Visiting a Graduate School
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Is Graduate School For Me

Building Up A Resume

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The Application Process

Especially For Women

One of the easiest ways to tell if a graduate school is right for you is to visit as many of the schools to which you were accepted as is humanly possible. This will give you valuable insight into those aspects of the program which cannot be assessed via web pages (neither of us thought we would be attending the schools where we ended up going. It was the visitation that convinced us). Most schools which accept you into their program will pay most or all of your travel expenses, making visitation a rather painless proceedure. If the schools do not contact you about visitation after accepting you, email them about it. Here are some questions to keep in mind while you are visiting a school:

  • Degree requirements:
    • What the hardest requirement? Why?
    • Are the requirements fair?
    • Any recent surprises because someone didn't pass?
    • What do you need for a Masters vs PhD?
    • Are the comprehensive exams required?
  • Funding:
    • Proportion of grad students funded as RA, TA.
    • Does this change by seniority?
    • How many students there longer than 2 years still on TA?
  • Time-to-degree:
    • How long does it take to get a PhD?
    • If over 6 years, why does it take so long?
    • Do most PhD leave with a good resume? (ex. several papers)
  • Demographics:
    • Male vs Female
    • Domestic vs Foreign
  • Facilities:
    • Space:
      • What is a typical TA office?
      • What is a typical RA office? (organized by research group?)
      • How far to faculty offices?
      • How far to classrooms?
      • How many people in an office?
    • Computers:
      • Do grad students get PCs, workstations, X-terms?
      • Are there plenty of available computing cycles, so terminal doesn't make much difference?
      • How does one get remote access (eg. from apartment)
    • Faculty:
      • Are they competent: researchers, teachers, advisors
      • Are faculty available: as teachers, research supervisors, thesis advisors
      • Do groups have weekly meetings?
      • Can one see their advisor on-demand?
      • Does one need an appointment, how far in advance?
    • Atmosphere:
      • Do faculty get along with each other?
      • Are there cliques (by research area, by nationality, ...)?
      • Do faculty and grad students have social events?
      • Do the graduate students have planned social activities?
      • Do the graduate students tend to do things together?
      • Is the general atmosphere, especially among faculty, competitive or cooperative?
    • Housing:
      • Where do grad students live?
      • Does the university have housing for single grad students?
      • Do grad students rent apartments? condos?
      • How much is the rent?
      • Do grad student buy conds, small houses, ... ?