1. Applying to Graduate School
Career Development Center
Underwood International College
December 8, 2012
Paul Y. Chang
Assistant Professor
Yonsei University

2. Preliminary Affirmations
Make sure you want to go.
It’s 7 years of your life.
Living below the poverty line.
Uncertain outcome.
Know what you want to study.
You will be thinking, reading, writing about a fairly narrow field of study.
Make sure you have some passion for the actual topic.
Be interested, have curiosity.
Forget about status, hopes for status will not erase the disparity between your life as a graduate student and your happy (rich) friends.

3. Checklist Application Statement of Purpose Recommendation Letters GRE
School Transcripts
TOEFL
[Curriculum Vitae (CV or resume)]

4. Statement of Purpose
The GRE, transcripts, and TOEFL are used mostly as the first cut off line. You have to meet a baseline standard.
For transcripts, the courses you take can be important.
After the initial cut, statement of purpose and recommendations are much more important.
The statement of purpose is the most information they will have about what you want to accomplish.

5. Statement of Purpose Three Part Structure:
1. You: your research interests and how you discovered them. Also, maybe your important classes.
Your research experience (substantive and methodology)
2. Them: their program, be specific. Mention professors, recent research (articles, books, etc.), current projects, etc.
3. The Connection: how your interests match with theirs, what projects you want to get on, person(s) you want to work with, etc.

6. Recommendation Letters
Ask early.
Before asking, have your statement of purpose for professor.
You’re hoping they say you’re “well qualified” (maybe a word about English ability).
In the case you’re drafting the letter:
be sure to specify your interest and its connection to specific faculty and research programs at each school.
highlight methodological skills (convince them you can do research)

7. GRE
Math should be fine. Important if you mention an interest in quantitative methods.
Verbal: vocab, vocab, vocab
Because ETS wrote the test to measure general (long term developed) ability, there is no quick way to study for reading comp, or logic section.
Only thing you can do is to practice taking the test as many times as possible and memorize as many vocabulary words as possible (PR Word Smart is the minimum).

8. School Transcripts
The content of the courses in your major is important, but only if they take the time to look.
Explicitly mention in your statement of purpose those courses pertaining to research interest.
e.g. mention the substantive courses that fits with your research interest
e.g. if planning on using quantitative methods, mention RDQM and stats courses
e.g. if planning on doing more comparative- historical or theoretical work, mention those classes, etc.

9. TOEFL Do well. I don’t think the minimum requirement is that high.
Score is by no means a measure of someone’s ability to understand, read, and write English at the school they go to.
Base cutoff line

10. Pre-Application Contact Strategy
The question on everybody’s mind is whether your ability and interests matches with their department.
You should know this too and the best way is to make contact early.
Find current research projects going on.
Contact a faculty you are interested in working with.
Ask faculty if they are picking up any students.
If possible, send them some of your work, depending on the quality.
If possible, meet them.
After introductions, it is not rude (for most people) to ask them directly if they are interested in picking up any students and if they think you seem like a qualified applicant.

11. Looking Ahead: the program
Years 1-3: coursework and one important MA or second year paper/article.
Years 3-4: qualifying examinations
Years 5-7: dissertation proposal (defense), data collection, write, dissertation defense

12. Looking Ahead: funding
Most Ph.D. programs will cover all of your expenses including living stipend.
General package is 4-5 year guaranteed funding.
1st year is usually “free year” – they pay for tuition and provide monthly stipend ($1500-$1800).
2nd-4th or 5th you have to “work” for your stipend (tuition is still free).
Various Teaching Assistant (TA) or Research Assistant (RA) jobs.
TA and RA are guaranteed until end of last funding year.

13. Funding continued
Many schools will only accept the number of students they can offer full funding packages to.
Other schools will offer funding packages to some but not all accepted students.
If you don’t have a package, hopefully they’ll at least cover your tuition.
If they cover your tuition, it’s just a matter of finding a TA or RA job right away (I don’t think this is that hard).
Apply for external funding. Look domestically as well as orgs. that focus on international students or the topic you are studying.

14. Preliminary Affirmations
Make sure you want to go.
It’s 7 years of your life.
Living below the poverty line.
Uncertain outcome.
Know what you want to study.
You will be thinking, reading, writing about a fairly narrow field of study.
Make sure you have some passion for the actual topic.
Be interested, have curiosity.
Forget about status, hopes for status will not erase the disparity between your life as a graduate student and your happy (rich) friends.