Get Clear. Get Into Grad School. Get On With Your Life. by Dr. Khia on September 23, 2011
U.S. News and World Reports is very well-known as a publication for its yearly rankings of the Best Colleges in America. According to the methodology information on their website, colleges and universities are ranked according to the following quality indicators:
- Peer assessment
- Graduation and retention rates
- Faculty resources
- Student selectivity
- Financial resources
- Alumni giving
- Graduation rate performance*
- High school counselor undergraduate academic reputation ratings*
Also rankings for the year 2012 include regionally accredited for-profit colleges and universities for the first time ever, such as online bachelor-degree program granting institutions. (*Asterisks denote indicators used for national and liberal arts colleges only).
[click to continue…]
Get Clear. Get Into Grad School. Get On With Your Life. by Dr. Khia on September 19, 2011
A few weeks ago, I discussed how an accountability partner can dramatically improve your chances of getting your applications in order and being successfully admitted to your graduate program of choice. If you’re a college student, it is high-time to start mining your social connections for candidates – classes, clubs or organizations, even online forums.
But first things first…. How do you identify good candidates for accountability partners? Here are a few tips: [click to continue…]
Get Clear. Get Into Grad School. Get On With Your Life. by Dr. Khia on September 12, 2011
Just recently, I blogged a little bit about “being wrong,” or specifically what I learned through being rejected from grad school. Twice. The first time I applied to Ph.D. programs in psychology was in 2000. Then again in 2002. It wasn’t until my third try in 2003 that I finally got an acceptance letter. Multiple acceptance letters, actually.
To be real, it’s very easy for me to sit where I’m sitting now and proclaim that I learned something beneficial each time I applied, that it made me more knowledge about the graduate admissions process. While all of that is definitely true, my experience in the “meantime” of not knowing whether I would get in if I tried again is a completely different story.
A reader asked me the following question in response to my piece on grad school rejection:
How did you overcome the ego blow of not getting in on the first try? How did you overcome of the fear of failure of trying it again?
And the answer is simple as this question… Is this what you are MEANT to be doing or not? [click to continue…]
Get Clear. Get Into Grad School. Get On With Your Life. by Dr. Khia on September 1, 2011
Your best ally in applying to graduate school is someone who is right there in the trenches with you. That’s right – someone you can meet in the library to research which programs are best to apply to, download application packets, proofread your essay draft, and call, text, or IM every now and then to commiserate over how frustrating the entire grad school application process can be.
This person – your ally, your ace, your partner in crime – is what’s called an accountability partner. A strict definition of the term is a working relationship with someone who can help keep you on task. If you are BFF with a dirty word called procrastination, let’s just say that you need to find an accountability partner, like, yesterday.
Many hopes of getting into grad school have been dashed by waiting until the last minute to get your applications in order. [click to continue…]
Get Clear. Get Into Grad School. Get On With Your Life. by Dr. Khia on August 18, 2011
A former classmate of mine shared an article that I think the ENTIRE WORLD should know about. The oh-so-important topic? Shame in academic writing.
You know the feeling. You’ve lost sleep, worked super duper hard on an important paper, spent hours of your life that you will never get back trying to capture your eloquent thoughts in standard 12-point Times New Roman font. You turn it in, hoping to get an A, but halfway fearing that it might not measure up. Or at worse, your professor will laugh uproariously at your best effort.
I remember once working through the night on a draft of my master’s thesis. The feedback on my great piece of theoretical work was less than stellar. MUCH less than stellar. So un-stellar it was that I immediately burst into tears after reading the professor’s comments. It is still a blur to this day, but I remember something about “disjointed and disorganized.”
You may have figured that the fear of incompetence, incoherency, and lack of brilliancy eventually goes away. Sorry to burst more bubbles… but nope it doesn’t. Don’t believe me? Read on for the anecdote of a tenured professor who felt the same exact way! [click to continue…]
