Graduate School Talk

Last week at our NSSLHA meeting, Dr.Huber talked to us about graduate schools. As this mostly applied to juniors and seniors, it was very critical for freshman and sophomores to pay attention, because they will be going through the same process in less than three years.

Since I am currently a junior and have been a part of NSSLHA for three years, I have now heard Dr.Huber’s talk for the third time. Every single time I listened to her speech, I rigorously took notes and tried to absorb as much information as possible. I thought it would be helpful if I did a recap of some of the things she had talked about in case students needed a refresher or if someone had not attended that meeting.

GRE

-Try and get over the 50^th percentile. How can you do this? By studying a lot!

-Your overall goal of taking this test is to be able to answer the question without knowing the answers.

TRANSCRIPT & GPA

-When graduate schools look at your transcript, they want to see that you took harder classes such as math and sciences. They don’t want to see you take multiple easy classes and get a high GPA. For example, they would rather you take a hard social science class and get a little lower GPA rather a few art classes and a higher GPA.

LETTERS OR RECOMMENDATION

-Ask people that know you well! The points of these letters are to get to know you better.

-Try to get at least 1 letter from our SLHS department. You want 3 letters, sometimes 4, depending on the schools you apply to.

-It’s also more polite to ask the professor in person rather than an email to see if they can write you one.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

-This is one of the most important parts at Purdue!

-Let your true and authentic self come onto the paper. Make sure this part is reflective and not just you listing things like you would on a resume.

-Make sure this part is read and reread multiple times! There should be no spelling and grammar mistakes.

I truly believe that if you work hard on all of these parts and get everything turned in on time, you will have a better chance of getting accepted into your dream schools!

Good-luck to all of our fellow seniors applying to grad schools! We believe in you J