On Fri­day, Career Ser­vices hosted “Prepar­ing Your Grad­u­ate School Appli­ca­tion Mate­ri­als,” which served as an intro­duc­tion for stu­dents to the world of grad­u­ate school and grad­u­ate school appli­ca­tions. Satomi Chu­dasama, Assis­tant Direc­tor, Lib­eral Arts & Engi­neer­ing Career Coun­sel­ing, gave the pre­sen­ta­tion, and about twenty stu­dents attended.

Chu­dasama empha­sized that stu­dents should not pick a grad­u­ate school based on rank­ing alone; they should also pay atten­tion to the pro­grams offered. “What you want to do and what the school is offer­ing need to match.

The pre­sen­ta­tion drew many par­al­lels between grad­u­ate school appli­ca­tions and col­lege appli­ca­tions, but the chief dif­fer­ence between the two is that fac­ulty mem­bers read grad­u­ate school appli­ca­tions. Because of this, it is impor­tant that under­grad­u­ate inter­ests cor­re­late with the pro­gram. “Grad­u­ate schools want you to know what you’re apply­ing for,” Chu­dasama said. Hav­ing this sort of pas­sion is impor­tant for rea­sons beyond the appli­ca­tion. Grad­u­ate school, espe­cially a Ph.D. pro­gram, is all-consuming. “It’s intense.”

When con­sid­er­ing which pro­gram to apply for, it was empha­sized that highly ranked schools might not be ideal for a student’s spe­cific inter­ests. Stu­dents need to look at spe­cific offer­ings as well as other char­ac­ter­is­tics, such as loca­tion (“You’re going to spend a long time there.”) and fac­ulty.  One tip Chu­dasama gave was to look at the authors of arti­cles you enjoy read­ing for class. “If they are teach­ing some­where, where are they teaching?”

As far as spe­cific appli­ca­tion mate­ri­als go, Chu­dasama men­tioned the let­ter explain­ing grade defla­tion that Prince­ton encloses with a tran­script and said tran­scripts are also scru­ti­nized for the stu­dents’ course selec­tions. Stan­dard­ized test scores can also counter a sub-par GPA. Since scores are valid for five years, it was rec­om­mended that stu­dents take tests while they are still in school, when they have good study habits.

For the state­ment of pur­pose, stu­dents may show their pas­sions. “There’s no right or wrong way to write this state­ment, which is tricky for a lot of peo­ple,” Chu­dasama said. Career Ser­vices can pro­vide read­ing and edit­ing ser­vices, but it’s best to avoid the late-November rush.

The dead­lines may be in the fall, but it is advis­able for stu­dents look­ing to pre­pare over the sum­mer. Sopho­mores, she said, should develop their pas­sion and spe­cific area of inter­est, but juniors can do more to research spe­cific schools and take the rel­e­vant tests.

Career Ser­vices can pro­vide more infor­ma­tion on grad­u­ate school, set­ting goals, and spe­cific ele­ments of one’s appli­ca­tion. Chu­dasama also high­lighted the Cre­den­tials File ser­vice, which keeps let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion on hand for stu­dents apply­ing to mul­ti­ple schools or apply­ing sev­eral years after grad­u­a­tion. For more infor­ma­tion about the Cre­den­tials File sys­tem or about grad­u­ate school in gen­eral, visit http://www.princeton.edu/career/undergrads/grad-prof/.