Over the past few months I have been going through the graduate school application process. My journey started in September of 2023 and now (March 2024) I believe the application process is coming to and end. Here is a little documentation and hindsight I have after participating in this process.
I spend a lot of time around Physics professors and graduate students, so grad school is mentioned a lot, especially in the late Jr and early Snr years of college. Professors mention it, peers mention it, TAs mention it. In the summer before my last year in college, I started looking around. I have always wanted to attend University of California: Santa Barbara (UCSB), and while I got in for undergraduate I chose to attend the University of New Mexico (UNM) for financial and COVID reasons, a decision I absolutely do not regret. I was working over the summer, but felt like I had free time and wanted to start working on grad applications, but none of the were open so I ended up just looking at what schools I was interested in, taking into account their location and general Physics prestige. I was originally thinking about applying to PhDs in computer science in addition to PhDs in Physics, but ended up running out of time (more on that later). In the USA (🏈🦅🌭⚾) most PhD programs are funded, and most masters programs are not, so I only considered PhD programs.
At the start of the school year a professor who I had gotten to know fairly well was telling the seniors to apply to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which is like a full ride for a few years of graduate school. As I mentioned most schools fund your program, but they expect their students to TA classes and changing topics can get really tricky since your school gets to dictate a lot of what you do. Having separate funding gives you more flexibility, and on top of that its generally a little more than the school gives. The application for the GFRP was a lot of the same things I needed for my grad school applications, but while the schools had a deadline of December 15th, the GFRP was due in mid October. This all sounded great: more freedom, more money, and a deadline that would help me avoid procrastination (or so I thought). In addition to the standard stuff, this application also required me to write a short research proposal for a possible PhD project.
Over the course of September and early October I spend a few hours every week writing up everything and getting feedback from a whole bunch of peers, friends, and professors. The night before the deadline I was on a trip in Los Angeles, rapidly making final edits to my personal statement is my hotel before an MUN conference the next day. Then I was done… but nope!
(. __ .)The thought of being ‘done’ with something and feeling like I had earned a break ended up hurting my from the application standpoint. I had some time before application needed my full attention, but school was just picking up. I had two Computer Science classes and three Physics classes that I had been somewhat half-assing in favor of doing the GFRP application and relaxing. On top of being behind, I felt like I deserved a break, but I didn’t get one. Instead I had to fight the feeling of underperforming at work and in classes while keeping it all together. As a result, I ended up falling further behind is classes that I really would have liked under other circumstances and made zero progress on school applications.
Time flew by making almost no progress on graduate applications, and
the deadline rearing its head just around the corner. Thankfully finals
were coming, which is usually an easy week for me. I am generally a very
good student, ;), so finals are a quick review, going over
missed midterm problems, and showing up for the test. When I started
reviewing the material in every class I quickly realized how far behind
I was in almost every class. In addition to the four final exams I also
had a final group project in a computational science class. I thought
setting aside around 20 hours the weekend before the project was due
would be good enough. WRONG! Over the span of the weekend I
barely figured out how to do what I needed to do, let along
doing it. By Monday I was able to start what we needed
for the project. My “Electricity and Magnetism” final ended up being a
take home exam on Tuesday. I expected it to be a two to 3 hour tests,
and I even studied for it on Monday night to help take some pressure off
during the test. From when we were able to start the test to when it was
due 24 hours later, I spend 10 hours looking through Griffiths’ EM book
and solving equations. I slept on the couch so I could get up faster and
continue when I needed to sleep.
I turned in the (almost) finished test around 9 AM on Wednesday, then immediately went to study for the “Quantum Mechanics” final at 2 PM. Then after that I went to basically learn half a semester of information for my 7:45 PM “Computer Architecture” final. The group project was due that night, but when I laid down for a quick rest and a YouTube video, I fell asleep. Thursday morning I woke up at 5 AM, and freaked out. I immediately grabbed my computer and got to coding. My partner was asking me about the section I was in charge of and I let him know I was having trouble. He had some of his finals sprinkled in that day, but I was just doing that project. 5 AM turned to sunrise, to 8 AM, to noon, to 6 PM, and it wasn’t working. The project had been due the night before, and it was a mess of code that didn’t work. I took a break and got some pizza with my girlfriend (which was possibly the only thing that kept my brain from literally exploding that day) then went back to it. 24 hours late, we turned in a jumbled mess of code, with a report that identified more things about our results that were wrong than expected. I was disappointed, but I called my mom and she convinced me to sleep for my last final on Friday morning. The Friday morning final went well and finals week was over. But…
That last Friday of finals was December 15th, aka the final due date for all my graduate school applications! I could recount the experience of going through all these applications and stitching together pieces of different things I had written for the fellowship and various writings I had, but I can sum it up as a mess. I was able to find some very interesting researchers at the schools I had chosen to look into, but didn’t have time to look into every school. I mostly chose my initial list of schools based on location, prestige, and opportunity. I had hoped to narrow them down to around six schools that had professors with correlated interests as I do. In the end I only had time to research five schools, and I applied to those. I don’t remember if I went to bed after that, or if I went out with friends, but this time I actually felt DONE.
There were actually a couple more things to apply for. My undergraduate university had a few extra days before their application was due, and it was easier anyways. There was also another fellowship due in mid January, but it is specifically a Computational Sciences fellowship, and I have so much experience in that realm that it was much easier and I had all winter break. Without school hanging over my head I was able to do these and actually enjoy some of the introspection applications give. I get to list out all my accomplishments and show off my potential as a scientist. I wish my whole experience was like these, and not the rushed mess of emotion and stress that was overwhelmingly my experience.
December passed, then January, and nothing. As February went on I watched one of my buddies in Biology travel the country to visit close to a dozen schools for interviews and open houses for accepted students, while I just waited. I got a valentines day present from my undergraduate university, my first acceptance. This felt nice, but I had basically already been told that I was going to get in so it isn’t quite the win I need. I got my first and seconds rejections today and that hurt a bit (prompting me to write this). One school offered “application feedback” which I requested. Part of me is worried about seeing what was wrong, but I think it will help me in the future.
Whatever happens I am confident in myself. I am hopeful I hear good
news soon, but even if I don’t get into more schools I have plenty of
good options. My biggest hope is just that I learn from my past, and
avoid the chaos that was my graduate application experience. I wish
everyone who is waiting on applications luck! :)