Your Application Roadmap

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Welcome to the October edition of the GradSchool Fully Funded newsletter. This newsletter is my monthly conversation with you about all things graduate school admissions. If you aspire to attend graduate school in the United States to obtain a master's or PhD, and to do so with full funding, then you are in the right place. And if not but you know someone who does, please feel free to share this with them.

Every month we will discuss at least one thing that will help you along that path. As a newsletter subscriber, you will also get access to exclusive special offers and discounts.

Strategy in Graduate School Admission: Your All-Important List

In recent editions of the newsletter I discussed the importance of purpose in graduate school admissions - including figuring out your "what and why," your "then what," and understanding your prospective discipline. Purpose is one of the pillars of our framework in GradSchool Fully Funded, our grad school admissions coaching program, in which we work with our clients to secure admission into U.S. graduate programs with full funding.

Another pillar in our three-pillar framework is strategy. To succeed in securing admission into grad school with full funding, you need a well-laid out strategy. In GradSchool Fully Funded we discuss four dimensions of your strategy. Today, I will focus on one: Build your grad school application list.

Where do you want to attend graduate school? Do you want to be in a big city, small town, sub-urban setting or rural area? Do you want to be close to family or particular locations of cultural significance to you? Do you have a family and will that factor into where you live? Do you need to be in close proximity to a certain location because of work experience you might gain?

These are all questions to ponder as you decide to build your graduate school list. Of course deciding where to apply will be easier if you have figured out your purpose in applying to graduate school.

We believe the most important consideration is whether or not a graduate program will offer you full funding. That is our north star and we encourage students to keep that front of mind. All other values you have in selecting a graduate program follow from this foundational requirement.

While ignoring this cardinal rule might be tempting for a variety of reasons, do not be fooled. You do not need to incur massive debt to obtain a graduate degree. This is especially true for prospective PhD students. You are going to be in school for at least 5 years. This will be years of lost fulltime income.

If you plan on pursuing a PhD, you should aspire to a program that will give you full funding - a tuition scholarship and a stipend. Period. Non-negotiable. If you don't have this, don't begin the program. It is not worth it to incur this kind of debt.

We cover this extensively in GradSchool Fully Funded. You can join us, to get help marrying your purpose with a strategy that will result in admission to fully-funded programs, beginning with building your grad school list.

I look forward to having you in the program. If you still have any questions about the program, you can book a 15-minute call with me here.

To grad school fully funded,

Dr. Faith Okpotor Founder and CFF Head Coach National Center for Higher Education Access Award-winning academic and tenured professor

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