Graduate application committees will look at the following things:
- Transcripts to learn what academic background you have, whether you are missing some of the basic requirements, and how well you did in classes.
- Test scores are typically used more in figuring out which applicants to compare you against; from what I’ve heard, these don’t make much of an impact except in close cases.
- Underrepresented in your area. Unlike as an undergraduate, schools are able to choose to allot positions to people who are underrepresented. The exception being that schools cannot ask about disability status.
- Letters of Recommendation that you have requested. Who supports you and what do they have to say about you?
- Statement of Purpose is your only contribution that you have complete present control over. What can you say in your own defense?
My transcripts are alright. 3.0/4 GPA means that I do fairly well in my classes. The questionable aspects are low scores in math courses and that at my first university I specialized in Advertising and switched to Computer Science when I transferred.
My GRE test scores are abysmal and I don’t expect they will improve. It is very time consuming to get the ETS to approve alternative testing for people with disabilities. In addition, I would still need to take the exam at the standard ETS testing locations; at my university, this is a room with noisy computers and painful fluorescent lights.
My letters of recommendation I can expect to be fantastic. There’s a number of reasons for this:
- All letters come from university faculty members. Professors prefer letters from other professors; it gives a point of reference.
- My letters are by professors I have worked with. The worst kind of letter to have sent are ones that say “X did well in my super-hard course;” they can see that in the transcript. My professors know me well enough to comment on my work ethic, researcher potential, and personality.
So, I am a female, disabled student in computer science. I know the female portion will give me a boost when competing against European and European-American males. That said, it doesn’t guarantee me acceptance. In contrast to the “reverse racism” ideologists, I still need to earn acceptance.
Which is where the statement of purpose comes into play. To get into any of my chosen schools, I need a great statement of purpose. Things that I should not include:
- My disabilities. There’s a very good reason why universities can’t ask about disability status: many people (independent of their backgrounds) have a negative bias about disability.
- Self-deprecating language. I have quite a propensity to say what I have done as being less impactful than it is.
- Humor. I don’t know who will be reading it. They may be culturally different and not find humor where I do. They may simply not read the humor into it (humor tends to die once one has read a few hundred essays). They may simply have a different sense of humor.
- My failings. Despite advisors telling you to explain why you have had a shortcoming (such as my poor math skills), you should not remind the reader of something negative found elsewhere in your application. 1) It solidifies the shortcoming more in memory. 2) The explanation may come across as making excuses.
So, I need to be serious, upbeat, and force myself to brag about my accomplishments. Not exactly my strongest feature.
It’s actually because of graduate school that I started refract.me. I needed an outlet to practice writing about myself in at least a neutral if not positive manner. And I’ve done reasonably well. I have nice overviews of my projects, for example.
