#every time a student asks me for a rec letter for grad school

[everybodyscupoftea]

How about more pike jj? 😍

okay love this, it was honestly really bothering me that i only had one fic under that heading so i’d love to expand if possible

also if someone wants to send requests on what else they’d like to see in this verse (other than smut) i’d love to do that for y’all

(warnings: cursing, anxiety, school freak out, unedited)

you were sitting on your couch when you saw your friend’s snapchat that she’d gotten into grad school. which, good for her, you loved that and were so happy for her, but it gave you a stomachache. you’d been putting off your own applications for months, intending to start last october, but it was february and you still hadn’t started.

in your defense, you were busy and between work and school, you hadn’t had much time to breathe, much less do extra work with applications. unfortunately, that meant you were way behind everyone and application due dates for the fall were passing you by.

maybe if you did some homework, the anxious feeling clawing at your throat would go away. pulling the tv table in front of you, you plopped your laptop down on it and opened your email. you were waiting for a company to get back to you about an interview for a project in your sales class. it was due in about three weeks and they still hadn’t gotten back to you, and unfortunately, you had no backup plan.

sure enough, your email was still empty. with a loud sigh, you pulled up your student email to check and see if your selected professors for letters of recommendation had gotten back to you about your resume and transcript. of course, with the way things were going, no.

you sniffled, a wave of tiredness hitting you as your morning shift combined with afternoon classes caught up to you. pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes, you took a deep breath and decided to try and see if your in-class group sales project had been graded. your group had done well, and you were thrilled with the final product.

to your horror, there was an 81 staring you in the face with the note presentation left something to be desired, make sure to make more eye contact with the audience next time. overall, interesting topic that was well-researched.

a fucking 81 for not enough eye contact. you wanted to scream, that seemed fucking harsh for an elective that you chose to take over another communications class because you were told “honestly, she’s super easy and lenient with her grading”. lenient with her grading your ass.

maybe schoolwork wasn’t the best idea for the time being, and you slammed your laptop shut in frustration. you pulled your knees to your chest and started sobbing into them, totally overwhelmed and overworked. just as it was getting hysterical, there was a knock on the door. fuck, you’d forgotten jj was coming over for dinner.

you wrapped a blanket around you and padded over to the door, tears still leaking from your eyes. jj’s wide smile dropped as he took in your pathetic state and he immediately pulled you into a hug.

he walked the two of you over to the couch and stepped away to move the tv stand across the room. sitting down, he patted the spot next to him, but you stayed standing, not wanting to sit down because of the pent up anxiety churning in your stomach. 

“can you talk to me, sweetheart? is there something i can help you with?” he asked, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees.

you rubbed your hands on the blanket, trying to stop them from sweating and started venting, “no one will get back to me that i need to for a class project and i don’t know who to ask that’s a marketing manager that i can interview. it’s due in three weeks and i have to do the post-interview essay too. my teachers who agreed to right my rec letters either haven’t got my emails or are just ignoring me, and i got an 81 on a project because prolonged eye contact freaks me out.”

jj’s eyebrows raised higher and higher as your rant went on and you started quickly pacing to work out some of the anxiety. he laid back on the couch and held an arm out, signaling for you to come lay with him. with a huff, you tightened the blanket around you and sat on the edge. 

he squeezed your hip gently and said, “baby, you’re one of the smartest people i know. you’ll figure out what you need to for that project, and the 81 isn’t that big of a deal in the span of the entire class, i know you have a lot of assignments to mask that.”

you put your head in your hands, “i haven’t even started applying for grad school yet. applications are starting to be due in like two weeks. what if i have to apply for hard ones and i get rejected from every single one because i procrastinated.”

jj laughed, “you’re too good to get rejected from every school you apply to. i wouldn’t expect to get into all of them, but i’m positive within the next few months you’ll have to choose between schools. which, now that i’m thinking about it will probably be a whole new crisis.”

you laughed, a strangled noise through the tears that had started falling again, before placing your hand on top of his on your hip, “god, i hope so. that’s a much better problem to have. it’s just so overwhelming looking at my list and then looking at how much have to do for each application and it’s like maybe i should just put this off if it’s going to overwhelm me. then i always regret it.”

he sat up, “first, let’s hug it out, then we’ll figure out what you need to do and what order to do it in so that you don’t get overwhelmed.”

jj held his arms out and you moved to sit on his lap, legs going around his waist, and hugged him tightly, engulfing him in the blanket too. you buried your face in his neck and breathed in his regular scent, which helped calm you, and you stayed there until the tears stopped completely.

he loosened his grip and you pulled back. wiping your cheeks, he asked, “we good now?”

“as good as i can be right now.”

with a nod he asked, “okay, what all do you need to get done for each application?”

“it starts with a personal statement, a copy of my transcript, and then letters of recommendation. then, depending on the school, they might ask for gre scores after my original submission.” you paused, thinking back on your gre, “oh my god, my scores were a solid average, a 310, what if it’s not good enough, i don’t want to retake it, that was miserable.”

“okay, you need to breathe, over 300 is good, don’t stress about your score right now. some schools might not even require it.” he was right, so you took a few deep breaths, and when you finished, he continued, “i think you should definitely write up a very basic personal statement template that you can fill in and expand upon for each school in particular.”

you nodded and stood to bring your laptop back over. jj opened his booksack and pulled his own laptop out. glancing over curiously, you asked, “wait, what are you doing?”

he responded without looking at you, “i’m an elite spreadsheet maker, so i’m going to make you one to show exactly what you need for each school and so that you can fill in when you do it.”

you teared up again, this time as his thoughtfulness, “god, i don’t deserve you.”

he grinned at you, “sure you do, you deserve the best in the world, and i’d wager that’s me.”

with a snort, you ruffled his hair before getting to work on your blanket personal statement. 

[whentherewerebicycles]

Hi! I am sorry to randomly drop in on you like this, but I think I need some, uh, reassurance? I’m a new grad, taking a gap year before grad school to work on a horse farm, was meant to be applying to grad programs this fall but I graduated during the first semester of Covid education and I hated it. Despised it. Zoom makes me want to set things on fire!! Anyway, I am taking another year to go work on (yet another) horse farm in the hopes that the pandemic is more managed by the 1/2

2/2 time I actually go to grad school. But even tho I think this is the right choice for me I am also Worried that this is really a trap and a slippery slope and I will never return to academia or do anything worthwhile with my life I will just bum around between random gig jobs until die. So um as someone who works in academia would you be willing to confirm that it is not going to vanish the second I take my eyes off it? Thank you and I’m sorry to bother you with my worries

*

oh you are absolutely fine!!! please let me offer you the warmest and most genuine reassurance. taking time off between undergrad and a phd program is completely normal (many people take years off before going on!) and is honestly probably much healthier than going straight from undergrad. it gives you time out in the world to have life/work experiences and also to think about whether or not you really want to do a phd. in my program it was probably most common for people to take 2-3 years off, but there were some who had worked 5-10 years after graduation and decided to come back in their 30s. so taking two years will not derail you at all and you should enjoy the time away.

i think the one thing you do want to think about, though, is how to position yourself to successfully apply when you come back. if you haven’t already, i would reach out to your potential faculty recommenders immediately, explain your plans, and ask if they’d be willing to make some detailed notes for a future rec now while your work & classroom contributions are still fresh in their minds. students will often reach out to me two or three years later to write for them and, while i might have a general positive sense of them in my mind, it’s sometimes tough to summon up the kinds of specific details that make a rec letter really shine. you might even ask if your profs would be willing to jump on a quick zoom call with you, so you can reiterate your interest in grad school, ask them for advice on staying connected & up to date on your field, and just generally remind them that you are a bright curious person who has ambitious plans for your future.

you also may want to come up with some ideas for keeping your critical reading/writing muscles in shape for the next couple years. for instance, if you wrote an honors thesis or pursued major research projects in your senior year, you could consider revising and publishing that work in an undergrad journal, or applying to present a portion of your thesis at an academic conference. right now is a great time to apply to conferences because everything’s virtual - and most major conferences will offer reduced fees for independent scholars who don’t currently have an institutional affiliation. i’d be happy to offer advice on that process if it would be helpful, or you could ask your professors if they’d be willing to continue to lightly mentor you - maybe meeting with you once every month or two. you should also check to see if your school’s alumni network offers institutional access for graduated students (my university does, if you pay the small yearly membership fee) or if your local public library system gives you access to jstor or is part of an interlibrary loan network. 

to keep yourself on track, you might set particular goals for yourself -- like, submitting an abstract to a conference, reading the abstracts of a major journal in your field every couple months to stay abreast of new work, and working your way through some of the foundational texts in your field that you might read in graduate school. this could also be an exciting time to start thinking about future research projects -- is there some topic you are hoping to study in grad school that you didn’t really get a chance to in undergrad? doing some thinking / writing / light research towards future projects will keep you mentally engaged in your field while also giving you something to write about in your grad school SOPs when/if you decide to apply.

i want to just close by saying that there are MANY points in between grad school and only working gig jobs for the rest of your life! this could also be a good time to start researching other potential career paths and talking to people about their own career trajectories. i make my students set up multiple “informational interviews” with people who are working for organizations that interest them or doing the kinds of work they might want to do (these are basically just coffee chats that are very focused on understanding what the person’s life/work trajectory was and how they figured out what skills they needed to cultivate to get to where they are now). if you are considering academia, you probably enjoy reading, writing, research, and maybe teaching or working with students in some capacity. there are tons of jobs in universities that don’t require a PhD but can be a way to work with college kids or with faculty and stay connected to a university community. you might start clicking around on university staff websites and reading people’s bios or linkedin profiles to figure out what kinds of professional experiences you need for different types of careers.

if you do end up meeting with people for a virtual coffee chat, make sure to ask them if they can think of other people you might reach out to, or types of experiences you might look out for. when i have that kind of meeting with current or former students, i often start keeping an eye out for opportunities or people I could put them in touch with. in my experience people generally like sharing what they know or what they’ve learned, and they enjoy feeling helpful to younger people who are trying to find their way. if you can get over the initial hurdle of being nervous about contacting people or asking them for guidance, i think you will be pleasantly surprised at how eager people are to help you out.

i hope that helps!! good luck to you - and also, if you want to share more info about your career or grad school aspirations, i can start keeping an eye out for opportunities that might be relevant to you :)

[gradschoolstyle]

How I prepped for the academic job market

I am by no means an expert on academic jobs just because I now (miraculously?) have one. But I have been told that I am organized, and, yes, that is because being an anxious person sometimes means having a system for everything. So before I totally bury all memories of the academic job market, I thought I would put together a timeline of some of the things I did to get ready to search for academic jobs…

My to-do list started very informally in the first year of my PhD program. I know that sounds over-the-top-early but the job market takes a lot of work. Checking things off one at a time helped me to feel in control. Here’s how I prepared for the academic job market as a PhD student:

Year 1

Do research that excites you: Enthusiasm for my research ended up being my momentum through a lot of the hard stuff that came later. Try to set yourself up to do the research that you want to do right away. This might include some trial-and-error and trying out different topics until you find the one.

Read The Professor is In: My MA advisor insisted I read this the summer before I started the PhD and, as always, she was totally right. When I told other grad students I had read a book about how tough the job market is they either said “I don’t need to read that yet” or “I don’t want to know how bad it is.” Ummmm…denial is not a good strategy. Knowing what you’re getting into is a good strategy. Even though the information about prepping job market materials was not yet relevant, having a framework for what would be evaluated helped me to define my grad school goals.

Year 2

Write papers that help you figure out your research area: I was pretty bad at this in my MA (I wrote papers about everythingggg). It’s ok to spend some time exploring topics, but once I had a topic area, I tried to use grad seminar papers to narrow in on that topic. This involved writing some papers that ended up being duds, and some that ended up being important parts of my dissertation. This leads to…

Ask about publishing: In seminars, I tried to have meetings with professors where I told them I wanted an academic job and needed experience publishing. They were usually willing to help develop seminar papers that had (somewhat?) original arguments in them, which is necessary for publishing. I was also not afraid to ask for lots of publishing help–how does it work? where should I submit this? can I use a cover letter you have written as a template? Publishing is confusing and took me a while to get used to.

Network smarter, not harder: This was the year I realized that going to giant conferences and hoping to meet people who did similar things was just not working. I reassessed and submitted to several smaller conferences that had the explicit goal of having senior faculty mentor grad students. It was amazing! First, these conferences were genuinely helpful, second, they were genuinely…genuine. I didn’t feel that I had to do any super fake networking anymore because I was really there to have conversations that developed my research.

Year 3

Read job postings: If your discipline has a listserv, subscribe, if not, check out the InsideHigherEd job postings. Note any trends in hiring. I don’t think you can totally pivot toward every job (duh) but you can think about how to make your application more friendly to what everyone seems to want. In my case, people who teach organizational communication were often also being asked to teach several other classes, so I made sure to ask to teach one of those so it would be on my record before the job market.

Submit, submit, submit: This is the year I got the most journal submissions under review. Some got accepted, some got (mega) rejected. Most needed several rounds of hardcore revisions that took 12-14 months. Submitting in year 3 gave me time to do those revisions so that I could use the articles as writing samples on applications.

Year 4

Prep materials: I drew on as many resources as possible to prep my job market materials–career services helped with my CV, our graduate teaching program on campus helped me writing my teaching and diversity statements, I asked recent graduates for example cover letters, my advisor read and edited cover letters, my DAD read and edited cover letters (what can I say he loves helping with grammar). It takes a village. Use the village. Oh, now is also a good time to reread TPII book for tips on writing decent materials.

Get organized: I had a spreadsheet where I put all of the relevant job information, especially deadlines, keywords, and information about each department.

Ask your letter writers: I did this in August. I also made them all a “job application digest”–just a word document with all of the jobs I submitted to and some notes about what I had said in my cover letter, so they could tailor rec letters.

Throw yourself at your dissertation: Every interview asked how I was planning to finish the dissertation. Making real progress made this question much easier. I definitely lost myself to the job market for a solid month in November. Then, I realized that my dissertation was the only thing I had control over. So I got back to work.

And here are some other resources that I also enjoyed reading:

Thoughts on diversity statements: What the heck even are they?, plus thoughts on the hidden curriculum of college and designing inclusive teaching on campus (Ps don’t just use these to write a diversity statement use them to actually do work in your classroom and campus environment so that what you write on your diversity statement is genuine).

A breakdown on cover letters

Another great post on the job hunt

Campus visit small talk

This post originally appeared on my WordPress

[flange5]

Hi angie! I just had a quick question that, if it's okay, I'd like to get your perspective on as a teacher. I ended up in 2 of this one professor's classes this semester and I really liked his class structure, and him as an instructor - so I signed up for more of them next term. Is that a weird thing to do? I know you dont speak for every teacher but wokekwkwks thank you

Hi, anon!

That’s a really good question and I can see both why you’d do it and both why you might be a bit nervous to do it. 

SO, first off your professor doesn’t think you’re weird or a kiss-ass, so if that’s your concern, feel better! We often are excited to get repeat students bc it means there are names we don’t have to memorize, personalities and learning styles we’re already comfortable with, and it is kind of validating to know a student felt good enough about their experience in another class to sign on again. 

That said, there are some things to consider about diversifying:

1) Rec letters. This professor is likely going to be your go-to for recommendation letters for internships, transfer if that’s a possibility, grad school if that’s a possibility, scholarships and grants,  possibly a job. So on the one hand this person is a natural bc they’ll know you WELL and that means they can build a picture of you that is much more individual than someone who only saw a student in one class and didn’t really interact much.

BUT. Be aware that you may be putting a lot of eggs in one basket. So, if you really like this prof but they’re disorganized or bad with deadlines, you may have some stress if you’re relying on them for this. ALSO, make sure you are also making relationships with other professors in your major/field even though you are obviously taking a bunch with this professor–I might make an extra effort to drop by office hours early in the semester for OTHER professors so they can start to build a positive picture of you and also start to hoard things to say in case you ask them for letters in the future.

–HONESTLY, I wish people would more directly talk to students about recommendation letters early in their college careers, and how to strategize for getting good letters. Start in your first semester, so you have options and backups. I just had a student who I’ve known for 3 weeks (i.e. I don’t know her at all) ask me for a letter, because a prof in another major is apparently ghosting her after saying yes and I’m in the position of saying I CAN write her a letter and I’ll do my best to make it as good as possible, but I can’t lie, they will ask how long I’ve known her, and it’s going to be hard for me to write her an effective letter that will do anything other than check a box on their checklist, but she still wants me to do it, either because I’m approachable or because she’s not had/cultivated relationships in her previous classes that allow her to ask other people.

/side rant/PSA

2) coverage of field--professors have areas of specialization in their field, so by sticking with one prof you may be getting a kind of lopsided view of your major–that said, your department/institution has coverage requirements and this is only really an issue to consider if you’re strongly considering grad school or employment truly based in your major and trying to avoid accidental blind spots in your preparation.

3) pre-emptive damage control–not to catastrophize, but the only other concern I’d have about loading up another two classes with this professor is that if you have a falling out with them between now and the end of the semester, that’s going to make next semester difficult and stressful for you (and them). But if you feel like there’s a good rapport/match, why borrow trouble–if something goes super sidewise, you can always switch sections or move things around. To avoid this, it’s really important to avoid nasty surprises–be aware of syllabus policies, especially for late/short work, and of the grade breakdown–how much are different things worth, so you don’t get blindsided by anything and carry that upset with you in the future. The cool thing about a 4x repeat prof, though is that we tend to carry over our policies from class to class so you’ll likely be super familiar with this one guy’s rules. 

related: I often recommend my first years write out class specific policies in the cover of that class’s notebook/folder if they keep one, or create a master sheet listing the policies for each class and saving it to the phone and posting it on the fridge/somewhere prominent as a reminder–late work policies, short/long work policies, contact info, weird specific rules about how/how not to submit work (electronic or not, will they accept emailed work as a time stamp even if they will require a hard copy later?) yadda yadda, so when it’s 1am and you’re exhausted and sick and can’t brain you can just glance at a bullet point list for that class tomorrow and know whether or not it’s worth pushing through or taking a 5% hit for late work bc this professor accepts it with a minimal penalty but that jerk in the afternoon doesn’t accept late work, so prioritize them. You don’t want to mess that up and it’s so easy to mess that up.  

tl;dr, but it won’t be an issue for your professor, but there are some potential opportunity costs in terms of relationships, experiences with other professors, and a slight risk if the relationship goes south. But if you do preventative maintenance, you’ll have done a great job of engineering a semester where a good chunk of your classes will be taught by someone you’re comfortable with, and who can write you a great letter! That’s pretty good!

I hope that helps, and I’m sorry I rambled so long. Pity my students. 

[blacklinguist]

college how to : securing rec letters

uh basically what i did to get recommendation letters secured for grad school + study abroad? this is like for ....anxious people lol? i researched for HOURS on how to actually go about getting recommendation letters....but there weren’t too many tips for the actual process, just ‘oh! get recs from professors who love you’ haha...

Before you even think of asking...

Do your research: Thinking about graduate school? scholarships? studying abroad? Fulbright? anything that you have to apply to, you’re going to be asked for recommendation letters. this most definitely did NOT occur to me, so I probably added more stress to my plate than I needed to. But yeah....you can’t just get in on your own merit for most things. You need people to vouch for you in the form of rec letters, and most times your applications won’t even be considered without them. PLUS when you DO ask for a recommendation letter, you want to show that you have done some research into whatever you are applying for, and share some of that information with your potential recommender.

Prepare statements of purpose and academic CVs: In order for your recommender to write a letter, they need some background on, well, you! Even if you talk to them often, it’s still nice to have your specific ideas and goals about the program ready and laid out. Plus, they may not know of all your academically-related accomplishments, so detail them in that CV! It’s basically a resume in a different format, but if you get it done early, your recommender may even go over it and send you back suggestions.

Who to ask....

Quality of your recommender: Honestly, you can’t just get any old recommendation letter and hope that’ll fly. Oftentimes when recommendation letters are provided as a side thing (at least for college), they can be pretty basic and impersonal. It’s best to get a letter from someone who has had 1-1 conversations with you where you shared about who you are, not necessarily just what you do. That can add a lot to your letter.

So many options....: It’s actually really okay to ask if your potential recommender feels they can write a strong, POSITIVE letter for you. You don’t want a petty supervisor (or someone with which you butted heads or got a less than stellar grade in their class) writing your letter. If they can’t immediately say yes, then they won’t be golden. Once you weed out the so-so choices, you can focus on the strong candidates.

HOW to ask...

Building rapport: it comes to a point where you really do have to put yourself out there if you want your professor to remember your face. I've gone to events and seen professors (future, former, or current) present, and had little small talk convos just to say ‘hey! I'm your student!’. just walking around campus I might run into one, so that’s always a good time to ask questions about things in general (I would save assignment related questions for office hours!). I always email my bilingual professor every week because he doesn’t post the assignment slots ahead of time, and let him know ‘hey! I've finished my assignment and want to submit’! Not only is that helping him keep things running, but he’s realizing ‘wow...she’s always finishing her assignments early’. bonus points! I usually spend half an hour in office hour sessions, talking about school, asking questions about their research, going off on tangents ...it’s okay to treat your professor as a mentor, they want to see you succeed, so show that you are putting that effort in! It’s also a good chance to practice your language skills with your language professors...

Schedule a talk ahead of time: When you actually ask for rec letters... do NOT just drop in! Show a level of professionalism by emailing your professors ahead of time and asking if you can speak with them regarding grad school/study abroad program, and ask them a question. :-] That’s what I did anyway lol! I didn’t ask for my rec letter officially over email, but face to face.

Set them up: Discuss the program(s) you are interested in, and give them enough detail so that they have a general idea of what you want to get them involved in. Don’t just sit down and ask ‘Can you write me a rec letter?’ but show that you are prepared! If you need to, provide them with pamphlets now.

Just ask!: Okay, now you can literally ‘just ask!’ When I had to ask for rec letters from one of my professors, my CURRENT professor was in his office just chatting with him! That was a bit nerve-wracking, but I just spit out my request before my anxiety took over (I totally wanted to run out of the office). It didn’t really matter that we had an ‘audience’, as he accepted with no problem!

What to do after...

APPLY!: Now that you've asked, you have to follow through! Start working on your application if you haven’t done so already, keep researching the process, and keep your recommenders up to date with deadlines, reminders, and additional information you discover. For me, I have to keep my professors up to date with my writing samples, statements of purpose, application process, and deadlines for my study abroad program. Whatever I need to know, they need to know!

um, I hope this is helpful! I can’t really cover the ‘okay I’ve applied and they’ve sent their letters in’ parts because...that hasn’t happened yet! I only asked two weeks ago, but I’ll definitely add onto this post once I can talk about the end results. :-]

[ferritin4]

Titans Together (3K Gen Jon Kent/Damian Wayne)

Here’s a thing I’ve never posted on here: DC comics fic! I’m one of those people that’s been reading comics since I was a kid, but never in a viciously completionist way. Then, as an adult, I went back and read the runs of things that were recommended or appealed to me, like, among many other things (buncha Batman, the Grayson run even though yes it kinda sucked, all of the new Midnighter before it got canceled), Super Sons. Which is hilarious, and the art is fabulous, and the characters are just perfect. Strong rec.

Like many people, I’m totally here for aged-up Jon Kent/Damian Wayne -- it’s like if Clark/Bruce were both more dramatic and less weird and awful about/to each other -- and I, personally, have a headcanon that Damian, though short now, really ought to grow up to be like 6′4″ and massive. Because his dad’s the tallest in the Batfam and very big, and his mom’s both tall and built for a woman. He has to be a low-grade celebrity at college: Bruce Wayne's son and a prodigy in every subject, a super intense giant scary ripped antisocial multimillionaire 21-year-old who's already halfway through his PhD and wears suits to class. 

And then I want Jon Kent to come visit him at Princeton and be a total fucking hayseed like, "Oh, whoa, wow! That building is so cool looking! What kind of style did you say it was, Dami?" in farm boy jeans and a Carhartt jacket and everyone is like whaaaat the fuuuuck

And that is this fic. (Yes. The art history is made up. That is intentional.)

—

Princeton was huge. Wow.

—

Jon didn’t expect it to be small — he had lived in Metropolis forever as a kid and he’d toured a couple colleges in Gotham, even. He knew Princeton wasn’t gonna be like, the size of Garden City Community College or something, but gosh. It was really, really big.

The administrative offices were right at the main entrance, and that was a good thing, because Jon needed a map, and some directions, and maybe a nametag?

“No, honey,” the woman at the desk said. Her desk plaque read Moira Reed and she looked kind of like his mom’s oldest cousin. “You don’t need a name tag, you just need to show me your ID and sign in so we know you’re on campus. Are you a prospective student?” she asked, taking his driver’s license. “Since you’re eighteen, you don’t need a guardian with you, but I would like an emergency contact, just in case.”

“Oh, sure,” Jon said. “And, no, I’m just visiting a friend who goes here. I live in Kansas,” he added, which — was probably super obvious from the whole Kansas state driver’s license thing. Duh. “You can, uh, tell, I guess. Thank you,” he said, taking it back.

She chuckled. “No worries. Do you need directions to their dorm? Or do they live off campus nearby?”

“No, thank you. He lives in grad student housing, I think?” Jon said. “But I do need directions to —” Jon pulled out his notebook “— Waterstone Hall? For ‘Art History 466’?”

Moira had a map, and a Sharpie, and a very, very patient smile, and Jon thanked her like five times before she kicked him out and told him to enjoy his class.

—

“Good lord,” an older woman’s voice said to Moira as Jon left the office. “Wasn’t he just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“They have manners in Kansas!” Moira said, laughing. “Maybe he should teach a class.”

—

Waterstone Hall was a beautiful brick building with small, well-kept classrooms with sky-blue walls and new whiteboards. Jon poked his head into a couple of empty rooms before he found 343B.

The seats were angled like a movie theater, pretty steep, and Jon picked a seat about halfway back, on the aisle in case anybody needed him to move. There were maybe twenty students already there, but he didn’t know how many were supposed to come. Class didn’t start for — five more minutes, according to the super fancy old analog clock on the wall.

Everybody was pretty dressed up, except Jon. Did they dress up for class at Princeton? Maybe; maybe it was like private school except without uniforms. The kid next to him was wearing a sweater vest over a collared white button-down shirt, and the girl directly in front of him was wearing some kind of dark blue fancy-looking shirt and pearls.

Jon shrugged off his jacket and put his notebook on the desk in front of him. His flannel had a collar, but he didn’t think that really counted for anything at Princeton.

Somebody was looking at him.

“Hi,” Jon said to the sweater vest kid, who was staring at him like he could see straight through Jon��s head.

“Who are you?” Sweater Vest said. Not, like, meanly. More like Jon was a raccoon or something that had wandered into the classroom.

Or something. Jon didn’t know if they had a lot of raccoons in New Jersey.

“I’m Jon,” Jon said. “I’m just visiting a friend, and I thought I’d sit in on class. Don’t worry,” he added, smiling, “I won’t try to lead discussion group or anything.”

“This class doesn’t have a discussion group,” Sweater Vest said, still staring. “You’re visiting a friend? Who goes here? And they told you to come to this class?”

The girl in front of them swiveled around. “No,” she said. “They must have meant a different class.”

“Art History 466?” Jon said. Maybe he was in the wrong room and this was some — but what class would be bad to sit in on?

Sweater Vest’s stare got, if possible, even more bug-eyed.

“Your friend is an asshole,” he said. “You gotta get out of here, kid, I’m not joking. Just… go to a coffeeshop for an hour or something, seriously, you have like sixty seconds before —”

“Shh!” the girl in front of them hissed suddenly, and oh hey, class was about to start.

—

The online course catalog had had a little description of the class and then links to a bunch of weekly readings, all posted and numbered and dated, and then, right under the all-caps, fancy bold lettering for ART HISTORY 466, it had said Instructor of Record: Damian Wayne.

—

Most of Jon’s classes at community college were hands-on. He was there mostly to learn how to do upkeep on the farm and maintenance on the equipment. Jon wasn’t a bad student — he always did his homework — but he liked the chance to move around while he learned.

His mom liked to say that Jon could sit still for about forty-five seconds, if he tried really hard.

He folded his hands in his lap and tried, as hard as he could, to hold still.

Damian was wearing a suit, of course — he had started wearing suits every day, like his dad, when he turned sixteen and went to college, and maybe that was why everybody was dressed up, maybe class had a dress code. If anyone would make their college class have a dress code, it would totally be Damian, a PhD student who still showed up to teach art history in a ridiculously fancy suit that made him look just like his dad.

Jon had been glad when Damian got taller than him, and even gladder when Damian had finally filled out. It made him look so much more like Bruce, so much less like Talia, and that, well. Jon didn’t need to be the world’s greatest anything to know how important that was to Damian.

Damian still had her sharp features, her olive skin, her cruel streak, of course, but it sure put Jon’s heart at ease to know Damian didn’t have to look in the mirror each morning and see only her face.

Damian put his bag down on the big desk at the front and started taking out some papers, as Jon bit his lip and tried to modulate his breathing so he sounded like everyone else in class, so he wasn’t forgetting to take a breath for too long, because he could forget, easy, when he was distracted, but Damian would totally notice and Jon didn’t want him to figure it out early, he wanted to him to notice when —

Damian looked up and over the class, just a quick, dismissive glance, and Jon could practically hear the gravel crunching as his eyes ground to a halt on Jon.

Sweater Vest stopped breathing; the girl in front of them sucked in in a huge rush of air. No one had been talking, but now no one was moving, just a roomful of terrified, pounding hearts, and oh my God, Damian, Jon thought fondly, you total freaking lunatic.

Jon smiled. Damian’s eyebrow quirked, very slightly, and he looked away, going back to his papers.

Sweater Vest breathed out, slow and shaky.

Class began.

It was interesting. They were mostly talking about German and French weaving and some wall paintings — murals, duh, right — but from like, 900CE. There was a projector and Damian had put up a couple pictures of the big murals so they could look at them while he talked.

Damian knew his stuff. It wasn’t shocking; he’d written like four books about this that Jon knew of, and anyway, Damian had known more than anyone else about pretty much everything for like, the duration of Jon’s entire life.

“The repeating patterns you see here became more geometrically constrained starting around 955CE,” Damian was saying. “They also became more consistent both intra- and inter-artist. Ms. Braxton,” he said, fixing his eyes on a small, dark-skinned girl in the second row, “why is that?”

“Uh,” she said. “Is it because of the access to, uh, horsehair —”

“No,” he said. “Mr. Kendry?”

Mr. Kendry was a tall, lanky boy with pale skin and paler hair who was sitting five seats over from Jon. He had a fancy leather jacket on in class, which Jon had always thought was rude — weren’t you supposed to take your coat off inside?

“Because of the invention of higher mathematics,” Mr. Kendry said, shooting Ms. Braxton a disdainful look.

“In 955CE?” Damian said musingly. “What a charmingly Eurocentric perspective.”

“What?” Mr. Kendry said, wary.

“Who exactly invented the mathematics you’re discussing?” Damian said.

“I, uh,” Mr. Kendry babbled. “I’m not sure. This is art history, I mean, I didn’t —”

“Congratulations,” Damian said, in a voice like ice. “You’ve managed to put forth a single sentence, misleading at best, and yet you cannot even explain your own thought processes, much less provide any facts to back up your very incorrect theory.”

Jon leaned over to Sweater Vest, who flinched away from him, then took a breath and leaned back in.

“Do people do the reading for this class?” Jon whispered.

“What?” Sweater Vest whispered back. “Yeah, of —”

“Kent,” Damian snapped, “do you have something to add?”

Clothing rustled against seats; papers shifted under fingertips as twenty pairs of eyes slowly turned to stare at Jon.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jon said. “I just thought that you had said that that kind of geometry wasn’t really introduced until like fifty years after this.”

“I had said?” Damian asked, locking onto him. “When did I say that?”

It was a real question. Jon could tell — of course he could tell, like, it had only been eight years. Sometimes Damian asked rhetorical questions so he could go on and on about whatever point he was trying to make and sometimes he asked real questions that he wanted an answer to. He just wasn’t super good at making those two things sound different.

“In the reading?” Jon said. “Um, on page,” he flipped through his notebook, “fourteen? You said that, uh, the use of repeating patterns got better starting in the mid-900s, but that, then, on page twenty-one, you said that people had tried to introduce new kinds of math like, a bunch of times but nobody really paid any attention until King Rasbin IV and he didn’t start being king until 1005. I had to look that up, you didn’t say when he was king from,” Jon said, looking back up to meet Damian’s eyes.

The classroom was silent as a grave. Jon could hear each timid, careful breath from each student, the beat of every heart.

Damian was silent, too, which was way weirder. Come on, Jon thought. Did Damian really think he’d show up to Damian’s class and not even have done the reading? Damian had literally written the textbook.

“So it sounds like the art stuff got better before they really accepted the math stuff,” Jon added, in case he’d been confusing, not to Damian — who definitely knew what he meant to say; he almost always did — but to everyone else, who all still looked like Jon had turned them to stone.

Damian’s gaze shifted slightly, less hard and more impatient, and oh shit, Jon knew that look. Damn it.

“Um,” Jon said, scratching at his hair. That was all he knew about anything, Damian, geez. Call on someone else.

Keep talking, Damian’s expression said. Come on, Kent. You’re almost there.

He knew that look.

“Maybe, did the artists — oh! Were they trying to figure it out?” Jon said. “Like, maybe they were trying to make up this kind of geometry on their own, but King Rasbin, you said he liked this art style, he had a bunch of people painting his palace, so maybe, did he hear about the new math stuff and then go to his artists and say, like, ‘guys, this is like what you’re trying to do? But better, so you should try this instead?’”

The left side of Damian’s mouth twitched up; his brows found a distinctly satisfied tilt. Jon grinned.

“King Rasbin IV,” Damian said mildly. “King Rasbin was a powerless puppet ruler who was killed at fifteen. Otherwise, yes.”

The room, collectively, breathed out.

“Cool,” Jon said. Damian raised both eyebrows. “Not the puppet king thing,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. “The art thing! Cool that it was so popular that the artists convinced everyone to pay attention to the new math stuff.”

“Yes. Although in most academic circles it’s still considered a theory without clear evidence,” Damian told him.

“Oh,” Jon said.

“Don’t worry, I have a paper under review which will address that deficit,”  Damian said, flashing just a hint of teeth. “Unsurprisingly, some people aren’t very good at gathering evidence.”

Jon laughed.

“Don’t laugh at him!” Sweater Vest whispered furiously.

“Mr. Mitchell,” Damian said. Sweater Vest’s head snapped up.

“Yes,” Sweater Vest said weakly.

“In 1132CE, following the death of King Rasbin V, Guillaume Res wrote a treatise on the new bascura technique,” Damian said. “What were its immediate and long-term implications for palace artworks?”

Sweater Vest opened his mouth, then closed it.

Damian turned to his desk and started rifling through the papers. Sweater Vest looked like he was going to throw up.

“Mr. Mitchell, I will give you five seconds to produce something resembling a coherent, informed answer,” Damian pulled a packet of papers out of the pile, “before I discard your midterm paper and give you a zero.”

“Uh,” Sweater Vest said.

“Five,” Damian said. “Four.”

“If you don’t know, just guess something!” Jon whispered.

“Shut up, Kent,” Damian said, agate-hard. “You’re not allowed to help him. Three.”

“Aaauuuhh? I, um,” Sweater Vest said.

“Two,” Damian said. “One.”

“What’s the point of this? He obviously doesn’t know!” Jon said.

“You’re right,” Damian said, “he doesn’t.” He dropped the paper into the trash can by the desk. “Moving on.”

“Geez,” Jon muttered when Damian turned his back to them to advance the slideshow.

“You need to shut up, for real,” Sweater Vest told him, “before Wayne comes up here and stabs you.”

“Pff,” Jon said, just loud enough to carry. “Stab me? He could try.”

Damian’s spine straightened, briefly, but he just pushed a button and a new painting came up on the projector screen.

—

“Dismissed,” Damian said, finally, and the room burst into a rush of noise, closing books and scraping chairs.

“Thanks,” Sweater Vest said to Jon, not at all sarcastically.

“Huh?” Jon said.

“You distracted him for a while,” Sweater Vest said. “Thanks.”

“Uh, okay,” Jon said, and then, “you’re welcome,” because that’s what you said when somebody said thank you.

“Yep,” Sweater Vest said, standing up. “Now flee while you can.”

Jon didn’t, though; he was planning to wait until everyone was gone to go down to the front, but about half the students were still there when Damian snapped his bag shut and said, “Is something amiss? Did one of our fathers send you?”

Nobody else was near him. Nobody else would have heard him. He wasn’t talking to anyone else.

Jon got up and collected his jacket and notebook and walked down to the board as fast as he could without raising suspicion, or at least eyebrows.

“No, of course not,” Jon said, coming up behind Damian. He almost leaned on the desk next to where Damian was standing, but then he’d be like, one foot away from Damian and everyone else was giving them a good ten foot clearance, easy.

Definitely because of Damian, not because of Jon. Jon stopped a few feet away and put his hands in his pockets.

Damian shot him a look.

“If something bad was happening, I would call you,” Jon said. “I was just in the area because my friend Leah from home is moving to an apartment in Trenton to live near her mom, so —”

“Most people just say, ‘I was in the neighborhood,’” Damian said.

“Okay, fine,” Jon said. “I was in the neighborhood.”

Damian turned to face him, frowning. “Then what’s wrong with you, Kent? You’re not normally this standoffish.”

“What?” Jon said. “I’m not — you are, and anyway, all your students are still here! I don’t wanna be like, ‘hey buddy!’ and then you have to explain why you have some random kid who doesn’t even go here showing up and being weird.”

“Did you hit your head on the flight here? I don’t explain my interpersonal interactions to my undergraduates,” Damian said.

“Oh,” Jon said, feeling slightly silly. “Right.”

“Did you truly think I cared about them?” Damian said snidely. “I haven’t gotten that soft in my old age.”

“You’re not that old,” Jon said.

“Old enough,” Damian said, haughty, and Jon said, “I’ve seen you older,” because he was never ever letting Damian live down the time he got turned into a tiny little eighty-year-old man.

Damian narrowed his eyes and gave him a look that could cut glass.

“Anyway,” Jon said, “hey buddy! I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by,” and then, while Damian was still disoriented by being super mad at him, he stepped in for hug.

Somebody dropped a whole armful of books.

“Gah!” Damian said. “This is not what I was encouraging you —”

Jon patted him on the back and let him go. “Are you done? I’m starving.”

“Of course you are,” Damian said. “Fine. Come on, the chefs at the dining hall should be preparing my dinner. They’ll make you an extra serving if we catch them early enough.”

“I can just eat normal cafeteria food, or whatever,” Jon said.

“You could eat garbage off the ground,” Damian said. “I can’t. Let’s go.”

—

NOW THERE IS A SEQUEL! Did you want that? Well, I did.

[thewriterslament]

Applying to graduate school

Grad school applications for a lot of disciplines start to open soon. Applying to grad school is low-key terrifying, especially if, like me, you don’t know anyone who has gone through the process and can give you advice or tell you where to start. So I thought I’d make a post about my own experience! This post got a little long, so don’t be afraid to hit J and skip this if you aren’t interested

Disclaimer: I applied to CogNeuro Ph.D. programs, so your experience will likely be different if you’re applying to a separate field, especially non-scientific fields. Still, I hope these tips might serve as a jumping-off point, if nothing else.

Preparing your application:

Before you even start your application, email any profs you’re interested in working with. Ask them if they have graduate positions open, and anything else you’re interested in knowing about them. Then tell them you’re applying to their school and would like to work with them. Introducing yourself to the professor can make them more likely to invite you for an interview or accept you into their lab.

Keep a master document of all your essays. Copy each essay prompt into the document. This allows you to easily copy and paste sections of different essays for different schools, and it keeps everything organized in one place.

Open a spreadsheet and set up tables for recommender info, application numbers, and application links.

Recommender info: list each recommender’s name, title, phone number, and email. You’ll have to enter this info into pretty much every app; this table allows you to copy and paste and save yourself some trouble.

Application numbers: list your cumulative GPA, upperclass GPA, major GPA, and any test scores + the date you took the test. Use this part of the spreadsheet to figure out your current semester GPA and cGPA, since you’ll probably be applying before grades are in. You can use embedded formulas to figure out your cGPA instead of having to run the calulcations by hand. 

Application links: list each school you’re applying to, the link to the application itself, your login username and password, all of the documents you need to submit or upload (essays, test scores, rec letters, transcript, etc.), and the different faculty members you’re interested in working with (to help you remember who works at which school). Once you’ve applied, add a field for how each school will notify you about your decision, and add a link if you’re given one.

The interview:

So you’ve been granted an interview! Congrats! Tell your friends and family! And then immediately email your professors, work supervisors, PI, etc. to let them know when you’ll be absent. You won’t have much time to work on schoolwork during an interview, so it’s best to plan out any extensions you might need ahead of time with your prof.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, interview attire is business formal! I spent HOURS trawling through College Confidential and other forums and never got a clear answer. But seeing the other interviewees made a clear impression: everybody overdresses for fear of being the only person underdressed. Don’t be the only person underdressed.

Bring a small notebook to take notes and write down questions you want to ask. Padfolios look impressive, but they’re annoying to carry around. A smaller, unassuming but classy notebook will work just as well.

If you’re just speaking to a ton of PIs, the interview will be a far cry from, say, a job interview. This is a conversation, a chance to gauge whether you and the PI would be a good fit. They already know you’re a good student, or else you wouldn’t be sitting in front of them. Instead of preparing a spiel about your own skills, prepare questions designed to learn about the PI. Some questions you could ask:

What projects do you plan to work on over the next five years?

Is your mentorship approach hands-on or hands-off?

Have you worked with grad students before? Do you enjoy working with graduate students?

Would I be working on an independent project?

You’ll likely have chaperones who are current grad students; talk to them as well! Ask things like:

What’s your favorite thing about this school? Least favorite?

Why did you choose this school?

Is the student atmosphere collaborative or competitive? Are students friendly with each other or do they keep to themselves? 

If you go to a fancy dinner party, allow yourself one (1) glass of wine and no more. Almost everyone will do it, so you’ll blend in, but you don’t want to get drunk and make a fool of yourself.

The follow up:

Send thank you notes! Handwritten is more meaningful, but heartfelt emails work as well. Send a note to each professor or interviewer you spoke with, as well as any admissions liaisons who may have been in touch with you throughout the process. See this post of mine for a template.

If you are rejected, consider emailing the school’s admissions office to ask why you were turned down. Some schools state point blank on their websites that they don’t offer that information, but it’s worth a shot for other schools.

Take a deep breath and treat yourself. You did it! You applied to graduate school!

[bedlamsbard]

Organizing (Grad) School Applications

Applying to college or graduate school has a lot of steps, some of which need to be done in advance of the deadline.  I’m not the most organized person alive, and in the past that’s definitely come back to bite me insofar as apps go, mostly because I won’t get everything lined up and end up missing the deadline as a result.

This is the method I used last year when I was applying to graduate schools.  It requires a fair amount of advance planning, because I knew going in (this was my fifth round of applications and the first round of entirely PhD apps) that that was mostly likely to be where I was going to fall down, so I needed to bite-size it as much as possible.  This is aimed at grad school apps, but the same method should work fine for college as well; there are just a couple extra grad steps.

I really recommend doing this on your computer, because I ended up hyperlinking a lot of stuff so I didn’t have to google it and dig around the department website every time.  I actually just did it in my Tumblr drafts, but something like Google Docs or even Microsoft Word or Excel would work just as well.

KEY POINT: You can do all of this in five minutes a day if you start early enough.  You don’t have to dedicate six hours a day to it or do every step in a single day; in fact, I recommend only doing about 5-15 minutes a day, then putting it aside and doing literally anything else.  If that’s one e-mail?  Good!  If that’s looking up one school’s website?  Great!  If it’s filling in ticky boxes for five minutes?  Hurrah!

Whatever works, works.

Step 1

Narrow down your schools by whatever metric you’re using: my initial list was 13, I narrowed that down to 8 and ended up applying to 6.  Write down the school, the department (your area of specialty if applicable), at least one professor in the department that you want to work with, and the application deadline(s).  Hyperlink the program page on the department website.

Example:

Boston College - History (medieval)

Robin Fleming (medieval/Late Antique)

January 2, 2017

Louisiana State University - History (Late Antique/medieval)

Maribel Dietz (ancient/Late Antique)

January 15, 2017

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill - Classics with Historical Emphasis

Jennifer Gates-Foster (ethnicity & identity)

December 13, 2016

December 21, 2016 (letters of rec)

Step 2

Go through each program and write down every requirement for the application.  Not all of these will be on the department website, so you’ll probably have to go to the graduate school’s website as well.  Every requirement.  Double and triple-check.

Things to check for:

Digital vs. hard copy transcripts

Also, which schools. If you’ve taken summer courses at another institution, they may be required; they may only be required from degree-granting institutions.

No graduate schools require high school transcripts as far as I know.

Number of letters of recommendation (the standard number is three, some schools will accept four)

Deadlines -- does your program have different deadlines for the application and for letters of rec? does your program have a different deadline than the main graduate school?

Program-specific requirements -- writing samples are standard; some schools also require a book review, a portfolio, or something else.

Does the program require or recommend contacting the professor within the department whom you’re interested in working with?

GRE scores -- if you’re in the States just assume you have to take the GRE, though not all programs require it.

Personal statement vs. statement of purpose (or both)

Resume vs. CV (curriculum vitae)

COST.  Almost everywhere in the U.S. has an application fee; make sure you know what it is.  Some schools will have a fee waiver deadline; in many cases you can also apply for a fee waiver if it’s financially difficult for you.

Organize everything by application date; I divided them up by month and put every requirement on there, as well as a hyperlink to the APPLICATION page (not the department page).  I didn’t go through each application 

Example

DECEMBER

Dec 13 – University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill - Classics

Application

transcripts (scanned)

letters of recommendation (3)

GRE scores

CV

note: separate requirements for classical archaeology

writing sample (20-30 pages)

personal statement (1-2 pages double-spaced)

professional goals?

why a PhD in classics?

particular interests UNC program and faculty?

any special circumstances?

application fee ($85)

JANUARY

Jan 2 – Boston College - History

Application

statement of purpose (1-2 pages, intellectual interests, why BC?)

official transcripts (scanned)

hard copy only required after matriculation

GRE scores

letters of recommendation (3)

writing sample (10-15 pages)

application fee ($75)

Jan 15 – Louisiana State University - History

Application

GRE scores

official transcripts (hard copy)

statement of purpose

letters of recommendation (3)

writing sample (10-20 pages – excerpt from MA thesis)

application fee ($50)

Step 3

Make your applications.  Write down your username (or e-mail address used) and password -- I kept these handwritten in the same notebook I used for a few other things.  Make sure your hyperlinks from the previous step lead directly to the application itself.

Step 4

I took the GRE several years ago, so I didn’t have to do it again, but if you haven’t taken the GRE yet I would advise you do so as soon as possible in order to get your scores in on time.  (I’m not sure if it’s too late or not for people wanting to apply in this round of applications.)

Step 5

Ask your recommenders.  I asked five professors; most schools only require three recommenders but I’m an untrusting sort so I lined up four (one said no because he had only had me for languages), three from my most recent graduate program and one from my previous postgrad program.  Since I wasn’t in town with any of them, I e-mailed them and said, essentially, “Dear Dr. So-and-So, I am applying to graduate school this year, would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation?  I am planning on applying to programs in ancient and medieval history and classical studies; the deadlines are in December and early January.  Thank you, K.”

Generally professors will say yes!  They may ask for your statement of purpose and sometimes your most recent paper; I sent them all a draft of my statement of purpose (more on this coming soon), my CV, and for the two who hadn’t been on my thesis committee, a copy of my MA thesis.  (There’s a pretty good guide here, as well.)

Do this as early as possible.  Now, I have asked professors for letters of recs at the last minute before, but I don’t recommend it.  Try to give them at least a month’s lead time to write it.

Step 6

Order your transcripts.  Many institutions are now granting digital transcripts, which is great!  None of mine did.  If you’re a current student, you can usually just order them online and pick them up in a few days from the Registrar’s Office; if you’re no longer a current student you’ll want to have them sent to you.  Yes, you.  Most universities require you, the applicant, to upload a PDF file of your transcript to their application, so you’ll want to have one.  I manually scanned my transcripts and keep PDFs of them.

A few universities require transcripts to come directly from the degree granting institutions in hard copy, which means you’ll have to order them from your university and have them sent to the graduate school you’re applying to.  The receipt information will be on that grad school application’s webpage.  This unfortunately generally costs more money.

If you went abroad for university or graduate school, note that you’ll want more lead time because a hard copy will take longer to get there (and sometimes more processing time).  Since I did my postgrad in England, for the one graduate program that required hard copy transcripts I had to order them about a month in advance.  This also cost more than ordering them from my undergraduate university in the States.

Step 7

Sit down with your transcript and write out every one of your major and minor classes.  Every single one.  Make sure you also note down the grade you got and the number of credits it was worth.  If you did a double major or a double minor, as I did, do this for all of them.

Many graduate programs require your major GPA, which isn’t noted on your transcript.  This is pretty easy to figure out -- just plug it into something like GPA Calculator -- but it’s a time-consuming hassle.  Since I had a double major and a double minor, I calculated my GPA for each one separately, then together, and put down whichever of those three turned out the highest.  I only had one school ask for my minor GPA; same process.

Writing everything down will also mean you have a list to refer back to if a school asks for all relevant courses you’ve taken, thanks, Boston College, that was really annoying to do.

Step 8

At this point if you like -- and I would recommend it, since I didn’t do this and it came back to bite me -- you can go through each application and note individual requirements: major and minor GPA, relevant courses, work history, languages, etc.

Step 9

Start drafting your statement of purpose.  It can be very very rough at this point; you’ll refine it later. This is the thing where you give your academic history, your areas of interest, and why you want to go to that particular school.

Note that most universities won’t have the same word- or page- length requirement. I would recommend writing one general statement of purpose -- in my case I wrote one for classics/ancient history and one that differed slightly for medieval history -- and leaving the last paragraph to revise for each university.  In that paragraph you want to make it very clearly that you’re familiar with the program and the professors you want to work with; make it as specific as possible.  I sent the cleanest early draft of my statement of purpose to my recommenders (making it sure they knew it was a draft).

Step 10

Start actually working on your applications!  In whatever order you feel like; this is mostly a case of filling in boxes.  It’s time-consuming but generally brainless.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of using timers and doing five to fifteen minutes of work a day, which is how I did my apps.  At least five minutes a day, aiming for at least five days a week.  I put stickers on my calendar every time I did something on my apps because (a) I like stickers and (b) it shows me that I’ve been working.

I think I started working on them in about mid-October, lost about a week in November because I wasn’t functional due to the election, finished the first half my apps in December, lost another two weeks because I wasn’t functional for personal reasons, and finished the second half of my apps in January.

Step 11

Figure out what you’re using for your writing sample.  In my case, I used a chunk of my MA thesis -- actually, several different chunks, because I tailored each excerpt to the program I was applying to.  Many of them had different word- and page- count requirements.

Here’s a “do what I say, not what I do” note: make sure you write down somewhere which writing sample you sent to which university, if you’re using different excerpts or different papers for them.  I still have no idea which chunk of my thesis I sent to which university and I wish I knew.

Step 12

Make sure you actually hit the “submit application” button once you’ve finished.  This is also generally the point at which you will have to give whatever university you’re applying to a large amount of money.

Step 13

Congratulations, you’ve applied to graduate school!  Your applications are in and finally you can know peace!  Actually that’s not true, you’ll be very stressed.  Response time varies a lot.  I got a rejection letter from one university less than a week after I submitted the application, but in general longer is better; you may not hear anything for a few months.

MAKE SURE YOU KEEP CHECKING YOUR E-MAIL.

I used my .edu address instead of my personal e-mail address because it looked more professional, and after I finished my last application I didn’t check it for a week because I figured it was early enough that no one would be contacting me yet.  Three days after this I got a frantic e-mail on my personal account from a professor at one of my applying universities saying she had been trying to get in touch with me, but couldn’t because I wasn’t checking the address I had used to apply.  (She contacted one of my recommenders, who was actually the only person at my previous university who had my personal e-mail address.)

I also got an e-mail from one university telling me that I had been waitlisted, did I want to stay on the waitlist or had I gotten a better offer?  Another e-mail told me I’d been offered acceptance into the MA program, but not the PhD program; did I want that?  Another wanted clarification on my GRE scores (they were right on the expiry line).  You never know what people will ask, so make sure you can stay in contact. 

Step 14

You may have an interview, which I did.  I prepared some things to talk about -- my academic background and areas of interest, both of which were on my statement of purpose, as well as some other academic interests I hadn’t put in my statement of purpose.  I also prepared some questions to talk about -- what kind of teaching training the program supplied, how much teaching I would be required to do, if the department got along with other departments in the university (because I’m interdisciplinary), questions about field work and internships, and also, what the professors interviewing me liked about the university and the city it was in.  You want to seem engaged and knowledgeable about the program you’re interested in.

These can be phone or Skype interviews; in my case it was supposed to be a Skype interview but ended up being a phone one because my Skype didn’t end up working.  (To this end, make sure they have your phone number as well.)

I did end up getting asked in my interview about the fact that I took a year off where I had no work history; I was upfront and said that because I had finished my program late, I had decided to concentrate on my applications and my health rather than trying to get into the job market, since it was financially possible for me.  Admitting I took a year off did not hurt my applications.

Step 15

Wait and cry.  You honestly can’t do anything about your applications at this point, so be gentle with yourself.  If you’re still in classes, concentrate on them; you don’t want your grades to slip in your last term.  If you’re not -- well, at the time I was busy being completely miserable about something else, which occupied about 90% of my thoughts at any given point in time, but other than that, it does sometimes help to come up with ideas of what you can do if you don’t get in.  Wait for the next round of applications?  Apply overseas?  (Different deadlines, many of them rolling.)  Put yourself on the job market?  Take a year off to lie on the floor?  There are options.

Good luck, and feel free to ask me further questions or clarifications.  I can’t promise I’ll know the answer, but I will try.

[cancerbiophd]

Hey there...I've decided I will apply to PhD programs...help! Am I too late to apply for fall 2018 admission? What should I be doing? What resources do you recommend for getting my life together and applying? In case you can't tell, I'm panicking!

Hi!! 

You’re definitely not too late! The majority of PhD apps are due in the winter. But we gotta go! So here’s the battle plan. Let’s see if this works for you ok? (Also, disclaimer, this is highly biased towards life sciences.. I can not speak to the requirements for say, the humanities. If this isn’t helpful, please let me know what field you’re applying to and I can point you in the direction of gradblrs in that program).

What you’ll need:

The application. This is unique for each university (no commonapp here). You’ll need to create an application/account (with a unique username and password) for every program you’re applying to. You can find out more info about this on the program’s website. 

The GRE. Scores take a while to be sent out (a few weeks), so this should be your Top Priority. Find a testing station near you and sign up for a date. Then get to studying. You don’t need the subject tests unless they’re a) required by the program, or b) will strengthen your application in any way (say you didn’t get stellar Biology grades in college, but you’re applying to a Bio program, so acing the GRE Biology subject test would show the admissions team you know your Bio)

Letters of recommendation. It’s best to give your recommenders at the very least one month to write the letter (I like to give them 2 months), so contact them asap. It depends on the program, but 3 letters of rec is usually the normal. 

Personal statement. This varies between programs (some require you to talk about your experience in the field you’re applying to, some tell you not to, etc). Find out the requirement as soon as you start an application and start working. 

And, going off of that, your experience. This is key. If you don’t have experience in the field you’re applying to (eg. lab experience if you’re applying to anything research-based), then I would hold off on applying all-together until this requirement is met. Usually 1-3 years is good. Schools invest a lot into PhD students, and they need to know that this is what you want, and the best way to show that is by working in the field already. 

College transcripts. Once you finalize your list of programs you’re applying to and have started the application process, contact your undergraduate colleges to send your official (or unofficial.. depends on the program) transcripts to the correct place (the application will tell you where). This usually takes a while, and may require money. Also be sure if you have transfer credits, that you get the original college to also send those transcripts (eg. I took physics at a local community college over a summer, so I had to get that community college to send the transcript separately). 

Your CV. Ok I have really shit memory so I can not remember for the life of me if this was actually something you needed to attach to your application, but I have a million revised files of it saved in my Grad School Apps folder on my computer, so it must’ve been needed somehow. Some tips on CV’s here. 

Tips on some of those requirements, including how to organize everything here.

So, battle plan:

Finalize a list of schools/programs you want to apply for by the end of this week.

Create an application on the programs’ websites (if they’re open for cohort of 2018 applications). It’s free to start an application. And then on an excel sheet, record down all the necessary requirements per program (# of letters of rec, due dates, how much the application costs, etc).

Contact people who you would like to write you letters of rec. Best to do this sooner than later, even if it’s just to ask and give them a head’s up. 

Plan to take the GRE no later than August/September if applications are due in November/December, because this still gives you just enough time to study some more and retake the GRE if necessary (I think it usually takes 2-3 weeks for official scores to be released). However!!! Please double check this with the official GRE website. But yeah, start studying now too if you feel like you need it. Kaplan’s my favorite test-reviewing company, but you can use whatever works for you. The vocab section was probably the trickiest–so I recommend picking up some flashcards and just learning as many words as humanly possible. 

Start writing your personal statements now too. It takes A LOT of revising to get the best one, and since every program may have different requirements, you may need to write like a bunch of them. A good timeline is to have a few first drafts done by August. And plan on having others peer review (especially if they’ve gotten into grad school themselves, myself included if you’re comfortable with me reading your statement (with personal things like names and places taken out of course). Send me a private message if you’d like that!)

As for the applications themselves, work on a little bit every day. You can always go back and change things until you submit, so things like “describe your extracurricular activities” can be revised over and over. 

As with all applications/submissions, try to submit a few hours or days before the actual deadline. Ya know, just in case things happen like the wifi goes out or whatnot. 

Eyyyy! So, how does that all sound? Doable? Let me know! And please let me know how else I can help (again, I’m totally down for reading over your personal statements if you’re comfortable with that; just PM me). As someone who once had to go through the grad school app process, I know it can be suuuuper stressful, but I was lucky enough to have friends and other grad students guide me, so I’m more than happy and humbled to offer the same help to another grad-student-hopeful. 

Good luck, and keep me updated!!

[gizkasparadise]

actually my Number One Fear when it comes to academia-related things is like?? asking for references??? It makes me break out in hives every single time :'D So I guess my question is, what's it like from the other side so to speak? & what's the best way of going about doing it?

that’s a good one!! here’s some tips i’ve sort of picked up along the way, and then things i expect from someone requesting me to be a reference:

tips!

1. don’t feel dissuaded if it’s been a long time / you didn’t feel like you had a ~deep personal connection with the faculty member

if you were a good student in the class (turned in assignments, came to class, were respectful to your peers), it’s totally fine to send an inquiry email or go to their office hours to talk about being a reference/writing a letter of rec

if you think the professor might not remember you right away (say it’s been a few years since you’ve had them, or it was a big lecture hall, etc.), re-introduce yourself in an email. when asking for letters of rec, i’ve found it helpful to give my name, the semester/year i had a class with them, the name of the class, my grade, and attached any major papers or assignments i had in the class (bonus if you can find something that has the professor’s feedback on it!)

 as an instructor, i’m usually fine with writing letters of rec for any student that put forth positive effort in my class (usually a “C” or above, but i always always do case by case basis. the best students don’t always earn As or Bs)

2. let them know what you want

don’t be shy in saying what you want the reference to do or letter to cover. i always have an easier time providing a reference/writing a letter if i know:

a. what it’s for (links to the company/grad school/scholarship/etc. are especially helpful, because that way i can tailor my reference to help you more)b. why i’m a good person to be a reference (i don’t mean this in a PAT MY ASS way, but rather in a how-can-i-help-you way. for example, am i a good reference because you want someone to speak to your communication abilities? do i work in the field you want to go into? etc.)

c. what strengths you want me to speak to, especially for a letter of rec and double especially if it’s been a while since i’ve had you in class (ex:in your class, i demonstrated good time management by doing xyz)

d. when you’re applying for positions (now, end of semester, next year, etc.)

often, if it’s for a LoR i try to outline the letter with the student so it’s doing the best job the letter can do. 

3. always ask if they’d be willing to provide a positive recommendation/reference

this feels like it should be a given, but cover your bases. 

4. be conscious of time

the typical time period for asking for a letter of rec is 2 weeks in advance. i’ve had students ask me for LoR an hour before the deadline and that’s not always going to be feasible.

 in terms of the academic schedule, professors are usually more busy during the first two-three weeks of a semester, during the end of november/beginning-to-mid december, early april, and the last two weeks of a semester through the first two weeks after term ends (grading deadlines, woo)-- so giving some padding during those points of the year will also be appreciated. also be up front about the due date-- i recommend saying you need the letter a few days before the actual deadline, because professors are notoriously late with these things

if a professor has agreed to write a letter of rec and you haven’t heard back from them/the deadline’s coming up, you are totally entitled to send them reminder/follow-up emails. send that shit high priority, even. i’ve had to do this for a few of my profs writing me LoR to get into grad school / scholarships

for references, the big thing is to make sure you have their approval before sending anything out with their name on it (job apps, resumes, etc.). this is usually a really quick matter of sending an email during business hours.

I THINK THAT’S IT. the Biggest Thing is that it never hurts to ask for a reference/letter of rec and to also not #Stress if the professor wants to meet with you or get more information before giving you a LoR/reference. Usually this is so we can learn more about what your needs are / help you be more successful!

[ficsforsterek]

FICS FOR STEREK’S VALENTINE’S DAY FIC REC

As it’s coming up to Valentine’s day I thought I would put a rec together of all my favourite Valentine’s themed fics!

Hope you enjoy, and remember as always, make sure you check rating, tags and warnings on all fics!

Always (1/1 | 1,066 | Not Rated)

Derek’s in love with Stiles but thinks he’s about to lose him. Stiles was never going to let Derek go in the first place. Fluff ensues.

Sometimes love is an obligation to your grandmother (1/1 | 6,982 | Rated M)

Dearest Derek,

Welcome to your 21st year! As per the wonderful tradition of the house of Hale, you will be attending some of the best places to be single that Beacon Hills has to offer today. First, it’s to the Coffee Shop on Main where you will get two lemon zest chocolate chip muffins. Listen to me very carefully, I’m going to ease you into the way this works. Buy two muffins, but you’re only going to eat one. Find someone cute to give the second one to…

The letter went on, but Derek was staring at it in horror, unable to process how terrible that sounded in just the first paragraph. Today was going to suck.

*

Or: Derek’s grandmother relishes setting her single grandchildren up on Valentine’s Day. Only, less ‘setting up’ and more 'forcing them to run a singles-only scavenger hunt where the prize is love or at least sex’.

Derek never wins. Derek never WANTS TO win.

Kiss Me Under the Light of a Thousand Stars (1/1 | 5,631 | Not Rated)

“It was a true love spell,” he admits quietly. “It was supposed to help me find my true love. And apparently I suck at magic as much as I suck at dating because I screwed this up too.”

~~~

In which Stiles’ Valentine’s Day love spell goes very wrong.

Or perhaps very right.

Valentine’s strike (2/2 | 6,015 | PG-13)

Stiles hates Valentines Day. It was the bane of his existance. But he’s home for the 'holiday’ and has nothing to do since everyone he knows is busy. Except Derek, Derek is the only one alone as him.

Or

The five times Derek and Stiles date by accident and the one time one of them actually ask.

Thank Jackson for me (1/1 | 3,187 | PG-13)

Derek keeps asking the wrong kind of questions.

Hot for Teacher(’s Aide) (1/1 | 8,050 | PG-13)

“He invited you to his apartment.”

“To do a lesson plan.”

“Yeah and to probably lesson your plan while you’re there,” Scott said, waggling his eyebrows.

“That made no sense, but you still managed to make it sound dirty,” Stiles said. “I’m impressed.”

Red Velvet (1/1 | 7,690 | PG-13)

Stiles is pretty used to people coming to visit him at Sweet Stuff when he’s baking. It’s only when Isaac starts bringing along one Derek Hale that things start to get really interesting.

Bro-lentine’s Day (1/1 | 2,560 | PG-13)

It’s actually pretty cool that Derek came back to school after a summer eating spinach and lifting small trains or whatever to become a guardian angel to the easy targets of BHHS.

Convenient (6/6 | 10,755 | Rated E)

Stiles knows what he is to Derek: convenient. He knows that Derek isn’t looking for a relationship, just someone to have casual sex with. Which is why Stiles is so surprised to find Derek setting up a romantic dinner for Valentine’s Day.

Lucky That I’m Yours Everyday (1/1 | 6,772 | PG-13)

Derek doesn’t see how Valentine’s Day can get any better than a normal day with Stiles.

Not So Much Coffee and Books as it is Hot Chocolate and Erotica (11/11 | 15,783 | PG)

Alternative title: The Pen Is

AU in which Stiles is an erotica novelist, and Derek is the sexy fireman he daydreams about. He sees Derek daily at the coffee shop, writing out his fantasies about Derek, basically Derek is his muse. All goes well until Derek starts talking to him and trying to read his books. Little does Stiles know, Derek is already a fan of his books.

love always wakes a dragon and suddenly, flames everywhere (1/1 | 7,124 | Rated E)

“Anyway,” Stiles is saying, as Derek tunes in again. “Everyone’s busy and I don’t wanna spend Valentine’s being pitied by my dad, and you have your Forever Alone thing going on, so I figured we might spend Valentine’s being alone together.”

The Feeling That I’m Under (8 works | 289,584 | Rated E)

Stiles is a paramedic and Derek gets into a bike accident.

It’s kind of love at first sight.

Secret Stalker (Should I Mean Valentine?) (2 works | 21.954 | PG-13)

Written for Valentine’s Day. Stiles wakes up one morning to a dead deer on his back doorstop. It’s the first in a string of gifts designed to get Stiles’ attention but he, and the rest of the pack, aren’t sure if the attention is a negative as it seems. When Stiles finally finds out who has been leaving the 'gifts’ he realises that the mystery isn’t quite solved yet.

Vappy Halentines (11/11 | 18,457 | Rated M)

Derek woke in the morning to a note on his table and the sound of the front door clicking shut. He blinked, scrubbing a hand over his face, and grabbed the paper. “Hey, thanks for letting me sleep over last night. I appreciate you coming to get me, too. I promise I’m not always a crying drunk, btw. Also, thanks for the clothes, but don’t think it escaped my notice that this was my shirt anyway.” Derek smiled fondly and kept reading. “Don’t tell the others about Ethan. I’ll tell them myself.”

Quit Playing Games With My Heart (1/1 | 16,764 | PG-13)

“I am not paranoid Lydia! You’re the ones who are totally fucking with me- with us! You can’t say that this last month has been a series of weird, random happenstances!” Lydia ignores him, moving to open the car door, but before she can reach it Stiles hits the driver’s side lock. “No. No getting out of the car until you admit that you’ve had a hand in this.”

“Fine,” Lydia says, arms crossed, leveling Stiles with her glare that effectively says I could crush you under my heel and I don’t know why I like you. “We’ve been trying to set you and Derek up in time for Valentine’s Day.”

“What?!” he shrieks. “I mean- what?” he repeats, in a more reasonable tone.

I Get All Tongue-Tied And Twisted Every Time I Try To Say It (Words, They Only Complicate It) (2/2 | 16,581 | PG-13)

Scott’s so fed up with his best friend’s sexual tension. He knows he’s not good at being the wingman, but he’s gonna’ make it work because -

“Stiles! You can’t eat that whole tub of Mayfield’s by yourself!” Scott shouts, throwing his arms up into the air frustratedly. He frowns when she ignores him and sticks another icecream scoop into her mouth.

Stiles looks at him from her spot on the couch with a spoon in her mouth and the television remote in her hand. She points the remote at him, the blankets curled around her arms drooping to the sides of the couch. “I’m pressing the mute button, you see?! So shut the fuck up and let me indulge myself on this fabulous gallon of chocolate icecream while I watch sad, lovey-dovey movies and cry my lonely self to sleep!” she cries out and snaps her head back into the direction of the movie, Titanic, she’s bawling over.

Yeah, Scott’s definitely hooking them up right this second, he thinks as he eyes the purple bags underneath Stiles’ eyes from lack of sleep and drunken late-night crying.

This Is Lovecanthropy (1/1 | 12,141 | PG-13)

In which Valentine’s Day is closely approaching, and Derek is a disgruntled grad student who works at a library. He’s hit a roadblock on his thesis, he’s harboring a (not so secret) crush on Stiles, and he keeps receiving werewolf-themed gifts from a secret admirer.

Basically, Derek is totally oblivious and angsty, Stiles does a lot of planning off-screen, and Erica and Scott are awesome friends who are awesome.

Valentine’s Day Candy in Aisle Four (1/1 | 8,998 | Rated E)

“It’s so commercialist, and all it does is bring people down who don’t have a special someone.”

“Basically.”

“Are you two seriously discussing your hatred of Valentine’s Day when a man with a gun is walking around the store?”

A Wolf of a Valentine (4 works | 7,784 | Rated E)

Stiles was not having a grand Valentine’s Day. He was stuck on campus. Shelving books. Derekless. All he’s ever wanted was to spend Valentine’s Day with someone. Someone tall, tan, handsome, with scruff, gorgeous green eyes, and a smile that could floor anyone. Well, that smile was reserved for Stiles exclusively, and he gladly abused that right. But Stiles was not going to see that for Valentine’s Day, not even in a Skype call thanks to a pack meeting.

What Stiles doesn’t know is that he’s in for a surprise: flowers, tickets, and one charming werewolf of a boyfriend.

Watch You Smile (1/1 | 7,711 | PG-13)

Roses are red, Violets are blue, You think I’m a douche, But I really like you

Your Eyes Were Red, But Now They’re Blue, Your Claws Are Sharp and I Love You - A Tale of Valentine’s Day Shenanigans (1/1 | 5,846 | PG-13)

Lydia decides that Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity for Stiles and Derek to finally admit their feelings for one another.

As the title suggests, shenanigans ensue.

[pet-diary]

Hello, I will be applying to graduate school next fall. I want to go for either school psychology or clinical mental health. What was it like taking the psych GRE, what is graduate school like, and do you have any tips? Anything will be appreciated, I'm low-key having a nervous breakdown trying to figure this and my life out.

I’m actually not in grad school yet! Just getting ready to apply next year after I graduate with my BA in the fall, and I’ll be taking a GRE prep course this summer, and the GRE test before the fall semester starts. Sorry if my posts seem misleading lately! I’m just really interested in following other people who have gone on this journey I’m about to embark on, so I’ve been talking about it a lot lately. :O (I’m scared too!)

I do have a little advice though, based on things I’ve learned from doing my own research into grad school. And I’ll link some blogs below that might be helpful.

Some things I’ve learned:

Many psych grad school programs only require the general GRE test (verbal and quantitative), but not the psych test. You can find out the specific requirements on the program’s website. I’d suggest checking into this before you take the test so you don’t end up taking on more than you need to.

The program websites should also include statistics about who they accept, what kind of scores those people get on their GRE, and stuff like that. Should help you know where to aim! You can also see how well your GPA will stack up against people who got into the program.

These sites are great for getting a general overview of different psych jobs and what you need in order to get into the right career track: https://www.bls.gov/ooh, https://www.onetonline.org, http://www.apa.org/careers/resources/index.aspx, http://www.apa.org/education/grad/index.aspx. I found them helpful when comparing different routes.

You should know what you want to do before you get started on applying. It’s a competitive field and many applicants already have experience in their chosen interest by the time they apply for a PsyD/PhD. It won’t be like undergrad where you can change your major midway through (someone correct me if I’m wrong about this! Also, I’m sure there is flexibility within the program, and especially later on in what career paths you take… But in general it seems like you’re supposed to know who you want to work under and what you want to focus on well before applying).

This forum: https://forums.studentdoctor.net. Super intimidating posts but I’ve found some helpful advice on there if it doesn’t just burn you out before you even begin (use caution! lol, there’s some high achieving people on there).

If you want to do clinical psych (I do too, btw!) you will want to get research experience before applying if possible. You will also want to know who you want to work under (who’s lab) and what you want to study, questions you want to answer. I’ve even seen some professional interviews from my Careers in Psych class that suggested you get your work published in journals before applying because some people will already have that!… So intense, I know! :S I actually have no idea how some people already have that in undergrad… I’m not sure if that’s common or not.

If you have any professors in undergrad that you feel you click with, ask them for advice. They might be able to give you a letter of recommendation when the time comes. Having work experience letters of rec is good (especially if relevant) but prof ones are important too, depending on the program. You might be able to find out what kind of letters of rec the program is looking for by attending an info session or asking advisors or other students.

If your school has a course for getting internships or experience in the field, take the opportunity! You can get all kinds of things out of that, letters of rec, experience hours, research experience, connections, advice. It’s great!

Explore the resources your school has to offer. For example, my school has webinars about grad school every so often. They have a career focused site with tons of advice and resources from letters of rec to resume/cv building and even search networks for finding jobs and internship ops. Another great thing they offer – FREE GRE PREP COURSES. These classes can cost $400-1500 (rough est. Idk), so this saves you a TON of money and will help you get a better score on the GRE. My school offers a free online self paced prep course under Princeton Review if you’re a student, so I’m taking that this summer.

Plan everything out and know what you’re getting yourself into.

If anyone has any advice, corrections, or more suggestions please chime in! I’m also interested in finding out this stuff. :)

Blogs:

Here’s some blog networks that focus on either psych or graduate school (or both!). I’ve found some great blogs to follow through these links:

http://gradblrchallenge.tumblr.com/participants

https://psychgradnet.tumblr.com/pgnetworkmembers

https://psychblr-network.tumblr.com/psychblrs

@therapy101​ - Great advice on this blog about grad school (check the tags)

Hope this helps! :) Sorry for responding kinda late, I wanted to find some more resources for you. I’m low-key having a nervous breakdown about this stuff too btw, lol.