Monday Motivation: Choosing a grad school

You’ve decided that you’re going back to school to earn your master’s degree. Congratulations! Do you know what schools and programs you want to apply to yet? Need a little help finding information?

Career and education fairs. If you’re an undergraduate student, see if your school is hosting a Graduate and Professional School fair.  These are often held during the Fall semester and sponsored by the Career Center.

Browse the internet. Explore websites that are dedicated to graduate education such as gradschools.com and petersons.com.

• The Princeton Review. Sending out grad school applications is time-consuming and expensive. Skip the blitz method; don’t apply to every school with a program in your field. Instead, focus your attention and energy on a few carefully chosen schools.
• Quintcareers.com. You’ll find the information you need to evaluate each program in various graduate school guides and directories, as well as from the catalogs and Websites of the individual graduate programs that interest you.

Get opinions. Do not hesitate to make contact with a school at multiple levels: the graduate school office, the departmental office, key faculty members and student associations. Also, speak with friends of your family who are prominent alumni, and even current graduate students.

• The Mathematical Association of America. Unless your school has a graduate program it is difficult to find graduate students to talk to. We decided to ask four mathematics graduate students about how they chose their graduate schools and what advice they have for you.
• Mahalo Answers. Three grad students give insight into their decision process.
• Computational Complexity. Tips from Bruce Maggs’ 2001 interview in Higher Cohomology.
• Brazen Careerist. I especially like points six and seven.
• Linked In. Is an Ivy League education worth it?

Related Links
Monday Motivation: Study tips
Monday Motivation: Preparing for grad school
Monday Motivation: Finding balance as a grad student