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Here are just a few things I wish I truly understood about graduate school before applying.
It is expensive
I know what you are thinking Ucha…college is expensive. This is worse, way worse. Undergraduate institutions are more than willing to meet you half way for any academic achievements. The GRE is a $200+ exam and that is if you take it once. I remember when I went to pay for it I burst into tears seeing the $205 on the screen, I thought it was $175. Depending if you go to school out of state or in state and the school you go to there could be around a $20,000 difference in price. In graduate school this matters because grants no longer exist and fellowships become few and far between. Fellowships also becoming very specific, instead of them being for a black graduate student they become for black women studying economics at 5 select schools
It is emotionally draining
Often as women of color we are taught to be strong and keep going, but if you have been doing that already in college finding a second wind during your senior year is not easy. One of the parts of the application is writing
want you to summarize for them in a limited number of words who you are, your goals, how the school will help with those goals, and how your background will serve the school. You have to do some soul searching at a time where you can often feel like you are losing touch with yourself with questions of what to do next and where to go and if you should even be applying. It is not easy to write additional essays, stay up studying the GRE, and working to save up money to pay for these things while still being as active and engaged as we are as sisters of this organization. Towards the end of my senior year, I found myself becoming irritable simply because my plate was so full I could not even see the plate anymore.
You can haggle
So remember how I told you that everything was expensive? Well…it still is but good news! You can haggle. For those of you who have relatives from countries where prices aren’t fixed you can smile because you know exactly what I am talking about. For those of you who have never seen haggling in action it is great. It’s the ability to go back and forth about the value of something and instead of it being shirts or oranges its’ your education. This was a skill I never utilized that my mentor told me about and I honestly felt like I should have just been satisfied with getting in. I did not want to push my luck, but that was me not believing in my power. If you have applied to multiple schools you can let them know that other schools are paying you more or that for you to leave the state you are going to need more money, Graduate schools admit fewer people so they have the money to spend, closed mouths do not get fed!
a personal statement (I could write a whole other article about just this insanity), graduate programs