Rule #1: Ask the admissions office!

I frequently get questions from my clients that I can't answer. These are usually not questions about essays, recommendation content, interview preparation, what should go in a resume, or  usually even how usually how to fill out an application form. The questions that I can't answer usually involve the specific administrative policies of schools.  Sometimes I can easily find the answer on a school's website, but sometimes the answer can only be obtained from contacting admissions. While some MBA, LL.M., and other graduate programs provide extensive advice on the website, others simply don't.

When it comes to issues of application requirements, deadlines,  whether the stated GMAT, GRE, and/or TOEFL minimums are strictly enforced, whether a school will take a late official test score report, deferral policies, etc.  I may have an answer or may not.  If I do have an answer to such administrative questions, it is always because I can back it up with an official source. I don't even trust my own past experience in many instances because policies change. This is not just to protect myself from being wrong, but because I know I will best serve my clients sometimes by saying, "I don't know the answer to this question, but admissions will be able to provide to you. Please contact them."

One of the most extreme policy changes that I know of occurred when Oxford Said MBA program changed its TOEFL and IELTS requirement policy for admission in 2010.  The prior English requirement was not stringent or necessarily stringently enforced.  Suddenly for admission for fall 2010 and subsequently, applicants had to have the same high TOEFL or IELTS score required for admission to HBS: 109. Keep in mind that the UK's most prestigious and difficult to enter MBA program, London Business School, regularly admits applicants with a 100 TOEFL. As a result, the number of Japanese admitted to Said dropped significantly.  Here in Japan, Oxford had been a popular 2nd choice school for top European MBA focused applicants and a first choice school for some applicants, suddenly became out of reach.  The amount of misinformation  at the time was significant with one of my own clients even refusing to believe that this policy would be enforced because colleagues from his company in past years had always been admitted and because some Japanese admissions counselor told him it would not be a problem, which it was.
His test score was nowhere near the required level and he went elsewhere. Given that university-wide policies change, that admissions directors change, and that the rules of any organization change, past precedent is not always a sufficient guarantee.

When it is possible to ask admissions, I say ask. Like when buying any expensive thing, you should be an informed customer. After all, a graduate degree is likely to be one of the most expensive things you will ever purchase.


Contacting admissions:  I think if your question is relatively simple and not very specific to you, one of the easiest things to do is call the admissions office.   Sometimes they can provide an immediate answer to your question.  It is also fine to just send an email.  With email, I suggest you keep the email short and to the point and state it in the form of questions. Simple, short, polite, and clear communications are best.  If you have a personal and/or complex issue, you should certainly still try to explain it as clearly and simply as possible.  If you feel like you received a response from someone who did not understand, try to follow-up. It is certainly the case that the first person to respond to an inquiry might be the least qualified person in the office, so you may have to work your way up the organizational pyramid.  It is also a perfectly reasonable thing to ask questions at information sessions, either during the Q&A or privately usually at the end of the event.

Frankly, some admissions offices are friendlier than others. Just as some admissions offices will be better managed than others. School ranking does not necessarily correlate well with the quality and kindness of the response you receive, so don't be surprised if the admissions office at a high ranking school has worse customer service than one a lower ranking program.


Some applicants will no doubt worry about their contact with admissions being tracked or having some sort of bearing on applications. Unless one does something rude, this is nothing to worry about. In fact, it can be helpful to have such interactions, especially with smaller and/or friendlier admissions offices.  Depending on the interactions, just as with campus visits and off-campus information sessions, your questions to admissions may even become a small topic discussion in an essay ("I was really impressed with how Ms. Johnson actively explained your program would...").  The more standard the question, the less likely the admissions office will even consider tracking it.  Some programs do even extensive tracking of all potential applicant interaction, while others don't.  Such tracking does not necessarily correlate well with admission results.

Finally, always keep in mind that admissions officers have two primary functions:
1. They are gatekeepers who select applicants for admission.
2. They are marketers and salespeople of their programs who need to try and make sure that they get the best possible applicants to fill up all the seats in their program.
Applicants have a tendency to focus only on the first function and put admissions officers up on some kind of pedestal as judges.  Knock them off them off the pedestal!  To better understand admissions officers, see here (Though this piece is focused on US admissions officers, it applies more widely). Assume that admissions offices are happy to answer all reasonable questions about their policies because this will help to facilitate the potential admission of qualified candidates to their program.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

How to pick a graduate admissions consultant

In the post, I provide some general suggestions for selecting a graduate admissions consultant.  I have previously discussed the whole issue of application advisers in Admissions Advice: Mentor, Consultant, Editor or Ghostwriter?, but I wanted to provide a practical guide for the purpose of admissions counselor, consultant, and/or adviser selection. This post does make use of a part of that earlier post, but I suggest reading both. I hope this post will help applicants find the right consultant for their MBA, LL.M., MPA, MPP, or other graduate school applications.

WHAT IS ADMISSIONS CONSULTING?
The Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC) provides the following excellent summary of what admissions consultants do:

• Guide applicants as they explore professional and educational options
• Teach applicants to prepare applications that fully present their qualifications.
• Serve as mentors through the grueling admissions process.
• Provide the critical, objective, and knowledgeable eye that benefits all writers when submitting important material like application essays, personal statements, and resumes.

I have been a member of AIGAC shortly after its founding in 2007. I support the intent of the organization as well as the above definition of our role.

WHO ARE ADMISSIONS CONSULTANTS?

Admissions consultants are a mixed group. Typical backgrounds for admissions consultants:

1. Former admissions officers

2. Counseling professionals with degrees or certification in career counseling, social work, and/or a related field

3. Professional educators

4. Individuals with a strong academic pedigree who found they are good at helping others with the admissions process

5. Degree holders for the type of program they provide admissions consulting for

SELECTING WHICH CONSULTANTS TO CONTACT

Are you offered a free initial consultation with the consultant you would be working with?

For me, at least, this is the most basic consideration there is.  If you can't have an initial consultation how can you determine who to work with?   No two consultants have the same opinions, bring the same experience, or will give you exactly the same advice.  Even with my colleagues who have worked closely with, we don't agree on everything, our methods, and certainly our personalities and personal perspectives are different.  Actually, for interview preparation, this can allow for a client to get multiple perspectives by having mock interviews with multiple consultants, which clients can us to their advantage.  However, when it comes to essay consulting, ultimately you will likely need to work with one person, at least primarily.   For essays, it is very hard to work effectively with multiple consultants effectively. You will likely spend more time and money with consultant on your essays than on anything else, so you need to make sure that there is a good personal fit between you and the consultant.

HOW LONG IS THIS INITIAL CONSULTATION?

I would consider 30 minutes to be an absolute minimum for you to ask questions about the consultant's services and for the consultant to briefly give you a bit of trial feedback.  I schedule one-hour sessions which frequently last a bit longer than that because I usually provide 30-40 minutes of feedback based on initial questions I ask potential clients.  The amount of time I spend giving feedback is a direct function of how well the potential client has filled out my initial consultation form and the kind of questions they ask.

PROVIDE FULL ANSWERS TO THE INITIAL CONSULTATION FORM

I assume that any counselor will provide you with an initial consultation form for you to complete. Based on what I have seen, my own form (Google Docs version/ Scribed version) is of medium level length.  I try to get potential clients to provide me with the most essential information I need to have an effective initial consultation and also to not overburden potential clients with burdensome documents.   Please complete the form in a reasonable level of detail so that the consultant has sufficient information about you to ask more than basic questions.  If you have not calculated your GPA, do it!   Especially with US schools, I can't effectively advise a client on school selection if I don't know what their GPA is.  Don't just leave answers to big questions. At least indicate that you don't have an answer. For instance,  if you don't have an answer to question like "What are your long term goals?" I suggest you just write down that you need assistance with this issue.

DOES THE CONSULTANT ASK YOU QUESTIONS OR ARE THEY JUST TRYING TO SELL YOU?

 I would personally worry about any consultant who does not ask you many questions because this likely means that they will likely work with anyone because they are simply trying to generate an income and not necessarily a positive admissions result. Popular consultants don't just have to work with anyone. They ask good questions to potential clients and try to engage with them in order to determine whether they want offer their services.

SOME BASIC QUESTIONS TO ASK THE CONSULTANT

Some good questions to ask:

1.   Based on my profile, what is your assessment of my school selection? Do you think there are other schools that I should be considering?

2.  How can you add value to my applications? 

3. If you don't know about the consultants results and experience, you should ask about that. If you have such information, ask for any clarification you require.

3.  What are your methods?

4.  What is your availability?

5.  What is your around time on document review?

6.  Can you give me an idea about how the whole process would work?

7.  What differentiates you from other consultants?

8. What are your criteria for selecting which clients to work with?

9.  For applicants with an international background applying to US schools:  Have you worked with people from my country or part of the world before?  How much experience do you have working with international applicants? 

10.  For reapplicants:  How much experience do you have working with reapplciants? 

11. Whatever burning issues in your own background you really want to discuss. For instance, how to handle a prolonged period of unemployment or low GPA.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD AND BAD ADMISSIONS CONSULTANTS?

Good consultants:

1. They will listen to you and provide highly individualized advice.

2. They will understand your strengths and weaknesses as a candidate.

3. They will have a solid set of methods for explaining all aspects of the process to you.

4. They will be honest. (For example, when discussing school selection they will provide you with an honest assessment of how your GMAT, TOEFL, and/or GRE scores will impact your chances for admission to a specific school.)

5. They will become engaged with you and your life.

6. They will refine their advice to you as your sessions proceed.

7. They are great at brainstorming and helping you tell your story.

8. They will push you to revise your essays and, if applicable, push you to practice your interviews.

9. They will let you know when they think an application is done regardless of either your expectations or their financial benefit. That is to say, sometimes they will advise working on something more than you think and sometimes less than you expected.

10. They either have or know how to obtain any admissions information that you will need.

Bad consultants:

1. Don’t listen to you.

2. Their advice lacks any depth or specificity.

3. They lack integrity.

4. They will not push you to work hard.

5. They are basically indifferent to you as a person because they just consider it to be their job to review your application materials or prepare you for an interview, which they will do only formally.

6. They don’t have high standards.

7. You will notice that they quickly fail to learn more about you after the first couple of sessions.

8. They have rigid preconceived ideas that they will foist upon you.

9. They are more likely to act like editors than counselors.

10. They seem to lack key information about the admissions process.

CONSULTANT OR CONSULTING SERVICE?

You will quickly find that admissions consultants are either working as independent service providers or part of a service. The biggest potential differences between hiring an independent service provider and services are as follows:

1. Service structure. Independent consultants, for both good and bad, are not part of larger organizations and hence the level of service you can expect will be personal and will reflect the personality of the consultant. If you are someone who loves rules and regulations, a service is more likely to provide that level of bureaucracy. An independent consultant should be able to provide you with services in a more flexible manner.

2. Changing your consultant. If you eventually discover that you don’t like an independent consultant, there is no company to complain to, and depending on the way you are paying for the service, you may find yourself stuck with the consultant. On the other hand, if you use a consulting service, you will likely have the option of switching to a new consultant.

3. Choosing your consultant. Obviously if you use an independent consultant, you have chosen that person. On the other hand, if you decide to use a consulting service, depending on your contract, they may have the right to switch consultants on you. If you use service and don’t specify the consultant first, you may also find that the consultant you wanted to meet with is too busy to meet with you because they already have too many clients. BEWARE OF SUBSTITUTIONS! Most successful services have at least one well-known consultant, but since such individuals are a finite resource, not everyone gets to work with the star. Some clients get the other consultants. The other consultants can be great. Or the other hand, consultants can be someone the organization needed to fill a seat because of client demand. If you go with service, don't accept substitutions. Furthermore, if the consulting service does not offer a free initial consultation with the consultant that you want to work with, you should really consider other alternatives.

4. Getting multiple perspectives. One advantage some consulting services have over independent consultants is that they offer clients the possibility of getting the viewpoint of more than one counselor. While this can be quite helpful, it also requires managing the perspectives of multiple consultants, which will likely be less efficient, and may prove confusing. It may also be the case that such services will provide you with multiple perspectives, but none of those perspectives will be very deep because each of their consultants does not know you all that well.

While some services will claim that they have an informational advantage over independent consultants or other rivals, I think this is an increasingly difficult argument to make given the accessibility of free or low cost information.

THE BOTTOM LINE

”Does the consultant have expertise?” No matter whether you use an independent consultant or service, you should really consider that it is the consultant who will be impacting you. Regarding expertise, I think it is mistake to assume that you need to see a consultant who has an academic credential in your intended field of study. Just because someone does not have an MBA, LL.M., PhD in Electrical Engineering, a Masters in Art History,etc. is not inherently a problem. Instead you need someone who has expertise in the admissions process, in listening to you, in helping you tell the most effective story you can, and in helping you present yourself at your best.

-Adam Markus

アダム　マーカス

If you are interested in my overall counseling services and would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form, which is publicly available on Google Docs and Scribed, and then send your completed form to adammarkus@gmail.com.  You can also send me your resume if it is convenient for you.  Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to.  See here for why.

ビジネススクール 米国ロースクール、米国大学法学院 大学院入学 カウンセリング コンサルティング 大学院 合格対策

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated August 18, 2010

Both to answer and to anticipate some likely questions, I have prepared the following FAQ:

1. What is the point of this blog? Are you selling something?
Yes! I am selling my ideas on graduate admissions. The price is reading what I write. I am a professional graduate admissions consultant with a strong belief that all applicants should have access to great admissions information. I try to provide insight into the graduate admissions process based on my experience. As a sole practitioner, I can't possibly provide the scope of coverage that admissions consulting company blogs provide. I focus on what interests me and what my clients need.

My blog is certainly a marketing device for my paid services as a consultant, but I don't make any assumptions about the vast majority of my readers necessarily buying anything from me. I do have an Amazon A-store, where I get a 4% commission on anything sold. If I recommend a book it means I actually think it is good. The A-store is there as a service to readers. You will likely buy from Amazon anyway, I am just focusing on likely categories of books that you may be interested in. After three years, I have gotten a couple of $10 gift certificates out of it.

2. Can you give me advice regarding my application?
I offer individual advice only to my clients.  The blog is the free advice that I offer.  Please visit http://adammarkus.com/. If you are interested in working with me as a client, I can certainly provide individual advice as that is my profession. While I do offer an initial free consultation, I don't offer free one-to-one counseling. Also I consider it unprofessional to offer advice to someone who I have not had a chance to talk with first, so emails that ask for an assessment based solely on the content of the email will receive brief replies referencing this FAQ.

3. OK, so what kind of questions will you answer?
 I will answer questions about my posts in order to clarify what I have written. I will also answer general questions about admissions issues that I think will be of interest to my readers. If you are looking for writing samples or that sort of thing, don't bother asking me because I don't have any.  There are plenty of books that provide essay samples. See here for the only one I ever recommend.  

4. Why should I listen to you?
You should not listen to me. You should not listen to anyone. You should think for yourself and consider what advice you have been offered. If at that point, you consider what I have written to be worth acting on, you will have made that decision yourself. I offer advice not be followed, but to be considered. There are multiple right ways to think about the issues I address. I hope to try to provide great advice, but ultimately the responsibility is yours whether you follow it or not.

5. Is there any structure or logic to how you decide which schools' essays you analyze?
I analyze the essays for (1) schools that my clients apply to, (2) schools that set the standard for their field such as Harvard Law School's LL.M. program, and/or (3) schools that have interesting questions.

6. Why are some of your posts so long?
My posts are as long as they need to be to cover the topic at hand. I realize that adding in the full essay questions makes some of my posts quite long, but I like to think about the whole before breaking it into parts and assume that is true for some of my readers. I can write very succinctly when appropriate, but I am more concerned with clarity and depth rather brevity.

7. Why are some of your posts all in Japanese? Why do you have Japanese in all of the posts? Who writes them?

I do some posting in Japanese because that the native language of my primary client-base.  Clearly Japanese keywords as well as my Japanese language blogs, MBA留学, LLM留学, and 大学院留学 are intended to bring Japanese readers to me. Guerrilla Marketing is fun!

8. Who are your guest bloggers?
In the case of Steve Green and Taichi Kono, they are collegues who trust and have known for many years.  In the case of Knewton, I think they have a great GMAT prep team and some useful advice.

9.  Why don't you write more consistently?
I wish I could, but there are times when I am simply too busy.

10. Sometimes I can't leave comments on your blog. Why?
There is a special place in hell that I hope all Spammers are sent to.  You can blame those parasites of the internet for my need to disable comment functions as I simply tire of reviewing random and disgusting spam, which is the necessary by-product of me needing to referee every comment.

11.  What do you mean "you sponsor" Japan tours and Japan clubs at MBA programs?

I contribute money to Japan tours and Japan clubs in order to (1) support the good work that Japanese MBA students do by improving an understanding of Japan to their fellow students and (2) I want to make it more affordable for MBA students to visit Japan.  My contribution along with that of other sponsors helps make travel to Japan a little cheaper.  


-Adam Markus
アダム マーカス
MBA留学, LLM留学, 大学院留学

Steve Green: Preparing a Fulbright Application

In this post, Steve discusses what goes into making a great Fulbright application. Steve is a past recipient of Japan’s equivalent of the Fulbright, the Monbukagakusho Dissertation Research Fellowship that is awarded by the Japanese government scholarship to facilitate two years of research, which he conducted at the Faculty of Law, The University of Tokyo. In the following, Steve has really done an incredible job of putting together the key information that we have successfully used to help clients obtain America’s most prestigious scholarship.

-Adam

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PREPARING A FULBRIGHT GRANT APPLICATION

The Fulbright Grant is the most prestigious scholarship program offered by the US Government. You can find general information about the program here. In this post I provide advice for how to prepare a strong Fulbright scholarship application package. I’ve included specific information about application procedures and essay writing. Although this post mostly contains specific references to the Fulbright application for US students, the suggestions here certainly apply to anyone around the world who is planning to apply for a Fulbright Grant. As the Fulbright rules are country-specific, be sure to download the appropriate application materials and refer to those while reading this post. You can find the link to your country's Fulbright program here.

There are four categories of Fulbright Grants, but I am going to focus on the ones for graduate students. The other three categories are research (for scholars at universities and non-profit research institutions), journalist (including all media), and doctoral dissertation research (for PhD students enrolled outside the United States).

Successful Fulbright candidates prepare early and thoroughly, know exactly what their goals are, and know how to define them in detailed terms relevant for the task at hand. Many of the tasks will be similar to what you will need to do for graduate school applications, so people who work on Fulbright first, even if they don’t get it, at least have the opportunity to prepare something that is extremely similar to a graduate school application months ahead of actual grad school application deadlines.

For the perspective and advice of successful applicants read issues of the Fulbright Grant Applicant Newsletter.

IS THE FULBRIGHT GRANT RIGHT FOR YOU?

In general: The Fulbright Program strives to contribute to the development of potential future leaders who will improve understanding between the United States and any other particular nation. You will need to make the case in your application essay and interview that you will be both an excellent scholar and a leader in forging bilateral ties between the United States and another country.　

Review the history and goals of the Fulbright program before deciding whether it fits your needs.

In particular: the Fulbright Program primarily awards those working in the social sciences, fine arts, and humanities. So if your academic or professional specialization is in one of the many fields in these three disciplines, then you may wish to consider applying. For example, the list of the Japanese Grantees for 2008 includes no one working in the physical or life sciences. Grants were awarded to graduate students in American and comparative literature, philosophy, educational sociology, but also in business topics such as corporate governance and innovation, among many other fields. Not surprisingly, several Japanese doing work on topics related to US-Japan political and economic relations also received Fulbright grants. Be sure to check out the list of previous grant recipients in your own country to get an idea of the diverse topics recognized by the Fulbright committee.

THE APPLICATION FORM

Most of the remainder of this post provides advice on how to approach specific sections of the application. Numbered references below refer to the US sample pdf application (available here) , which I downloaded on April 19, 2009. Please be sure to check the application documents you download to make sure they are the most recent and correct forms. Please confirm whether there are any differences between my numbered references and the actual numbers next to each section on the application you download.

Be aware that there are other documents you will need to download, including, but not limited to, separate forms for Statement of Grant Purpose and Personal Statement (US Forms 5 and 6, respectively) reference letters and foreign- or English language abilities.

The application requires many documents to be submitted together by a particular deadline, which varies according to country. Find out when the application form itself is available and plan to obtain it as soon as possible.

FOR US APPLICATIONS PLEASE NOTE: Forms 1-4 download as one 4-page document. The Statement of Purpose and the Personal Statement are separate forms (Forms 5 and 6, respectively.)

After downloading the right version of the application for the country you are from, look it over while you read the following. As mentioned above, you need to go your country's Fulbright site to get that document. You can find your country's site here.

BEFORE YOU START THE APPLICATION take to heart the words of the Delphic Oracle of Ancient Greece who advised Socrates, “Know thyself!” Answer the following questions about yourself:

• What are my specific research and professional goals? How does the one relate to the other, specifically?

• What are my greatest strengths that will allow me to fulfill my goals? What accomplishments demonstrate these goals?

The application requires precise plans and concise language. For example, part 33 of the US application requires an abstract of your study proposal in enough space for about 250 words.

You will not provide concise, believable information if you do not already have detailed answers to the questions above. Keep in mind that you will have to write a longer essay describing your goals elsewhere.

Next, make a resume or CV. I am actually going to repeat some of the advice I give in that post with specific reference to Fulbright. Based on my experience as well as that of successful clients with whom I’ve worked, a professional resume/CV is invaluable.

The value of a resume/CV to your Fulbright application is threefold.

1. The resume/CV provides you the means to make an excellent first impression on the selection committee.

2. The process of creating a professional resume/CV will focus your mind.

3. Much of the information required for application is the same kind of information found on a professional CV or resume (US Forms 1-4 parts 29-31 and 37-41) so you will have an easy time transferring the information from your resume/CV to the application, and your information will be in professional language.

Question: “Well, if I have to include much of the same information on the application as on the resume/CV, then why bother making the latter?”

Fair question. I can think of three good reasons to do so.

• First, as noted, the exercise itself will prepare you to make a precise, proper Fulbright application.

• Second, you can include more information on the resume/CV than on the application, so the resume provides a fuller view of your background. In particular, seeing your accomplishments and experience on a resume/CV reveals the “upward” pattern of your career/academic progress, from fewer accomplishments to more. In this way, the reader sees your professional growth.

• Third, if you are applying for a Fulbright then odds are good that you are applying for other sources of funding as well. You should submit a resume/CV to all of these sources so making one now saves you valuable time later!

In conclusion, the utility of a resume/CV cannot be underestimated. As noted, a resume/CV should show the development of your academic and professional background as a progression of accomplishments over time. In this way it also helps you to write your statement of grant purpose and personal statement essays.

THE APPLICATION FORM: “STATEMENT OF GRANT PURPOSE” (US APPLICATION FORM 5)

Here you demonstrate in detail what and how your research will contribute to your discipline. A contribution includes an addition to your field’s overall knowledge that also enhances understanding between the US and another nation.

ACCEPTED AREAS OF RESEARCH: Make sure your proposed project will contribute to one of the designated project areas identified by the Fulbright commission of your country.

Before you begin writing this essay consult with colleagues or your academic or graduate adviser. Ask them if your project idea is feasible and solicit their advice on how to strengthen it. But remember your audience: Avoid academic or professional jargon. The selection committee includes people of different backgrounds so it is unlikely that all of them, or even any of them, will understand your field’s specialized language. (This advice also applies to graduate school and other scholarship essays!)

You should provide detailed answers to each of the following six questions, reproduced here from Applicant Newsletter No. 9:

1. With whom do you propose to work?

2. What do you propose to do? What is exciting, new or unique about your project? What contribution will the project make to the Fulbright objective of promoting cross-cultural interaction and mutual understanding?

3. When will you carry out your study or research? Include a timeline.

4. Where do you propose to conduct your study or research? Why is it important to go abroad to carry out your project?

5. Why do you want to do it? What is important or significant about the project?

6. How will you carry out your work? All students should discuss methodology and goals in their statements. How will it help further your academic or professional development?

IS YOUR PROJECT FEASIBLE?

Given enough time and money almost any project is feasible. Your essay should account for resources, relevant to your project, of your host nation and host institution, as well as the time frame and funding of the grant. Where appropriate you should demonstrate you have already taken enough steps to setting up parts of your research. For example, explain; how your language skills are sufficient, that you have satisfied the relevant authority’s ethics requirements pursuant to any type of research involving human participants, that you have obtained permission, if needed, from local officials, etc. Any factor that could raise doubts about the likelihood of completing your project should be accounted for in this essay (part 30 for Japanese applicants).

THE APPLICATION: “PERSONAL STATEMENT” (US FORM 6)

Form 6 allows you to highlight the person-behind-the-project in no more than a single page. Show in detail what has made you successful in the past and will facilitate the success of your proposed project. In particular, you should be able to demonstrate that: you can think and plan to achieve goals; prioritize and follow-through on your objectives; learn from your mistakes; you have leadership and communication skills.

IT IS CRITICAL THAT THE WHAT YOU WRITE ABOUT IN THIS ESSAY FULLY SUPPORTS YOUR STUDY PLAN. YOU NEED TO HELP THE FULBRIGHT COMMITTEE UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR SPECIFIC BACKGROUND WILL SUPPORT YOUR RESEARCH PLANS.

The selection committee is trying to read between the lines of your personal statement (Form 6) to assess whether the person described therein is likely to succeed at the project detailed in the statement of grant purpose (Form 5). The key to a good personal statement is to show, not merely state, your strengths in other endeavors. Rather than assert your creativity, for example, reveal it through a detailed example of a time when you were creative.

REMEMBER! You must write all essays within the space provided.

THE APPLICATION: REFERENCES

Fulbright requires three references. All three of your references should be from people able to judge the merits of your proposed project as well as your ability to complete it. For graduate student applicants this would obviously include your main advisor and other professors in your field at your institution or at another one.

The Fulbright letter of reference form contains two pages. One is for the actual letter, and one contains a list of criteria on which the recommender should rate you according to an adjacent scale. Among the criteria, the following are worth keeping in mind as they demonstrate the Fulbright’s seriousness in seeking qualified future scholars and leaders: “knowledge of field,” “seriousness of purpose,” “potential for significant future contribution in field,” “resourcefulness and initiative,” and “leadership qualities.”Be sure to ask people who can accurately judge you on these criteria.

CONTACT YOUR INTENDED REFERENCES NOW!

Even if you have not completed your essays, you should contact potential references in order to let them know an official request will be coming soon. It is a basic courtesy to give the writer sufficient time to do so. It is also prudent to contact them so that you can discuss your project with them now, even if you have only begun to think about it. (If these references include the same people you will ask for graduate school references, then now would be a great time to mention ask them kindly to do so later this year when grad school applications become available.)

THE APPLICATION: Miscellaneous advice

OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS: Here you are asked to list other scholarships, or fellowships for which you may be applying. You should be honest and provide this information. First, it reveals something about your competitiveness in as much as, if you have a strong application package, then you probably are applying to other scholarship programs.

IN CONCLUSION

The Fulbright application requires time and thoughtful preparation. Even before you have the application in front of you or on your computer screen, you should do the following now:

• Make your resume or CV

• Contact references to let them know you will humbly be requesting their assistance

• Solicit feedback on your proposed study from people in your field

• Begin writing outlines and/or drafts of your essays: Even if your ideas are only in the embryonic stage, organizing them in essay format will hasten their development

• Fulbright award winners whom I’ve known come from different academic and professional backgrounds, but all have one important thing in common: They all started the Fulbright application process early and they devoted as much time as it took to complete the best application they possibly could.

• Make the completion of your Fulbright application a top priority in your life: Prepare to replace your free time activities with working on your application

GOOD LUCK!

For questions regarding this post, please contact write comments.

To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン

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Steve Green: Graduate School Blues

In this post, Steve looks at one of the darker sides of graduate school.
-Adam

GRADUATE SCHOOL BLUES

This post addresses a potential and serious bad side-effect of being a graduate student but offers some pointers for applicants to help avoid or minimize it.

Graduate school can make you unhappy. If you already prone to feeling unhappy, then grad school can make you even more unhappy. That’s the main point of an article by Piper Fogg, “Grad School Blues,” in the February 20, 2009 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (available online to subscribers or buyers of a short-term pass.) The author notes that:

Graduate school is gaining a reputation as an incubator for anxiety and depression.

Honestly, having been to grad school I am surprised only at the statement’s implication that it had not already earned this reputation. Happily, the issue raised by this article does not apply to everyone, but I firmly believe that everyone should be aware of the potential impact of grad school on their emotional well-being.

Applying to graduate school? You are probably thinking about the financial costs (i.e. tuition, books, costs of living) and opportunity costs (i.e. the income you would be earning if you were not in graduate school). You should also consider the potential emotional costs. Obviously, these are impossible to quantify and calculate and will vary greatly according to your own emotional resources as well as to the type of students and faculty in any given grad program.

Everyone I knew in graduate school, beginning with myself, felt intimidated, frustrated, lonely, and, in some cases, simply depressed at one time or another.

Fogg notes:

Social isolation, financial burdens, lack of structure, and the pressure to produce groundbreaking work can wear heavily on graduate students, especially those already vulnerable to mental-health disorders.

Graduate students face threats to their self-confidence and basic happiness on multiple fronts including a heavy intellectual workload, having to subject written and verbal analytical skills to the scrutiny of peers and professors several times every week (one of my grad school friends spoke for many of us when she lamented that she felt like she was constantly having to prove she was “smart enough”), the solitary nature of the process (are you prepared to spend almost all of your waking hours outside of class reading and writing?) and probably living on the same shoestring budget that barely kept your head above water as an undergraduate (which is no fun, of course, but especially frustrating when your working professional friends are earning decent salaries and you constantly have to decline their offers to vacation together or even to meet for a nice dinner.) In addition:

"Grad students are in a remarkable position of powerlessness," says Thomas B. Jankowski, an adjunct assistant professor of political science and gerontology at Wayne State University who runs PhinisheD, an online support group to help graduate students finish their dissertations. Often a single thesis adviser seems to control a student's destiny, he notes…

And to make matters worse:

it can take years to finish a dissertation. And even if a student finishes, success on the job market is far from guaranteed; today's poor economy has only worsened job prospects.

In a nutshell, graduate school can challenge even the most confident of personalities.

What can you do now as an applicant? As noted above, determining the potential emotional costs of earning a grad degree is not nearly as clear-cut as figuring out the financial and opportunity costs, but you can minimize them by doing the following:

1. Take the Socratic adage to heart: KNOW THYSELF! Be honest about how happy and self-confident you are in general and, in light of the conditions of grad school described above, assess whether or not you’ll risk deep unhappiness by going to grad school now. Furthermore, ask yourself over and over again if you really want to go to graduate school or are applying because it “seems” like the right thing to do or because you are avoiding something else. These kinds of reasons can put you on the fast track to unhappiness once grad school starts.

2. KNOW THE GRAD STUDENTS: As you gather information about grad programs, contact student representatives of those programs and ask them frank questions about the quality of life in the department and the city or town. Try to find out how cooperative and congenial current students are with each other. Graduate-school work is solitary work, but that does not mean each student is an island unto himself. In the graduate program at the Dept. of Politics of the University of Virginia (UVa.) I was really pleased by how friendly and supportive students were with each other. We formed study groups to meet outside class and often socialized. In grad school I met some of current best friends, people I will be close to for the rest of my life.

3. KNOW THE FACULTY: When you contact grad students you should also try to learn their opinion of faculty. Ask them about the availability of professors for grad students outside of class hours, and about whether and to what degree faculty support grad students in finding internships, funding, and publishing opportunities. Find out if they like most of their professors. On this point I was also highly satisfied with my own grad program. The professors in my department were extremely friendly, supportive and available, even as they were highly demanding and challenging. I have known people at other programs and in various fields who could not say the same thing and they envy the collegial atmosphere of my department.

4. KNOW ACADEMIA: In addition to reading up on academic work in your field of interest, I encourage you to read publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Insider Higher Ed, both of which provide excellent in-depth coverage of news related to higher education from the perspectives of students, professors and administrators. If you read these regularly you will gain a valuable perspective on the business- in both a literal and metaphorical sense of the word- of higher education and graduate school, which can only help you to assess your fit for any grad program in particular and for graduate school in general.

As always, good luck! Please don’t hesitate to make comments on this post if you have any questions, I am always happy to try to answer them.

To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン

大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校

HOW TO WRITE A STRONG STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

This is the second of two posts on writing statements of purpose by Steve Green. The first post is here. To learn more about Steve's graduate admission counseling services, please click here.
-Adam

Below are some of my suggestions for writing a strong statement of purpose. Please read my previous post on SOPs before reading this one. The first four are based on my methods for reading client essays.

1. Make it believable: Do not exaggerate your claims or knowledge or try to make them sound “bigger” than what they are

2. Make it personal: Even someone who knows nothing about your field (which will include members of the adcom, as I’ll explain below) should be able to understand why it interests you and what you want to do in it. You should:

• Select specific experiences from your own life and studies in order to…

• Show how you came to wish to devote your career to a particular field

You should not:

• Write a lecture about a particular topic in your field: this essay is first and foremost about YOU

3. Make it persuasive: The primary task of an essay is to convince the admissions committee to accept you. You should:

• Demonstrate how you will be a successful graduate student

• Show how you will achieve your post-graduation goals.

• Illustrate your fit with a particular program

4. Make it easy to understand: Some of the adcom members who read your essay will be people who are not in your field of study. Therefore, you must write for an audience of non-specialists, which, frankly speaking, you probably are yourself. You should:

• Strive for clarity: Make sure your real intentions are clear

• Avoid jargon from your field

• Write like you speak in a classroom: avoid slang as well as rarely used “impressive-sounding” vocabulary

• Avoid humor, unless it is gentle and obvious (and even in that case have someone you trust read it to make sure they find it obviously, and gently funny.)

• Avoid sounding angry, bitter, or vengeful, etc.

5. Make it unique: As discussed above, you should organize your essay around demonstrating your distinguishing characteristics.

6. NO EXCUSES! It is best to avoid discussing any potential weaknesses in your essay, particularly if they are in our GPA and or test scores. After all, the adcom will see these facts as well as read your SOP and will draw their own conclusions. They certainly do not need or want you to tell them, “My excellent test score and not GPA is the best indicator of my ability,” and, besides, the opposite could also be true.

Advising clients on their SOPs is my primary responsibility as an admissions consultant. I recommend that you consider working with me, or any of my highly qualified peers beginning with myself, or Adam. The advice of an objective, but experienced reader is invaluable when working on drafts of your statement of purpose. If you do not choose to work with a professional admissions consultant, I hope you will find someone who can read and comment upon your essay drafts regularly and honestly.

Good luck and remember: This process really will help prepare you for graduate school.

For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン

大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校 マクスウェルスクール シラキューズ大学 大学ケネディスクール

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FOR GRADUATE DEGREE APPLICATIONS

This is the first of two posts on writing statements of purpose by Steve Green. The second post is here, but read this one first. To learn more about Steve's graduate admission counseling services, please click here.
-Adam

This post is for anyone applying to a graduate school program that requires a statement of purpose (also referred to as personal statement, statement of intent, etc.) For detailed advice on MBA essays, please read my colleague Adam’s many excellent posts on the subject. Additionally Adam has posted his analysis of the essay questions for Harvard Law School's LL.M. program.

In this post I provide detailed advice for how to write a strong statement of purpose (SOP). My advice is based on working with successful applicants to graduate programs in economics, electrical engineering international affairs, physics, public policy & administration, sports management, and statistics.

I will provide advice for master’s degree and for PhD applicants.

REMEMBER: You should carefully read the application instructions for each school to which you are applying. Depending on the school, the program and the field, there can be a wide variety of expectations about what applicants should write in the statement of purpose.

The statement of purpose for a graduate program arguably is the most important component of your graduate application.　　Here’s why:

1. The SOP is the only chance for an admissions committee (“adcom”) to see how you think, and how you write

2. Great test scores & a great GPA will not be enough if your SOP is weak. On the other hand…

3. A strong SOP can overcome weak test scores and/or a low GPA: The SOP is a way to overcome potential weaknesses in the objective components of your application by demonstrating, without you stating so explicitly, that one or more objective components of your application are not the best indicators of your abilities.

Think of the statement of purpose as your first writing assignment for graduate school: Everyone is asked the same question and evaluated by how much specific detail they can utilize to support a main point, and by how well they organize their thoughts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Before writing

II. Understanding the statement of purpose

III. How to write a strong statement of purpose

I. BEFORE you begin writing the first draft of your SOP, you should do the following:

1. Determine your specific career goals. For a way to think about that, see one of Adam's earlier posts.

2. Prepare your resume or CV. See my earlier post on how to do so.

3. Choose several accomplishments from your resume/CV to write about in your SOP (The number will depend upon the length of the essay.) Choose accomplishments that:

   • Illustrate the strengths that will help you to succeed in graduate school. These typically include skills in text and/or data analysis, organizing, time-management, leadership, communication and, writing, demonstrated academic excellence such as a high GPA and/or scholarships, among others.

   • Highlight different skills, i.e. do not use different accomplishments that illustrate the same strength.

4. Decide how you can distinguish yourself. Assume that everyone applying to the same programs is as qualified as you. (After all, everyone who is accepted will, as will be many who are not accepted.)

What makes you unique?

• Think about this in terms of marketing yourself: Figure out how to stand out in a field of qualified applicants. From my experience of working with successful applicants to graduate programs some possible unique selling points include international experience, such as working or studying abroad, extensive professional experience, internships as a university student, academic excellence, publications, and even unique post-graduation goals.

• REMEMBER: The point of your SOP is to demonstrate in detail how what makes you unique will enable you to:

  • Succeed in graduate school.

  • Contribute to the value of your fellow graduate students’ education and, when combined with a degree,

  • Succeed professionally

5. FOR PH.D. APPLICANTS: In addition to the points above, you will also need to describe a particular area of research you are interested in pursuing. For PhD programs, the SOP is also a test of whether you can at least formulate a research question. Many programs publish titles of the dissertations by successful graduates, which can give you an idea of the kind of research pursued in different departments.

   • Your goal is to show you seek to solve a particular problem or answer a particular question: You should not merely discuss some area of interest.

   • Be as specific as possible about what you want to research and study

   • Find out what each program expects from applicants in the SOP

II. UNDERSTANDING THE SOP:

First, read the sample SOPs below, which are taken from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia and from the UCLA Master of Public Policy program. These SOPs ask for essentially the same information and are representative of graduate school SOPs universally: You will not find much variation in application essay topics BUT you should check each program’s procedures carefully.

• Please describe how your academic, professional, and personal background has influenced your decision to pursue a graduate degree from SIPA. How and why will the pursuit of a degree at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs assist you in achieving your professional goals? Please be specific as possible concerning your goals and limit your response to no more than 850 words.

• Write a Statement of Purpose describing your background, interest, and qualifications for the MPP program. If you use more than one page for your statement be sure to number the pages and include your name on each page. Your SOP should not be longer than 3 double-spaced pages or approximately 750 words. (UCLA’s MPP program)

Taking these SOPs as representative samples, we can break down the SOP into three core parts: your background, your interest in a program and your professional goals. In the second example above, “interest” can be interpreted to mean interest in the UCLA program as well as professional interests (i.e. goals) and “qualifications” means applicants should provide specific details about why they fit the UCLA MPP program.

I’ve divided the next three sections of this post into one each for the core parts.

1. Your background:

You should:

• Highlight only those factors from your professional, personal and academic background that are relevant to the task at hand (i.e. getting into a graduate program of your choice) and that reflect your strengths and the development of your interest in the field.

  • Decide what you will emphasize from BOTH your academic and professional backgroud

• Be able to highlight at least one accomplishment from your academic background, whatever your major was. This can include an overall high GPA, high grades in courses related to your graduate study, participation in a selective seminar, academic awards or merit-based scholarships.

• If you are currently working in your field, e.g. are already working in public service but seek and MPA or MPP then you should:

  • Highlight your specific professional accomplishments as well as relevant academic accomplishments

• If you are currently working in a different field from the one in which you seek a graduate degree then, in addition to highlighting your academic strengths, you should discuss in detail how you achieved particular professional accomplishments. MOST SKILLS ARE TRANSFERABLE! Even if you are working in a field that is unrelated to the one you wish to enter after graduation, you probably use certain skills in your work that will enable you to succeed in graduate work.

• AN EXAMPLE: One of my successful clients entered the graduate program of her choice in international affairs and diplomacy, although she had majored in communication in college and had worked for five years as an analyst for the financial arm of a major bank. She wrote in detail about how she achieved success in her work through superior analytical abilities and time-management skills and suggested she would apply these skills to her new interest of study.

• If you are currently a university student, then emphasize your academic achievements in detail as well as any extra-curricular activities in which you developed skills relevant to graduate success. Even if the activity itself does not seem related to graduate study, such as a sport, or even a part-time job that you worked at for 20 or more hours weekly, the fact that you pursued it diligently while maintaining a high GPA says a great deal about your ability to manage your time, which is an important skill.

  • Current students should also discuss in detail activities such as internships, volunteer work, study abroad or workshops/events you organized or joined, e.g. Model U.N.

• If you are applying for a PhD program then you should emphasize your interest in a particular academic subject in your field and how you came to it, i.e. focus on particular coursework or experiences that introduced you to the topic, cite specific authors if you can.

You should NOT:

• Write a biography, chronology of your life or prose version of your resume.

• Discuss anything prior to entering university UNLESS it is directly relevant to your current goals. FOR EXAMPLE: In my experience, some applicants to psychology programs write movingly and logically about the impact the mental illness or emotional troubles of someone they when they were younger knew affected their lives and their decision to enter the field. REMEMBER: If there is not a clear and continuous thread between the event and your decision to apply now, then NEVER talk about anything prior to your undergraduate studies.

REMEMBER:

YOU NEED TO DISTINGUISH YOURSELF.

WHAT ARE YOUR GREATEST STRENGTHS?

2. Your interest in a particular program

You should:

• Demonstrate fit: Explain in detail why the program to which you are applying is the BEST means to your goals. See my earlier posts on selectingMPA/ MPP Programs for more about fit. Topics you should discuss include:

• Specific courses, i.e. the skill & knowledge you need to achieve your professional goals

• Dual-degree or interdisciplinary coursework opportunities

• Unique opportunities outside the classroom, e.g. fieldwork, internships

• The desire to work under the guidance of a particular faculty member (if applicable: This is often the case for PhD applicants but usually not for Master’s degree applicants.)

REMEMBER:

No graduate admissions committee will accept you if they do not believe you actually want to study at their particular program. TAKE THE TIME TO LEARN THE SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES OF EVERY PROGRAM TO WHICH YOU PLAN TO APPLY

3. Your professional goals

Here’s one-question, pass-or-fail test:

“After earning a degree in (field of your choice) I aim to begin working as

a/an _________ at _____________.”

If you cannot provide a job title and organization name above, then you have “failed” this test and may not be ready to apply to graduate school right now.

If you are applying to a 1-2 year graduate school program now, then 1-2 years from now (late summer, 2008) you will probably begin job hunting. If you do not have a specific career vision in mind right now, then you may not actually be ready to start graduate school.

Keep in mind that you are free to change your mind AFTER you are accepted, but right now you need to make a convincing case that the graduate degree is the next logical step to a specific career goal.

Graduate school reputations are not based not only on the caliber of students accepted to the school, but also on the career paths pursued by graduates.

In this part of your essay, you should:

• Explain a specific job title, level of authority and name or type of an organization or institution where you wish to work

• Illustrate that, combined with your existing academic/professional strengths, the degree AT THIS PARTICULAR SCHOOL is the best possible means to reach your professional goals

You should not:

• Present vague goals, e.g. a plan merely “to work in the field of international development.”

• Present lofty goals that are unrealistic for any new graduate degree holder, e.g. a plan to be the Secretary General of the United Nations immediately or within a few years of graduation

REMEMBER:

YOUR GOALS SHOULD BE SPECIFIC & REALISTIC

In my next post, I will discuss how to write a strong statement of purpose.

For questions regarding this post, please contact me at h.steven.green@gmail.com. To learn more about my graduate admissions consulting services, please click here.
- H. Steven ("Steve") Green, グリーン・ハロルド・スティーブン

大学院留学 カリフォルニア大学バークレー校 マクスウェルスクール シラキューズ大学 ハーバード大学ケネディスクール コロンビア大学の国際関係・公共政策大学院（通称SIPA)