Approaches for a Successful Academic Admissions Application
- Dajahi Wiley
- Aug 11, 2017
- 2 min read
It is August and we are just weeks away from undergraduate and graduate school application season being in full swing. It is a moment that many prospective students have been planning for and building toward for years.
How can you prepare applications that maximize your chances of experiencing a successful academic admissions season?
We will set aside matters related to improving your grades, standardized test scores, and experience given that you are on the eve of applying and those elements are mostly set in stone at this point.
The first step that demands attention is learning about each institution and program you are interested in, and what qualities, metrics, and experiences they value in a candidate and his or her background. Based on your research, you should determine if each institution and program would meet your needs, open doors for you, and bring you closer to your goals.
If you determine that to be the case, the flip side of that is you have to now convince and demonstrate to the admissions board that your enrollment would bring an intelligent, well-rounded, and interesting student to their campus.
You need to know, and communicate as clearly as possible, what you hope to gain from attending an institution and how that institution will provide you with the tools and opportunities to reach your goals. While this is important for undergraduate applicants, it is doubly important for graduate school applicants, because graduate students embark upon a very specific course of study and research track. In other words, at the graduate school level, there is virtually no getting around knowing and clearly communicating this reasoning. Undergraduate applicants are expected to be less sure of the direction they want to go in, and the process allows some wiggle room for that. Graduate school applicants do not have the same leeway.
If you can identify and communicate 1) the ways that attending an institution would propel you forward and 2) the ways you would help enrich the student body and broader community of the institution, you will have taken a considerable, differentiating step ahead of the majority of the applicant pack.
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