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Apply yourself: how to impress the admissions director.
The decision to go to grad school as an international student involves an enormous amount of thought and planning before your application is actually submitted. TIM ROGERS, former Head of Student Recruitment and Admissions at the internationally renowned London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), shares some of his inside observations on grad school applications
You might be lucky enough to be one of those people that always know exactly what they want to do and when they want to do it. Alternatively, you might be the same as the most of us and have to come to a decision through a much more complicated process, weighing up lots of different factors and aspects of your life until you arrive at a point where you know what the right decision to make is for you and your future. Deciding to go to grad school is one of those decisions that may change the course of your life – are you ready for that?
Decision time and the right time
Whether you are currently an undergraduate student thinking through future options, or completing your second or third year of your first job, the decision that faces you is whether the time is right for a Masters or PhD program. Depending on your own circumstances, the time that’s right for grad school is the time that’s right for you: does your future career depend on advanced qualifications? Or, can advancement and promotion in your current employment rely on being more qualified than your colleagues?
There are no easy answers to knowing whether taking a Masters or PhD program is exactly the right path to take, or when the optimum time to start one is, but it’s vital that you balance your decision by considering all aspects of your life – can you afford to take an advanced qualification, both in terms of finances and your time? Can you afford not to? Will a Masters degree support your ambitions? Have you considered the impact on your personal, social and professional lives? Only by having the answers to all of these questions can you be sure that grad school is the right option for you.
Choosing which grad school to go to, what program to study, even knowing the country you want to spend the next few years in requires considerable research.
Research, research and more research
Choosing which grad school to go to, what program to study, even knowing the country you want to spend the next few years in requires considerable research. There are many ways of gathering the necessary information on what, where and how to study, but nothing beats variety. The best research comes from a range of sources and is taken as a whole, using advice and information from parents, academics, friends, employers, former students, league tables, institutional and independent web sources to build up a reliable foundation on which your decision on where to study can be based.
There can be no doubt that the internet is the one source that every prospective Masters or PhD student turns to first. The websites of individual universities and grad schools often offer the most comprehensive sources of information but not necessarily the most unbiased. Information on program structure, subject choice, academic staff, applications methods and deadlines, and career opportunities are all offered through these sites, but objective, independent advice is often not present. Other third party websites, such as www.topuniversities.com, can offer a more even-handed approach, including information on a range of aspects of the graduate study experience such as working opportunities, financial aid and various scholarships, and relative visa procedures.
Whilst the internet is the most commonly used research tool for prospective international graduate students, it is vital to consult other sources to build up a complete picture of what and where you might study. Alumni of all grad schools will be able to give you excellent advice as to whether the experience is worthwhile – good grad schools will make it easy for you to contact their former students and even put you in contact with those from your own country and exactly the same academic subject area that you are interested in. International rankings and league tables are also increasingly popular ways of helping you to shortlist grad schools depending on the criteria and methodologies they use, as is any guidance your own Ministry of Education might offer with regards to the recognition of particular international universities and colleges.
