My best advice on applying to grad school
The most common questions I get from viewers and readers are about advice for applying to graduate school. And that makes sense. I got my PhD at Yale and I was a NSF fellow, so I have something to say. Furthermore, getting into graduate school can change your life, opening career paths and adding tens of thousands of dollars to your salary. You don’t want to mess that up!
The good news is that there are some really simple things you can do to write a statement of purpose that stands out and get good letters of recommendation from your professors. Unfortunately, most students don’t know about these techniques.
To help you create a strong application that gets you accepted to your dream programs, I decided to compile my best advice into a course. Introducing, GradSchool Gateway.
GradSchool Gateway is an online video masterclass with the best advice on applying to graduate school. I piloted this course with a student getting ready for graduate school, and here’s what he said.
“This course has so much value in it. The advice was a game-changer for me. I appreciated the authentic approach, and the real-world examples added depth. He mentioned things I’d never heard, and it inspired a ton of ideas for my application.” Brett S.
With this course you get
Over 2 hours of video instruction. And this isn’t two hours of padded videos designed for a recommendation algorithm. This is two hours packed with advice and trimmed of fluff. It’s the exact advice I would give you if you were my student sitting across my desk.
Strategies for making your Statement of Purpose stand out. Advice on SOPs are riddled with misconceptions about what it’s supposed to communicate. We’ll talk about how your SOP can show both your unique background and your preparation for graduate school.
How to get strong Letters of Recommendation. As a professor, I know that 82% of students do not know how to approach their letter writers. We talk about avoiding the mistakes that wreck your chances to get a good letter and discuss strategies to get those professors ready to endorse you.
Winning the NSF GRFP. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is considered one of the most prestigious awards for graduate students. We tackle the best approaches and how you can satisfy that pesky broader impact requirement.
6 real application essays. For the first time ever, I’m making my personal application essays available. This includes the statement of purpose that got me into Yale and the three essays that won me the NSF GRFP. I even include the (cringey) essays from the year I lost the NSF so you can see the difference between good essays and bad ones.
Course worksheet. Act on what you learn with the worksheet.
Access to an AMA on Oct 28. You might still have questions after watching these videos. So I’m going to hold an Ask Me Anything (AMA) about grad school on Oct 28. If you take the course and submit your questions before Oct 27, I’ll answer your questions live. If you can’t make it, don’t worry, I’ll post a recording you can review.
A three-month membership on the Market Power Newsletter. You will get access to the paywalled articles on this newsletter for three months.
Who would benefit most from this course?
This advice will work best for people pursuing a PhD or a Master’s with a thesis component. The field doesn’t matter. Obviously, a lot of my examples will be from economics, but the advice applies to any social science or STEM field.
If you’re applying for an MBA, MD, JD, or anything similar…this course probably isn’t for you. I imagine that some of the advice transfers, but I also feel like there are idiosyncrasies about those programs that I’m unaware of.
And to be clear, this advice is good whether you’re applying right now or thinking of applying in the years to come. In fact, it’s almost better for those applying in the future because it will give them ideas for what they can do between now and then.
I’m interested in the masterclass
If you want just the video course, click this button. Remember that if you register by Oct 27, you can submit questions to the Oct 28 AMA.
But I can’t afford the course
For so many reasons, there will be people who can’t afford this course. I totally get it. I still want you to get some benefit from supporting Market Power. So I’m offering the worksheet from the course as a free download. Just click this button.
This is my first time seeing this newsletter
Well then, you can subscribe for free!