Graduate school programs vary by institution. This resource contains general information and a recommended timeline for the application process, but please refer to your institution’s deadlines.
Get in touch with your academic advisor and/or other professors or mentors to begin discussing your graduate school plans.
Develop an initial list of possible schools to share with your advisor. Make note of the deadlines and sort this list by the earliest deadline first. Please use this student grad school application tracker as a resource for your own use and to show to your advisor.
First week of Fall Semester
Deadline! Register for the GRE general test, if applicable to your program. See the ETS website for details. Note, many programs no longer require the GRE exam for applicants.
Meet with your advisor to discuss graduate school plans, work on refining your list of possible schools, and discuss a possible set of people to write your letters of recommendation.
September 15
Request letters of recommendation. You don’t need to provide materials for letter-writers yet, but you should ask people to write your letters and know who is going to write for you.Once you know who your letter-writers are, complete a Letter of Recommendation Data Release Form for each person.
Graduate School Information Session at 4:15 – 5:30 in Galileo (during the usual colloquium time slot).
October 2
Deadline! Complete the HMC Graduate School Intent Form online. We need this in order to optimize our letters of recommendation for you. The faculty discuss each applicant in order to make sure that we have as much useful and positive information to convey in our letters as soon as possible.
Show a draft statement of purpose essay to your advisor and/or other faculty member for review.
If you are applying for an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship or another fellowship or graduate program with a November deadline, provide your letter-writers with the materials listed on the letters of recommendation page.
You’ll probably hear back from your graduate schools in March or April. If some of your friends hear earlier, don’t panic! Graduate admissions often occurs in a distributed asynchronous fashion and we’ve seen lots of folks admitted to their program in March even though some of their friends heard in February.
Go and visit the schools to which you were admitted. Normally, they’ll pay your way. You’ll need to miss class at Mudd to go, but it’s worthwhile! Before you go, talk to your advisor or mentor about the kinds of things you might want to look for and questions to ask.