Just a few days ago, I posed a question to the Your Grad School Coach Facebook page (if you’re not connected, you can do so here):
“If you had ONE question about graduate school, what would it be?”
Shout out to YGSC fan Brooke for posing the following question: “Is it really that hard to get into grad school? Should I be as worried as I am? I worried a lot for undergrad and it wasn’t even that big of a deal.”
Wouldn’t it be some kind of crazy to get all worked up about getting accepted to graduate school – only to find out that you were making a big deal out of nothing? Just how hard is it to get into grad school?
Competitive Is The Name of the Game
Getting into grad school is typically not so much “hard” as it is competitive. There are only a certain number of seats available for each incoming class. The amount of available seats can be surprisingly small, depending on the field. Imagine hundreds of applicants competing for 3 or 4 seats. It happens.
Also, as the years go by, more people are opting to continue their education beyond a bachelor’s degree. The end result? There are more applicants in competition for admission than ever. It also means that graduate programs can choose to admit only the “cream of the crop.”
Another general corollary? The higher the graduate program’s ranking, the more applicants you can expect to compete with. Acceptance rates can be very low. Like single-digit percentage acceptance rates.
Whether all of these applicants are a good fit is a completely different story. Spending a ton of time applying to a graduate program that is not a good fit… Well, isn’t a very good idea, and few are rewarded with acceptance letters.
Competitive But Far From Impossible
Generally speaking, if you’re applying to a traditional graduate program at a non-profit institution, you can expect this information to ring true, regardless of the field.
Many fret about getting into grad school… for good reason! The odds of receiving an acceptance letter can be far lower than getting into an undergraduate program. But there’s no need to worry yourself sick. Instead, get proactive. Find out how a grad school coach can help (ahem, me!).
One last caveat: Nontraditional graduate programs are a different deal completely, which I will discuss in my next blog. Stay tuned.
