Applying to Graduate School

Before you sit down at your computer to start filling out your graduate school applications, you’ll need to know a myriad of facts about yourself, and you’ll have to already have completed certain tasks. Here’s a checklist of things you’ll need to do, need to know, and need to send with your graduate school applications. Different graduate schools require different materials as part of your application, but if you are applying to more than one school, you’ll probably need them all at some point.

GRE and Other Test Scores

Unless you are applying to an art program at a very liberal-minded graduate school, you will at the very least need to take your GRE (Graduate Record Examination). Now you can take your GRE any time of the year at a testing center with computers, but GRE subject tests are only offered four times a year. Give yourself plenty of time to buy the books, take a preparation course, or get some help from a buddy who’s taken the GRE. There is nothing about being an undergraduate that prepares you for the particularly strange and difficult vocabulary and math questions the GRE will expect you to answer. You also NEED to study and familiarize yourself with the timed, computer-generated question style. The GRE not only tests your math, vocabulary and writing skills, but also tests how well you can take a complicated test.