From College Confidential to Graduate School Confidential

[artiesdad]

I came across the earlier version of CC while looking for the cutoff PSAT scores for our state. I then came for advise from other parents when my son first started considering whether to skip his last year of HS (he did). As hard as it is to believe, that same guy graduated a few days ago and is on his way to graduate school in the Fall. This means it has been almost 5 years since I starting visiting this site.

A lot has changed since then. The second child just finished her first year in college (with valuable CC advise during the admissions process) and the empty nest has not only been accepted at home but is a treasured "feature". Still, I keep coming back for more.

I see a lot of familiar names in the board so I know I am not alone. In fact, a bunch of us "lurkers" came out of the closed in a thread a couple of years back.

Who else out there is a CC "graduate" and is on his/her way to Graduate or Professional CC school?

By the way the title of the thread is misleading because my role during the graduate school admissions process was limited to sending money to the College Board for the very expensive GREs. [Hopefully I won't get chastised for admitting that like somebody did the Graduate School forum. After all this is the much friendlier Parent domain :-)] I cannot really say CC had any influence in that outcome.

[marite]

Artiesdad:

Welcome back! I remember when your S was considering college! Mine is not quite ready to contemplate grad school yet. What field is your son going into?

[soozievt]

Artiesdad....count me in! I have been on CC for five years, starting in summer of 2002 when my oldest was a rising HS junior. I now have two kids in college, one a rising senior at Brown and one a rising junior (she also graduated HS a year early like your son and Marite's son) at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. And believe it or not, oldest D is just embarking on the graduate school process. She is away (out of the country) this summer but before she left, she researched schools and shared her information with me. She bought a GRE book to take with her this summer. When she gets back, I guess she will begin the admissions process. She will be applying to graduate schools of architecture. What kind of grad school is your son heading toward? I am finding it hard to believe we are even talking of that process as it seems like we just got done college admissions. However, like you say, grad school admissions is even more in their hands than undergraduate admissions, which of course was in their hands as well but with guidance from a parent at home.

PS...how expensive are the GREs?

[Mudder's_Mudder]

Artiesdad: I skipped college and placed directly into grad school. I was the parent on one of those threads who was too cheap to pay for the GREs and made S do it himself Have no fear that anyone, here or there, would chastise you for paying, though. If memory serves, it was the parent who actually filled out her S's grad school apps for him who raised a few cyber eyebrows.

Soozievt: The general GRE costs $130.
http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/m...0022f95190RCRD
The day of the test, you are allowed to choose up to four schools to receive the scores at no additional charge. After that, there's a $15 charge per school to send additional reports, even if you originally chose only one school. (I can't remember if they allow you to send one to your UG institution without charge; I seem to recall, when I took it, a separate space to indicate you want one sent to your UG.) My S chose four schools when he took the exam but eventually only applied to two of them and one additional; so he paid an extra $15 for that report. Some programs also require the GRE subject test. If I recall correctly from my S's experience (with the NSF), graduate fellowships that require GRE scores can get them at no cost to the applicant.

Between the GRE fees (especially if you take it more than once), the app fees, mailing costs, etc., it can get quite expensive if you apply to a lot of grad schools.

[newmassdad]

I've been around at least as long as soozievt and marite, maybe longer (who remembers that very first post?) under one name or another - many of us had to take new screen names due to transfer problems to the new boards a few years back.

My D is a rising senior too, with interesting long term plans. She is NOT applying to grand or professional school next year. Instead, she's applying for scholarships and fellowships for a year (or two, depending on the program) to go abroad. Then she'll figure out the next step.

We've reminded her that applications, especially interviews are harder when you're in Europe or S. America, but that does not seem to have affected her plans.

Fortunately all this will be sorted out by late fall, so if none of the scholarship/fellowship opportunities come through, she'll have time to look at fallbacks.

BTW, what a contrast from HS, when we parents were heavily involved, coaching and guiding. Now we just watch.

[mini]

Mine's planning on the GREs in August (musicology).

[sac]

Guilty as charged of hanging around here way too long! But I'm still learning things. For example, I didn't know S will save money by knowing which schools he wants to send his scores to on the day of the GRE exam, and I'm sure he doesn't know that either.

S is heading into his senior year and has signed up for the GREs, but doesn't know whether he will work after graduating or go on for grad school. He'll take both the general GREs and the Math subject exam. He's never even looked at CC as far as I know, and rolls his eyes when he sees me on it. But I've avidly read the grad school threads and passed on info. A few days ago when he was home, I heard him sagely advising a friend about grad school applications and the importance of obtaining faculty recommendations.

So, yeah, I'm still general info gatherer. Incurable. But I'd never fill out applications for him and I absolutely refuse to take his GREs, especially the one in math!

[soozievt]

Ahh.....I didn't know that the GRE is expensive. I haven't really forayed into grad school admissions speak. I guess one more thing to add to the budget. My D is just getting started and has done the research on her schools. Right now, she has a list of 12 but I am not sure if she will apply to them all or not. I find it is tricky and not like undergrad admissions with a college list of reach, match, safeties. There doesn't seem a way to ascertain the selectivity of each insitition as far as admit rates and stats and all the stuff one would look at for undergrad admissions. I think the schools are likely all a reach and chancy (not so much relative to her but simply the odds in general). I suppose some are more renown than others but there is no true way to gauge one's chances and balance the list like with undergrad college list building. In her field, beyond all the stats like GPA and GRE, there is a portfolio and that will be key and is more subjective. That is something that has been worked on on a continual basis. But there are also costs in getting mulitple portfolios made up for admissions. I hadn't figured in the GREs and score reports....didn't realize how costly those were and forgot about that. My D does all this stuff on her own but I have a keen interest in what she is doing and so once she gathers things or does things, she shares with me about it and sometimes discusses it.

NewMassDad, Mini, and Sac....it seems like yesterday that we were all in the same "parent group" on CC with our kids applying to college. I guess it is round two. Grad school for my D will be 3 or 3 1/2 years, depending on the school she attends. It's a long haul.

Sac, my kids never visit CC either. Like you, they appreciate if I have any information to share that may be useful.

[sac]

Hi soozie! Nice to "see" you again. Good luck to your older D on her next round of applications.

My S has asked me questions about the general process. Example: do PhD programs let you defer a year before starting? Lo and behold, the day after I told him I didn't know, Marite posted the info that most programs do not defer and will tell you to reapply with no guarantee you'll get in again when competing against next year's group of applicants.

[artiesdad]

It is great to see some of the people I have seen in so many posts reply to this thread.

He will start a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry. He went to Caltech thinking Physics was his calling but it didn't take long for that to change once he got to Pasadena. Even he thinks the ride was too short, but in that field they don't let students stay for graduate school. That other school near Boston is his future home.

soozoviet: As Mudder's_Mudder mentioned the GRE is $130, plus $15 per report, plus $10 per call. What really got me upset at the time is that in a call you can only requests 8 reports. My son applied to 9 schools! Not only did I have to go through all the menus a second time, they charged me another $10 for the call.

Mudder's_Mudder is there a connection to HMC? You are right. That thread was fun when the mom that filled the forms got defensive.

The little advise I gave to my son was along the lines of cashing that year he banked at the end of high school and do something else before graduate school. I figured after the "drinking from the fire hose" that is Caltech's experience he could use the time to decompress. He considered Teach for America but it seems they wanted a 2 year commitment which he thought would not be accepted by the grad schools.

In retrospect I beleive grad school was always at the top of the list. It seems that far from being scared by the Techer experience he likes the punishment. I though it was funny when he sent me a link to the entry for Indentured Servant in wikipedia. I don't mean to trivialized a very serious injustice but the parallel in the description is uncanny. Here are the first few sentences:

"An indentured servant (or in the U.S. bonded laborer) is a labourer under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount of time, usually four to seven years, to pay off a passage to a new country or home. Typically the employers provided little if any monetary remuneration; however, they were responsible for accommodation, food, other essentials, and training. Upon completion of the term of the contract the labourer sometimes received a lump sum payment such as a parcel of land or tools and was free to farm or take up trade of his or her own."

I guess the lump sum is not there (unless they are talking about a hiring bonus), and they don't have to leave the country, but the rest brought back memories of my own experience :-).

You can read the rest in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

[artiesdad]

sac,

What I learned from my son is that Teach for America has arrangements with some schools that do grant a deferral. I am not sure which ones though.

[soozievt]

Artiesdad, yes, this is fun to see who else is on this "next step" and to share about it, especially with parents we have "known" on CC all these years. My D is only just starting. At one time, a while back, I recall her mentioning she wasn't sure if she would take a year off or go straight to grad school. However, during the past year, she has mentioned applying to grad school this fall and I never asked. That is what she is doing. She knows it is a long haul too. Also, she has done exciting things in summers with adventures and much travel that I am not sure she'd need a year off for those experiences. She seems to manage to fit it all in anyway. I just follow their lead.

The test thing....thanks for the heads up. Sounds like another expensive aspect to this whole process. Your son sounds like he has done really great. My D will likely apply to your son's grad school, just different field. I guess if I am talking about it now, this is real and just beginning! The main thing is our kids love what they are doing.

[artiesdad]

soozoviet,

I think the difference is that the grad admissions "game" is played at the level of specific programs or even faculty. Schools and departments indeed have a reputation but at the end of the day what counts, especially if you want to go into academia, is who was your PhD advisor. Likewise, the admissions process, at least in the sciences, emphasizes the quality of the reseach you have done and the letters of recommendation.

[anxiousmom]

Hi all! Been here forever (since well before the CC shift to a new format). DD is rising senior also (and DS is entering college freshman. ) She's debating possibly law school, or grad school in anthropology, or ???. She's got lots of different interests, so there are almost too many possibilities. She will come out of her undergrad years fluent in Spanish (thanks to 5 months is Chile, a month in Nicaragua, and strong college coursework), and is heading off to learn Persian, of all things, in a free immersion program in just a few days. Since she hasn't yet prepped for the GRE or LSAT's, it looks like she'll take a gap year and work. She'll need some time off next summer, since the Persian program provides a free 6-week study abroad summer of 2008. (Hopefully not to Afghanistan! )

[soozievt]

Wow, all your kids are doing cool things! Anxiousmom, it is good to be fluent in another language. My D is in French and it likely played a part in her being hired at an architectural firm in Paris this summer, where she is now.

Artiesdad, I understand what you are saying about grad school admissions and specific programs, faculty, research, etc. The thing is, it is a little different for Architecture School compared to regular grad school. It is also different than going into academia. It is a professional degree program. The research one has done before grad school will not be as key. Like my D has opted to do an Honors Thesis (purely optional at her school) just because she wants to but it likely has no bearing on grad school admissions. In her field, a key component to grad admissions is the portfolio. There is not the kind of linkage like for your son as to who he will work with individually in grad school as an advisor. Letters of rec, however, I'm sure also count for her. She knows other students who have come out of her major at her college and gone onto these grad schools and I only can hope things also work out for her as she would like. She has done all she can along the way and so I have no complaints. Hopefully things will work out in her favor.