Life after college…it can be hard to fathom actually getting to the diploma, no matter how many years you’ve been in school. But what happens after graduation? Most of your peers will be joining the work force, but a decent percentage will move on to even higher education and pursue master’s degrees, PhDs, or professional certifications. While the job application process is hard, getting into and completing a post-graduate degree is even harder. Having experienced the trials and tribulations firsthand, I’m here to share some tips so you can decide whether moving on to even MORE school is the right choice for you.

Towards the end of my junior year of undergrad, I realized that I had to start thinking of a post-college plan. I was finishing a Bachelor’s in English, had no clue what career path I wanted to pursue, and was having way too much fun on Thirsty Thursdays to want to give up my laid-back student lifestyle. So, I decided to elongate my college experience by going to grad school. Boy, did I get a rude awakening.

Once you’ve finished your Bachelor’s degree, choosing a path for the future should be taken very seriously. If you are considering moving on to graduate or doctorate work, don’t make the same mistakes I made.

The first thing you need before you begin applying to graduate schools is TIME. I decided to get a masters on a whim a few weeks into the fall semester of my senior year. I found myself trying to balance fifteen credit hours, two part-time jobs, and an active social life with preparing for the application process. I didn’t anticipate simply applying to schools to be so much work, so in my mind, I had plenty of time to apply to and choose a school, while fighting a major case of senioritis (in the form of an unyielding craving for margaritas).

Before you even decide to start looking at schools, you need to ask yourself: Am I willing to set aside the time?

Plan to spend a considerable amount of time on each of the following: letters of reference; searching for schools; choosing a program; taking the required tests and collecting writing samples or other materials; and making the final decision.

1. Letters of Reference

In high school, you work much more closely with teachers than you do with the majority of your college professors. You might have aced your psychology lecture freshman year, but chances are, a TA who has since moved on to publishing articles was the one grading your exams, and your professor has no clue who you are. Or perhaps you did do well in smaller sized classes, but it was a graduate student who taught the class. That being said, it took me a while just to weed out three solid references out of 60 or so credit hours.

Oh, and even after I chose my three references, I had one professor decline my request. FYI: If you can’t handle being rejected for a reference, grad school probably isn’t for you anyway. I totally understood the teacher’s reason; I asked her for a reference because she was the only professor I’d taken more than one class with, but I had gotten a B in one class and an A in the other. She felt that the “B” in the first class didn’t demonstrate graduate level scholarship. Looking back, I’m sure she was swamped with reference request from kids who had gotten flying A’s in every course she taught. But that still meant I had to find one more reference.

Once you’ve solidified your refs, they will probably want to meet with you to discuss your reasons for wanting to go to grad school, your ultimate career goals, and your basic interests outside of their class. Be prepared to answer these questions! It’s not a bad idea to make up a folder or packet for your references that includes a list of each of your prospective schools and application deadlines, a copy of your resume (so the professor can acknowledge your accomplishments both in and out of the classroom), and samples of the work you did for their class. Since I was an English major, I gave each of my references a copy of the best paper I wrote in each of their respective classes, because after reading hundreds of essays per semester, chances are, they’d forgotten the thesis statement of my final paper.

As you can see, simply getting people to refer you to a graduate program is a lot of work, and requires a variety of efforts: writing professional, polished emails to ask for a reference, organizing packets for each reference, and meeting one on one with your professors (which will be at THEIR leisure, of course, not when it’s most convenient for you). The good news is, if you can’t even get past this step, at least you haven’t wasted too much time in the first place. If you can muddle through the references-debacle, you’re one step closer to becoming a grad student…but there will be many more obstacles along the way.

Come back next Tuesday for more grad school tips.