All Posts

Of all the topics I discuss with aspiring graduate students, personal statements tend to incite the most dread. Many people prefer not to talk or write about themselves, and the task of capturing the arc of one’s life along with their values and ambitions in about a page is daunting. My advice is always the same: break it down into pieces and chip away at it, one piece at a time. Personal statements are really difficult to write start-to-finish in one sitting; an effective pr

One of the most important elements of a graduate school application are supporting letters of recommendation (LORs). These letters, typically from allied professionals in the field a student seeks to pursue, serve to both certify a candidate’s aptitude for the graduate program and endorse their candidacy broadly—as qualified, capable, and fit to thrive in a rigorous graduate program. I am often surprised and dismayed, though, when... relationships with prospective letter-writ

This is a particularly hectic time of year for medical students, but the decisions they face with deciding where to apply and ultimately where to attend school are the same as students in other disciplines: What school is the best fit for me, and how do I assess fit? How much do I care about status and official rankings? What rankings matter to me? How much should I value extracurricular factors like location, proximity to family, etc.? What would I like to see in my cohort?

I am sometimes confronted with a challenge that confounds applicants and families, one that reflects how little they sometimes know about the graduate school admissions process. I occasionally meet with students who have very high GPAs and outstanding standardized test scores, and they expect that those two markers alone will earn them admission to top programs. What these individuals have failed to understand, whether deliberately or because no one told them, is that schools