#ayubia

Marry Catholic Church, Khanspur, Ayubia.

Winters are coming! 😍💙

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Through back to the trip of December 2019 of Nathia Gali.

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Ayubia, KPK, Pakistan

Hey there! I’m so glad you’ve decided on a major and the trajectory of your career! And I’m also glad you reached out, because I agree the whole process of applying to grad school can be super overwhelming. 

Narrowing down a list of grad schools to apply for is definitely going to take lots of time and effort. 

But what/who can help:

Your university program/career advisor/counselor may already have some sort of battle-plan from the thousands of previous students who went through the same thing, or at least could offer lots of advice and resources. 

If you’re volunteering in a lab or plan to, the PI and lab members would also be a great source of information, especially other grad students. Even if they’re not studying the same program you’re planning on applying to, they still could have lots of wisdom to offer, even if it’s just observing what a day in their life is like. 

Related, your TAs are grad students themselves and can offer advice too. 

And other grad students you meet like myself! You’re welcome to join the Gradblr Support Group Discord--we have many prospective grads like yourself and have a chatroom dedicated to answering questions like this. 

GradCafe is an online forum regarding grad admissions and info about schools. I personally didn’t use it (because I didn’t know it existed), but I’ve heard it can be helpful. 

Now, for that list of schools: 

First things first, in order to narrow down a list, one must make a list. I recommend using Excel or Google Sheets to start one, and just type all the schools with grad programs you’re interested in in the first column. If you don’t know where to find such a list, an internet search of “universities with _____ phd programs” is a good place to start. You can modify that search term depending on your criteria (like the country you want to study in, or if you want to do a Masters, or MD/PhD, etc). (And if you’re considering between Masters vs PhD, I made a post here talking about the pros and cons. Keep in mind it’s US-centric and STEM-centric though; some countries and some fields (even in the US) require Masters before PhD). 

And while you’re making that giant masterlist, you can decide whether to include or exclude universities off the bat, such as geographical location, type of university (large vs small liberal arts), etc. 

Once you’ve started your list of schools, you can input criteria in the columns that you want to compare between each school/program. Some ideas include:

Application requirements: such as minimum GPA, recommended undergrad degrees, required standardized tests and minimum scores (some schools are getting rid of requiring the GRE, some want the general GRE AND subject tests; some require language proficiency tests if you’re applying to another country), application costs, etc

Geographical location and everything that comes with it, like weather, an area’s culture, proximity to family, etc

Yearly stipend if applicable, and if you can find it

Cost of living, which is related to the stipend, because some stipends may seem really high, but there may be a really high cost of living)\

Tuition costs if you’re applying for a Masters program, which doesn’t usually include stipends

Grad student funding: for example, my PhD program has whole page on their website dedicated to our internal program funding options

University and program ranking (if that’s important to you)

# of research labs in the program (more labs = more potential choices for your dissertation topic)

Types of research in the program (especially if you’re really interested in something specific)

University resources that are important to you (think about the resources you use the most in undergrad, or wish you had access to)

Notable alumni

Potential career options (like if you want to go into biotech after graduating, maybe being in a biotech-heavy city could be an advantage)

And more as you learn more about these schools and programs through your own research or with talking to other people (like program alumni)

Once you’ve chosen your categories and filled them in for your list of schools, you can start narrowing your list by comparing the criteria that are important to you, with the goal of thinning it down to the amount of schools you’re comfortable and able to apply to. 

A few other notes:

There’s no magic number for the # of schools to apply to, but keep in mind that each program’s application is separate (there’s no general “Common App”), and application costs can be upwards of a few hundred dollars each. There may also be “hidden” fees, like the costs for undergrad transcripts and standardized test scores to be sent to each school, the costs for taking those standardized tests, etc. (So it would be a good idea to have a budget sheet as well to keep track of all these fees)

I would advise to have a few “safety” schools so you can basically guarantee an acceptance. More on that here, along with other advice about grad school applications. 

I also have a Masterpost of Grad Apps here (though the GRE portion may be outdated, as some schools have removed that as a requirement).

As for my personal experience, I did all that (talking to other grad students and my PI at the time, making a list and narrowing it down, making sure I had safety schools, etc). Geographical location of the schools was an important first-pass criterion for me. I’m from California and Arizona, and my family was living in AZ at the time, so I only applied to schools in those states and Colorado. I was equally interested in Immunology, Microbiology, and Cancer Biology, so I applied to all those programs in I think 6 schools (sometimes more than one application per school). Because I couldn’t decide between those fields, I also applied to umbrella biology PhD programs, which gives you the opportunity to decide which home program to choose following acceptance and lab rotations (more info of the one I eventually went to at University of Arizona here if you want to learn more). 

Ayubia National Park, KPK, Pakistan.

Vlog of Drone Footage of Khanaspur Church Ayubia