if you end up going where a PhD program isn't an option, students who start a PhD with a Masters often finish faster, and with more publications (which makes getting a job easier). If you know that you really want a PhD, you can just go right into that program. There are a number of potential job avenues for biologists with grad degrees. I quickly came up with these: Research focus: - Research university faculty (must have PhD): You do both research and teaching, generally with more emphasis on research. You have grad students and you spend lots of time writing grants. You live your work; this is an extremely demanding job. You don't have to like teaching best, though you should be capable of doing it well. - Research scientist for government (like US Dept of Ag, National Marine Fisheries Service, or US Geol Survey) or non-profit organization (like The Nature Conservancy) or a director of a natural reserve (PhD): You coordinate and/or conduct research to fulfill the goals of the organization. These organizations also occasionally have jobs for an experienced masters grad. - Natural History Museums/ Botanical Gardens/Arboreta (Masters/PhD): You maintain, archive, and study collections, as well as get grants to go out and collect more stuff. These positions can range from a biological inventory focus to cutting edge taxonomic and evolutionary research. Teaching focus: - Liberal arts college faculty (PhD): You do lots of teaching with some time in the summer for some of your own research. You don't have graduate students (there aren't any at a "college"), but undergrads get very involved in your lab. You will want to have good teaching experience for this, and obviously a love for it. - Community/Junior college faculty (PhD): Again, you do lots of teaching and don’t have grad students. You generally have less support for lab facilities, so you may do some of your own research or you may not. More and more students are going to JC's, and so these schools are growing in a big way. These jobs are definitely competitive, and you will want to have lots of teaching experience to offer. - High school bio faculty (Masters/PhD): You know what these guys do. For this you may want to consider one of the Masters/Teaching credential combo programs that many university programs have. - Science Centers / Museums / Aquaria (Masters/PhD): You coordinate exhibits and outreach programs to bring science to the public. Natural History focus: - See Natural History Museums above - Consulting firms (Masters/PhD): There are many companies that take contracts to assess habitats in some way. They employ people at all levels. You do a lot of collecting and identifying, some lab work, and lots of misc basic biology. -Forest Service (including National Park) or Private company (like lumber company) biologist (Masters/PhD): These employers want to keep track of what is on their land in order to comply with a variety of regulations. You would also liaison with any other biologists who wish to do research on the land. END