<p>S1 worked for several years before applying. He did everything himself. He wasn’t accepted anywhere, which lead him to be more realistic. Two years later, he applied again and was accepted at several places. It’s all been on him.</p>
<p>S2, who has been working for a year and a half, has just decided to apply and seems to me like a babe in the woods. I make comments or suggestions, but it’s got to be all on him.</p>
<p>I know very little about their fields so my guiding them about grad school would be absolutely ridiculous.</p>
<p>None of my business, not my life. Sorry, that’s just the way I feel. Mine are launched. Going back to grad school is totally up to them. I’m pretty sure they know what they need to do.</p>
<p>S1 procrastinated (to my consternation) and was disorganized when it came to applying for college.</p>
<p>He probably still procrastinated when it came to applying to grad school in his senior year, but I didn’t have to witness it. He handled the entire application process, including taking the GRE, on his own. He was at a small LAC where he had good relationships with professors who could help him decide where to apply and write him good recommendations. He’s now less than a year away from getting his PhD (keeping fingers crossed)</p>
<p>S2, on the other hand, decided to take a break between college & grad school. He’s been working for 1 1/2 years, but knows he’ll have to get his MPP at some point. He doesn’t even want to bother taking the GRE yet. I’m hoping he’ll know when he’s ready in enough time to take the GRE and get applications in. It doesn’t look like he’ll be starting grad school in 2014 at this point.</p>
<p>S spent a year on what could loosely be called a fellowship abroad between undergrad and grad school, which he just started in August. His case was somewhat unusual, in that he identified he chosen field (journalism, with an emphasis on long form non-fiction) very late in college–really, the second half of senior year–and took his first and last course in the field his very last quarter.</p>
<p>We talked about it, and I influenced him to apply to some MFA writing programs also, partly for the potential funding. I did not realize at the time that funded MFA programs were at least as hard to get into as med schools or top law schools! As it turned out, he got into the journalism school that was his original first choice, despite a complete lack of journalism experience, and he is loving it. I’ve never seen him so motivated and engaged.</p>
<p>He handled the application process for schools and multiple scholarships on his own, with some last minute pleas for assistance meeting mailing deadlines for transcripts and recommendations that threw us into a frenzy a couple of times. But these were really logistical problems caused by his location, and by recommenders who were late in supplying them despite being given plenty of notice. (There have been whole threads on that!)</p>
<p>Now that he knows what he wants to do, he seems to have no problem getting it together to apply for things. In great contrast to the college application process, where I had to drive him through it at some points. They do grow up. Amazing. :)</p>
<p>My son headed to Asia after college graduation in 2011. Launched. Totally independent.</p>
<p>In February of 2013 he told me that he was going to apply to law school for Fall 2014 admission. He has a plan and is working it. </p>
<p>Like others, at this point in his life ALL of this is totally up to him. I have obsessed (as usual) but have used the CC law school forum to give into my obsessive inquiries. He will not know anything other than my verbal support for what he is working towards.</p>
<p>I believe mine has things under control. She asked me to read her draft emails to ask for recommendations to make sure they were appropriate, and she asked me to look over her final list – as if I could possibly know enough to have an opinion.</p>
<p>Finally, she asked me to go to an open house at one of the schools which falls on my birthday. I am sure I will hear about the GRE scores and I am equally confident that I will be asked to give a final proof to the applications and essays.</p>
<p>As others have said, especially given how much he has on his plate, it might be that he hasn’t had the time to keep you up-to-date. </p>
<p>As you wrote, he’s driving the bus. As parents of seniors or post-bacs, at best we’re passengers looking at the scenery. Backseat driving could become a hot seat. </p>
<p>I write this with a lot of sympathy for both you and your son, from being a parent and having applied to and completed grad school with a PhD. (As a parent, my child is both searching for work and preparing for a STEM subject GRE.)</p>
<p>To lift your spirits, applying to grad school is less stressful than searching for work, primarily because it’s so much more structured. Grad school applications have deadlines, clear requirements, and an endpoint. </p>
<p>Re: the GRE, as I’m certain your son realizes, best to take the Subject GRE before too much time passes after he takes courses in the subject. It’s easier to prepare sooner than later. When he applies to Grad School is up to him.</p>
<p>She’s finishing up a dual Phd in musicology and Italian studies at Princeton. As a fellow of the Cini Foundation, besides finishing up her dissertation and spending time with 17th century handwriting, she translates introductions to their collections for their website and for visitors.</p>
<p>One other thing that is more “relaxed” about grad school is that, if they miss a deadline or don’t get everything in, there’s always next year. Nothing wrong with working for an extra year.</p>
<p>Though they may be doing it on their own nickel if funding is limited and their advisor believes they should be a little less relaxed about things.</p>
<p>A previous coworker told me that, when he was in a graduate school, there were two tiers of graduate students there: one tier consists of the students who have passed some exams at his school; the other the students who have not passed these exams. The professors are usually not interested in taking in those students in the second tier.</p>
<p>He said he’s glad he had laid down the foundations in his master program at another school first so that when he arrived at that school, he could pass those school’s exams in a year. This is because it is very depressing to stay in the second tier for too long. Many students could not pass the exams and decided to leave that school in the end.</p>
<p>This is just one example only and not necessarily the norm.</p>
<p>D made it through the process, but only because she is the most organized person I know. She’s a music performance major who experienced a change of teacher in her senior year-which caused its own unique set of problems- so she began selecting her music for her senior recital during the summer before. Her applications and prescreenings were completed and sent before we took a much needed trip in December but she kept up to date on the status of things via her cell phone.
D gave me a list of audition dates and I helped out by arranging the travel and lodging (which meant that I got to go along on some too!). She was taking a full load of courses during that time as well as in the chorus of the current opera and once the trips and production were finished, she was surprised by getting the lead in the next opera which was on stage just two weeks before her senior recital.
Everything worked out well and she graduated with highest honors and is now in a great grad program but I know that is because of her advance planning skills. Others in her class did not fare so well. I know that she’s intending to take a year off to prepare and apply for her DMA after her Masters because the work for that is quite intense. She’s at least a whole year younger than the rest in her program and as a performance major, that extra year “off” can be put to good use.</p>
<p>^^^Oh, Lord, I don’t even want to think about it. Son took the GRE in the summer and when asked to send his scores to schools, he put down three total reaches, and one school, he put down the wrong name. Only good thing about that is that said school will not receive the awful writing score he got. H is livid that he sent the scores to these schools. In fact, I was the one who told him to send his scores, no matter what, I was so ticked off that the test cost so much.</p>
<p>Well, now, I’m paying for said test, yet again, and hope to goodness son will bother doing some more prep work and hopefully bring up that abysmal writing score.</p>
<p>But the thing I’m most concerned about in applying for grad schools is the letters of recommendation and the statement of purpose. Yeah, with that writing score, his statement of purpose is going to be REAL good. I am prepared for the 2 am phone call for us to proofread it on the deadline for application. Been there, done that, four years ago. </p>
<p>As for the letters of recommendation, son never wants to bother people, and when he realizes he will have to ask someone for a LOR, he’ll think studying for the GRE was a piece of cake.</p>
<p>Part of me wants so bad for son to just find a job after college, any job, just so I won’t have to go through this, but I know I’ll regret it if I don’t support him in this process.</p>
<p>Wishing all of you luck this year, and I can’t believe he may actually graduate from college this year!</p>
Do “boys” tend to be unable to tolerate the tedious work of the application paper work?</p>
<p>When DS applied, one CCer whose D applied a year earlier kindly provide me the list of schools. When I gave the list of schools to him, he glanced over it for a couple of seconds and said: This list is good for me. I really doubt he would have the patience of researching the schools to come up with his own list. Also, on the day before the day he submitted the application, he took a final look at his application, and found a school that “should” not be there. It was because his friend (who applied a year earlier) came over about a week before that and helped him to fine-tune his list and helped put in that school and he even did not remember they added that school together. (BTW, that school is H.)</p>
<p>I ask this without judgment, but I am genuinely curious: do you (general “you” no one specific) believe that someone who can’t be bothered to research schools, ask for recommendations, or bother to pay attention to deadlines without someone reminding him/her is really ready for a grad program?</p>