Preparing and searching for graduate positions in the US

 

“Hi, I want to apply for a graduate program in the US can you guide me?”

I have been asked this question so many times in one form or another that I thought of writing an article to walk students through key steps they will come across while applying for graduate school in the US. The article is divided into two main parts 1) things you need to do as part of preparation 2) how to find positions. The examples I shared in the article are specific to the plant biology field since I am a plant biology graduate student. However, they can be translated to any other science field. 

When to start

A simple answer would be earlier the better. Whether it is a BSc or MSc student thinking to study abroad, try to decide your career trajectory in the early years of your degree. You can still keep other options like considering a job and pursuing a post bachelor’s study from your country open for yourself if you are not sure. However, if studying abroad is one of your options you better start preparing for it right away.

That being said it is never late as well to start preparing for studying abroad. The only thing is if you have completed your degree already, a gap period might hurt your profile if you were disconnected from the field of your study during that time.

Things you need to do as part of the preparation

GRE

 There are tons of tips and resources for GRE preparation already, so I will not go into preparation details. I will share less discussed aspects of GRE.

For preparation, an average student needs 250-300 hours of formal preparation before the test. You can stretch out it to a different number of days based on your schedule. However, ETS says GRE tests your analytical, verbal reasoning, and quantitative reasoning abilities accumulated over the years. So, it is better to start preparing for GRE informally from the first year of your program.  

Second, while assessing or setting a target score do not think in terms of cumulative scores or absolute scores for each section. Think in terms of percentiles, for each section separately. Graduate school and departmental committees look at percentiles of individual sections while reviewing applications, not the absolute scores.  

Lastly, several schools/departments are dropping GRE as a requirement from their programs. If you have targeted some departments/programs/schools before GRE preparation it is worth exploring their GRE requirements.

English language proficiency test

Again, like GRE this topic is well covered and discussed. The only advice I would give here is just being honest about your English language proficiency and start working on it accordingly.

Research experience

 Research experience is the most important thing to prepare for while planning to apply for US graduate schools. I recommend a BSc student must get involved in research activities in their department or via internships to earn around a two-year research experience. The first few months can be like training in different techniques and methods, but the student must complete at least one research project while in their BSc. If possible, try to present your work at a conference (regional national, or international). It might seem a lot but BS students in the US preparing for graduate school are involved in intensive research and usually attend various conferences in their respective fields as well.

Referees

Letters of recommendations are another essential component of the application. Usually, three letters of recommendation are required. It is better if your referees know more about you than merely your grades. It will help them to write a more personal and unique letter of recommendation for you. Working in different professors’ labs, out-of-class discussions and active class participation can help professors know who you are and your academic caliber.

Good academic record

Your grades not only reflect your understanding of the subject but also gives information about your sincerity, persistence, and discipline.  So, it better to work hard on courses and earn good grades. Although, you do not need perfect scores but more the better.

Mental preparation

Lastly, you need to prepare yourself to move to a new place with a different culture away from your comfort zone. Invest in mental health and resources so that after arriving in the US if feel homesick, lonely, stressed, or directionless in your research work, you can tackle it and can seek help if needed.

Effective ways for finding positions

Career portals

Many professors/labs post openings on various career portals. Career portals are hosted by either societies or other database websites. So, students can identify societies in their field of interest and check their websites for career portals. Here I am giving links to some career portals specific to plant biology students.

https://www.arabidopsis.org/news/jobs.jsp

https://www.careerplacement.org/

http://plantae.org/

http://wheat.pw.usda.gov/GG3/job-openings

Students in other fields can use these links as an example and search similar portals in their respective fields.

Academic Twitter and LinkedIn

Twitter and LinkedIn are other great platforms where professors share openings in their labs. It is better to follow as many active professors, post-docs, and graduate students so that you do not miss any opportunities. Although posts from 'not following' can appear in your feed as well because job opening posts are heavily retweeted/shared/liked. You can optimize your Twitter by only following relevant people and unfollow other highly active accounts such as celebrities' accounts and news channels etc. Also, you can create another account just for your searching positions.

Program search optimization

Lastly to search for positions you can navigate through different universities and their departments. Some departments have dedicated sections for opportunities. For others, you will have to go and check the faculty’s lab websites individually.

Finally, if you find a lab that matches your research interests but has not posted any openings anywhere you can contact the professor directly and state your interests.

Now, navigating through hundreds of universities and departments can be tedious and overwhelming. You can create a shortlist of universities by applying several filters. First, download a list of the top 200-300 ranking universities in your field. Two great websites for filtering universities based on different fields are:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2020

Once you have the list of universities you can further accelerate your search by using keywords related to your field to reach departmental websites. For example, while searching for plant biology-related departments in your desired university you can simply use these keywords as department names along with university names in your search engine; ‘plant biology’, ‘plant sciences’, ‘horticultural sciences’, and ‘crop sciences’.

Additionally, not all faculty members hire their graduate students via direct email contact. For many departments’ faculty members select students once the department has approved the applications. So, for such departments, you can directly apply to the departmental program and may share what labs you are interested in via your statement of purpose.

The last piece of advice while searching for positions is to have clarity of your own research goals. If you know what you want to pursue you can shortlist universities, departments, and faculty fairly easily and channelize your energy on your filtered list.

Your turn

Start with the preparation first. Once you have completed a significant number of things in the first section of the article, you can start thinking about finding positions. Remember, graduate positions are competitive, so you need a disciplined plan of action to find a position and get accepted. Thus, start early and stay regular towards your efforts in finding positions. Finally, best wishes for your preparation and search for a graduate positions in the US.