6: Identifying a Good Grad Program

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hi, everyone. Today I was actually planning on recording an episode talking about the personal statement and the diversity statement. But I actually had a request. And so I decided I might as well just go on and record on the request rather than on what I was planning. So I will eventually get to the personal statement and diversity statement. But today, I'm actually going to talk about how to identify a good graduate program. This is something that I've had students ask me time and time again. It's not the easiest thing to do, I understand. But I'm going to give you some three quick tips for how to identify a good grad program. And then after that, what you should do next, after you've tried out those three things.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The first thing is, if you're applying to graduate school, odds are you have conducted some research. You have some experience. And if you don't, you at least have some developing research interests. So based on your research interests, you should try to think about the key readings in your field and your discipline and your topic of interest. From there, identify: who are the key players? Who are the scholars that you keep running into? Go on and check the references list and see if there are individuals that you know, you keep following their work. Then find out: where did these individuals get their PhDs? Where are they employed now? How do you do that? Well, a quick Google search will let you know where they're employed. The Google search may or may not list where they got their PhD. Though, by now, it seems like most departmental web pages have some sort of bio on their faculty. It'll say where they got their PhD from, and their recent publications. Sometimes it even posts their CV. And of course, you can look that up there.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So those are some good places, just to get started: is taking a look at your readings, because your readings are integral to the work that you want to do. If they're, you know, certain individuals that are already studying what you want to study, that you keep citing over and over again, then you may want to work with them. If these individuals have already retired, then try to find out: who did they advise? Who came after them? Who are their predecessors? And see if those folks are available. How do you do that? One way that I've kind of had students look up the folks that came after them is by checking out ProQuest. If you go to the ProQuest website, especially if you're a student, you most likely have access to this website. You go to ProQuest. And there's a dissertation and thesis site. Then there, there's actually an ability to look up several dissertations. But you can also look up the chair of a dissertation. So you look up that individual's name as the chair or the advisor of that dissertation. And you don't have to put a title of any dissertation because you don't know what you're looking for. But you know who you're looking for. You're looking for that individual, you're looking as that individual being the chair or the advisor of the dissertation. Once you click search, you'll see a list of different dissertations that came out with that individual as the advisor for that dissertation. And those are the people that got their dissertations already, and that likely are assistant professors, associate professors now. You can look them up and see where they are. If they worked with this individual, then perhaps they also have interests that mirror yours. So that's the first way that I recommend that you look for programs is really by checking out your readings. Find out who you're frequently citing, and then look for them.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, so recommendation number two: how do you identify a grad program? Another really good way to do this is by actually just asking around. Ask your faculty mentor, if you have one. Ask other professors in your department, maybe people that you've taken classes with. Talk to your TAs and let them know; do they have any recommendations for graduate programs? Sometimes they'll even tell you which programs to stay away from. You may want to ask them why. Sometimes they'll tell you well, stay away from that program because they're not a good ranking program. Or maybe they have faculty who are notorious for not being very supportive. Or perhaps I don't know, I mean, there are different reasons why individuals may not recommend a program. But definitely take their advice seriously, especially if they're recommending a program. If they're recommending it, it's probably either from experience or because they have colleagues who have been there, and that's going to provide you with much more information than anything you would find online about the program. So that's number two. Recommendation number two, how to find a grad program, is by reaching out to your network, talking to professors and TAs and asking them if they recommend any particular program and why.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The third way is actually the way that students most often, at least in my experience, look for programs. It's not the most efficient way to look for programs. But it still works. This is by checking out the US News and reports and identifying the top 10 to 20 programs in your discipline. One thing I will say, just as a caveat: you don't want to just have top 10 programs in your grad school list. Especially if they're top 10, and you haven't even looked up the faculty to see if there's anybody even remotely interested in what you're interested in doing. It's very risky to have just the top 10 lists, grad school lists, because there's no certainty that you're going to get in. Programs are so competitive that you want to have a bit of a range. You want to have programs that are not just top 10, but maybe top 20. So that's why I usually recommend, check out the top 20 programs in your discipline. From there, check out their departmental websites and see if there are any professors conducting research that you're interested in. It's as easy as that. But it is probably more time consuming than doing the other two things that I recommended, which was either: identifying people from your readings or asking your network who they recommend or what programs they recommend. But again, checking out US News and reports doesn't hurt. You probably don't want to be applying to the school that's ranked number 55 in your discipline, because having a PhD from that discipline may not necessarily get you the kind of job that you may want after that. There are reasons why they're ranked number 55. If it's really a school that you're really excited about, and you still want to apply even though they're number 55, then I would want you to seriously consider contacting recent graduates from that program to see what they're doing now, just so that you can get an idea of where you'll end up. Who knows, it might not be so bad. I know I may be wrong. But typically, I recommend you try to stick to the top 20 programs, if possible, especially if you consider yourself a competitive candidate. What do I mean by competitive? Maybe you have some research experience. Maybe your GPA is above a 3.5. Maybe you scored average, or above average, within the GREs. I'm not saying you have to have a perfect GPA, a perfect GRE score, and three, four years of research experience. But you do have to have some experience, and a decent GPA and a decent GRE score to have a good chance of getting into a top 10 program.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, so those are my quick tips, three tips for how to look up a good graduate program. The next thing that you need to do after this is, and this is what you need to do if you're applying to graduate school this cycle. If you know you're not going to apply until next year, then it may be too early to do this now. But what you do is you start reaching out to those professors. If you found two to three professors at a university that you're excited about applying to, then start to reach out to them. Reach out to the one that is the best fit for you because this person will likely be your advisor if you get into this program and go. You reach out to them to schedule a time to meet with them. When you meet with them, this is a time for you to get to know them, for them to get to know you. Remember: you get to interview them too. This is a time to find out if they're a good fit for you. And also, this is the time for you to ask them if they're accepting graduate students this cycle. This is important to do. And this is a requirement if you're in STEM. If you're in STEM, you absolutely need to reach out to your professors, the people that you're interested in working with. Yes, for every single school on your grad school list, because you don't want to be wasting your time applying to a graduate program if that individual, or the individuals you're interested in, are not accepting students. In a lot of STEM fields, if you don't reach out to them and get an informal yes from them before you apply that: yes, they're accepting graduate students, and yes, they're interested in you, they're not going to admit you, if you didn't reach out to them beforehand. I just want you to know that because not everybody realizes this when they're applying to grad school. Or they may find out too late. It can just kind of complicate things if you find out later than you hoped.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

For Humanities and Social Science students, even though it's not a requirement, per se, I still highly recommend it. I do think that it helps out a lot. A lot of times our students, or my students, if you're low income, first gen, there's a lot of imposter syndrome that you're going through. You probably think that, oh, if I meet with them, then they're going to realize that I'm a fraud, that I didn't read their work, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm gonna make a fool of myself, they're gonna remember who I am, and they're gonna automatically reject me. I know you're having these feelings, because I've had the exact same feelings of: how in the world am I going to read? I don't even know who this person is. I haven't read their whole article, maybe I just read the first few pages of their book, or maybe I just read the abstract of something. They seem really cool, but I am not a hundred percent confident in myself. I know that feeling. I know it's a lot of professors. Let's say you have a dozen schools. And for all of them, you're reaching out to one professor, and for all of them, you're trying to read at least one article. Then you have a dozen articles to read. And that can seem overwhelming.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Don't let that get in the way of you reaching out to them. In fact, reach out to them before you've even finished reading their work. You want to read some of it because you don't want to just flat out reach out to someone who maybe isn't a good fit, because you didn't do enough research. So you do want to do some research. But then you'll have that time. It's almost like accountability. You're instilling accountability for yourself, because you'll have some time in between when you reach out to them and when you schedule that time. So I know that's what I would do when I was an undergraduate was reach out to people. And then I'd get really nervous and scared and was like, oh no, now I really need to read their work. Well, then yes, that's what I did. Because I knew that I had a meeting with them in a few days. I'd carve out some time to read their work, take some notes, schedule a phone meeting with them have my notes in front of me while I was talking to them. And I would have my questions. These were questions that I would ask them, in case there was awkward silence or in case I felt uncomfortable or felt like I was blanking out or got super nervous. Keep in mind, I was that undergraduate that was very introverted. And so these are some of the things that allowed me to still go through the process and the steps to get into graduate school despite how much I was struggling with imposter syndrome and really just wanted to run away and not talk to anyone.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But those are my tips. I wanted to keep this short. I actually wanted to keep it under 10 minutes, but I didn't quite do that. Just three tips. Take a look at your readings. Talk to your networks. Look up the US News and reports top 20 programs. Then once you've done that, one of the three and you have a good list of grad programs, start contacting these professors. If you are struggling with wanting to know what to ask them, feel free to send me an email and I'll gladly share some tips for questions that you could ask them when you're first reaching out to them. Alright, good luck.