<p>Can anyone tell me how much time they committed or are looking to commit to grad school applications and scholarships/fellowship applications?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is I am considering dropping a course to give myself time to do all that stuff (I am a first semester senior). I have an internship that takes up 2 full days a week and 2 other classes so far. The 2 classes don’t seem all that time-consuming, but like anything else, they still have their own assignments and whatnot. The course I am considering dropping is not needed for any requirement- I just added it because I am really interested in the subject and want to take some fun classes before I graduate.</p>
<p>No one I know has never gone to college, let alone attempted grad school so any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>In general, applying is like a part-time job. Take the fun course if you can! Take it pass/fail. Alums will tell you that they had taken more interesting sounding classes.</p>
<p>Researching the right programs and preparing your application for each program is a massive time commitment for me. Fortunately, I can now spend more time with last-minute prep for GREs (the rest of September, basically). But I couldn’t focus exclusively on the GRE until recently.</p>
<p>I think it would be a shame to drop your fun course. My daughter took a fiction writing course (and she was a CS major) her last semester and enjoyed it so much she took a more advanced one in grad school. Yes the process is time consuming, but you have lots of time right now. My daughter did pretty much all of it in spring semester because she was doing a demanding overseas math program in fall. She could have done better, I suppose, but she was accepted to 3 PhD programs. The fellowship applications come early so pull those and start filling out. Start work on your SOP, you’ll likely want time to edit and evolve it. Do a practice GRE so you will see if you need to do review for a long time or just prep the week or two ahead. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! Unfortunately, I had to drop the class due to my job :[ I really need the hours. This semester seems like it will be so easy academically that I feel almost guilty about it! I usually challenge myself to the breaking point every semester. </p>
<p>But I decided with the extra time to really figure out some post-grad plans besides grad school (like doing some job shadowing), excel at my internship, and do some more volunteerwork alongside working more hours. </p>
<p>I’ll make sure to take a fun class or 2 next semester!</p>