What can you do now to prepare for a Ph.D. application/program?

You may be convinced that a Ph.D. is for you, you may be exploring your options, or you may just want to keep as many doors open as you can. Below are some of my thoughts on what you can do now. For someone else’s thoughts, this article provides some solid advice for Neuro programs even though it is written with computer science in mind: What you Can do in College to get into a CS PhD Program

Take the GRE while you are still in college.

The GRE is to graduate school what the SAT is to undergraduate. It is a general knowledge test that is meant to try to predict how successful you will be as a grad student. There are also subject-specific versions of the GRE (for instance GRE Psychology) which grad programs may ask for. Also similar to the SAT, The GRE has all the baggage and calls for reform and is by no means a good metric to predict graduate school success. While many programs are starting not to require the GRE, I still think it is worth taking, the worst thing that happens is you don’t report your score.

Now why do I say you should take it now (in college) rather than after (say right before you apply) when earlier I recommended you take a couple of years in between college and grad school? First, any score on the GRE is valid for 5 years, meaning if you get a good score now you can bank it for the future. Second, You right now are an expert test taker. You have been taking tests regularly for the last 15 years. The moment you walk out of college, those tests will stop and everything will leave your head. It will be twice as hard to study and three times as hard to actually take a test again. Far easier to bank the score now, especially since you can now take the GRE online from the comfort of your own home.

Try to get involved in research

A Ph.D. at its core is a research training degree. Therefore anything you can do to demonstrate both an interest and initial training in research will be beneficial. What if it’s not related to your actual research interests? Doesn’t matter. What if it’s really small or part-time? Doesn’t matter. The important part is demonstrating that you have interest in doing research.

My first exposure to research was helping an undergraduate senior collect data for their senior thesis. I would sit in a room, read a script (the IRB consent form) to participants, and then sit them in front of a computer for the experiment (the computer explained the actual experiment). I then waited for 30 min for the computer to finish. I would then read a script telling the participant the entire premise was a lie, get the senior who was actually running the study, and let them finish the experiment. I had no hand in the design, analysis, or presentation of the experiment. And yet I ended up talking about this experience during my graduate interviews. It mattered.