Putting the Pieces Together

Well Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast Resilience in STEM. I hope everyone has had a pretty good October. I’m pretty sure by now we are all entering finals season if you are still a student. If not, you’re just living your life and it’s getting close to the holiday season. I always feel when we get close to the holidays things just feel different whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. 

 

Let’s get into the life update. As you all know I am applying to graduate school this cycle, specifically a Ph.D. in Neurosciences or umbrella programs in Biomedical Sciences that have a track in neuroscience. So there’s a lot that’s going on right now. There’s a feeling that I have to balance a lot of things. I have to balance school (the projects, classes, and tests I have), research (not too heavy right now but I’m still staying active in the lab and helping whenever I can), extracurriculars (with senate I’ve been working on a couple of projects and meeting with people), and applying to graduate school (which feels like an extracurricular on its own because every evening I am working on the applications). Right now, it’s getting close to finishing applying to graduate school so that’s why I created the episode called ‘Putting the Pieces Together’. There’s also a feeling of imposter syndrome looming around. You may know there are tons of talented people who are going to be applying for programs. An interesting question I ask myself is “How am I going to fit within that?” or “How am I going to make my application stand out among the other applicants?”. So that’s something I’ve been going through and making sure my applications are pretty good. 

 

Something else I talked about in my last episode I believe or a few episodes before is that I spent this past month reaching out and meeting with faculty members from the programs I am interested in. Each program you apply to has a list of faculty members and their research interests. I know I mentioned that for every program you apply to, you need to have 3-5 faculty members that you’re interested in their research. So something I wanted to do as a protective measure was reach out to all of these faculty members, give them a background on who I am, why I am applying to their program, why I am interested in their lab, and see if they’re taking graduate students next fall. My biggest worry was accepting a position in a graduate program and then there wasn’t any faculty that were willing to take me that I was passionate about and I would have to settle for a different faculty member. Personally, that would be difficult for me. So I wanted to make sure I was applying to a program with many faculty willing to take me on. 

 

I also have been spending my time talking to current graduate students about their Ph.D. program and their perspectives. I’ve been asking questions, such as “What are some things they learned about the program after they got accepted?”, “what are things I should be aware of?”, or “What advice would they give me?” since they have gone through applying to Ph.D. programs. I feel it’s been good to maintain those connections. So if I get to interview with a Ph.D. program, they’ll most likely remember me. 

 

The first deadline for the first program I am applying for is November 15th, which means I told myself in the beginning (and I think I mentioned this before), is that I want to make sure I submit your application a little well before the deadline. This is about one week before the deadline to make sure that all of the materials are in and everything is perfect. 

 

This episode is titled, “Putting the Pieces Together”. So when making a good graduate application I feel there are several puzzle pieces, such as your essays, letters of recommendation, and resume. The question is how do we put all of these pieces together to make a cohesive application that stands out, fits well into the program's mission, and gets a puzzle that tells your whole story? I’m thinking of this like a puzzle. So you have a bunch of different puzzle pieces that address different aspects of your life story. When you put them together you get this piece of art. You can think about making a device there’s different components needed for it to function seamlessly. So there are different ways to think about this idea, but it’s all centered around how you put these pieces together and show they are all related to your story. 

 

So the first piece of advice I can give is to look at the individual instructions. Although graduate applications do look the same, such as having essays, you have to make sure you are addressing everything. This one program wanted me to address the question, “What is translational medicine?”. That is something I had to cater my essay towards. Sometimes in the resume section, they ask for just a 2-page resume, or the name is not included. It’s the little things that I can address that make a huge difference. By following their instructions or formatting requirements, it prevents them from seriously considering the application. 

 

A big piece of the puzzle is the essays. It’s a very crucial piece of the puzzle. This includes your research statement, personal statement, or a combination of the two. One thing I can say about that is your research statement about your experiences in how you became a scientist and what skills you possess. Your statement is about your life, the diversity and equity work you have done, or what led you to apply to graduate school (that’s a very big question many institutions ask). The combination essay is elements of both previous essays coming together to tell your story. So it’s making sure you’re telling your story in a captivating way so when the readers look at it they want to keep reading. The admissions committee does have to read your full essay, but the difference lies between they have to read it versus they want to read it. Overall, you may want to hit the same points in multiple essays to make sure there is a tie between both essays. You don’t have to talk about something completely different. So I would keep it at the same theme if you are doing both a research statement and a personal statement. An example of this is my research statement talks about the experiences I’ve had and how I want to work with neurodegenerative diseases. When writing my statement, I'm going to address the why behind that. So I’m going to talk about the community I developed. There are different things to implement in both essays that address two different sides of yourself, but it should still be a cohesive story. The combination essay is a little easier to do since there is just one story to tell. Make sure to include both research and personal elements in this essay. 

 

The next piece is your transcript. Most programs ask for an unofficial transcript. If you get accepted into the program, then you are asked to provide an official transcript. This is my take on this. Sometimes, people say your grades don’t matter after a certain point when applying to graduate school. That is kind of true but to an extent. So if you’re applying to a graduate program and the admissions committee is looking at your application they’re going to look at the unofficial transcript provided if you are still in school. For me, my grades for my senior year classes are not on the unofficial transcript. That’s fine, but I need to ensure all my grades are good so far. The admissions committee won’t see my senior year grades. So when they ask for the official transcript, that’s how they make sure your grades are somewhat similar. It's okay if your grades dipped a little bit, but you can’t be failing your classes senior year because your grades don’t matter to an extent. That’s why institutions only ask for an unofficial transcript. You also don’t have to pay an additional cost for ordering an official transcript. 

 

The next piece of this puzzle is letters of recommendation. Most schools ask for 3-4 letters of recommendation. I just kept it at 3. In addition, most schools ask for the letters to be from people who have mentored you and are in the STEM field. They have the optional 4th recommendation can be someone who isn’t in the STEM field. However, 1 of the 3 letters of recommendation can also be someone not from the STEM field, but there has to be a strong reason why you are including them. In my case, I didn’t use this option but I could have. I do a lot of work in the Student Senate. So I have a lot of strong mentors from the university administration who have helped me as a student leader. I could have asked any of them to write me a letter of recommendation. They know me personally and know about my career life aspects. It would only show another aspect of my life. The emphasis on institutions asking for letters of recommendation to come from people in the STEM field is mainly because you would be applying for a graduate program in the STEM field. The admissions committee wants to make sure that you are developing as a scientist from different people’s perspectives. 

 

The next big piece of graduate applications is the supplemental. This has a huge range and depends on how the application works. Some of them are very simple and ask for just the key components I listed above in addition to a few background questions about yourself (race/gender/etc). Others ask you to summarize your research experiences, your work experiences (payment and employment information), why you are applying to their institution, and more. While you may be addressing these points in your essays, you do need to restate the supplemental questions. Another supplemental I often see is “What professors do you want to work with?”. You should also include this in your essays, but they have a section where you can rank your top 8 professor choices or if you have reached out to them. 

 

This is a side note concerning reaching out to professors. When you are in that scenario, make sure you read the individual instructions for each application. Sometimes in those application instructions, they may ask for you to not reach out to faculty members until you get an interview or acceptance letter. Some programs say you can reach out to faculty members and it is encouraged, but it’s not a required thing to do. Most people do not reach out to professors because it does take a lot of work. In addition, faculty members do get tons of emails already so please weigh your options. 

 

Make sure for your supplemental, since it is such a huge range, that you are addressing and including everything they ask for. Sometimes institutions ask for very specific things and you may have to dig around your transcript, essays, CV, and so much more. Unfortunately, the applications are not standardized. In undergraduate applications, there was the standardized common application. But that doesn’t exist anymore. 

 

Closing off, I wanted to give some advice on this and I intend on giving this advice to myself since we are at the ending point of graduate school application. 

1. Read the details: You don’t want to forget to include certain details asked by the institution. Just triple-check this. If you apply to multiple programs, sometimes students don’t realize and submit the wrong essay for the application. If things do change throughout the application process (this mainly applies to people who started in early September), make sure you add or change the details from whatever document so everything is up to date. 

2. Have a bunch of people read your essays: This includes people who are not in your field should be able to read these essays and understand what’s going on. If you’re applying to Ph.D. programs, you want to make sure the science and techniques you explain make sense. Have your roommate read your essay, your parents, or a mentor. You want to also make sure people in your field read your essay just to make sure everything is accurate, but by having people not in your field also read it to see if they understand it. When you send out your essays and they go to the admissions committee, the admissions committee is composed of faculty members and graduate students, which can range from tons of different STEM fields. If they cannot understand your essay, you’re not going to get an interview.

3. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people to see if they’re taking students: I know some people are hesitant to contact faculty members, and I know it does take a lot of time. But I think it’s worth it in the end (well, I’ll tell you if doing that was worth it. If you reach out to faculty members sometimes they’ll respond to you and ask to meet with you to discuss their lab’s work. This helps to develop a strong connection before getting an interview. It’s also good to be secure in knowing which faculty are taking students and what kind of community you are walking into. You won’t know until either you get accepted or an in-person interview. 

4. Be proud of yourself: I tell myself this all the time. You have worked so hard to get here. You have put in the effort. You have taken the time to make sure your applications are the best they can be. So be proud of yourself for dedicating time and knowing this is the path you want to take. It does take a lot of soul searching to decide this is what you want to do, to put in the work, and to apply for these programs. Your experiences have led you to this moment. So be proud of the person you are becoming because of this and be hopeful for what’s to come. I have wished someone from the future would come tell me what program I will end up going to, but I know that’s not the reality of this scenario. So all I can do is be proud of myself and hope for the best because whatever is going to happen will be for the best.