The Most Competitive Graduate Programs in the Country
November 14th, 2008
In the US, the best graduate schools are very competitive and tend to admit only the cream of the crop. Usually, these institutions only get the cream of the crop, so they have a very small graduate student population. Still, many students want to apply to these institutions because they believe they will get the best kind of instruction there is for their chosen field.
Health
In 2008, the University of Washington was commended for its excellent nursing program. At rank three, The University of Pennsylvania, another competitive graduate institution, has an acceptance rate of 21%. And in the case of Washington University, acceptance rate is at 67%.
Education
Graduate degrees are very specialized. One of the most specialized graduate programs is in the area of education. Advanced education degrees focus on different aspects of education such as educational theories, educational administration, and educational psychology. As of 2008, the Teacher’s College of Columbia University has the most competitive teacher’s program. Its acceptance rate is only about 48%.
Social science
The Social sciences are broad by convention therefore varying universities excel for a particular graduate program. However, some top-ranking universities are noted for their very selective admission standards. For example, Stanford tops the Psychology program and holds an acceptance record of 11%. Harvard, which also has one of the country’s most competitive political science program, presents a lower acceptance rate at 9%.
Engineering and the natural sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers some of the country’s best graduate programs, so MIT receives hundreds of applications every year. To maintain a low student-teacher ratio, MIT overall acceptance rate is only 14%, which ranks it as the most difficult university to enter with respect to the fields of engineering and the natural sciences. To ensure that it only gets students who are capable of coping with the rigorous academic demands of its programs, MIT looks for applicants with SAT math scores above 700.
Humanities
According to experts in the field, Harvard University has one of the best graduate programs in English. Yale offers the best History program according to a huge number of respondents. Princeton, the University of California – Berkeley, and Stanford also have competitive graduate programs in the Humanities.
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Earning a graduate degree is an investment for it furthers your potentials and demands time, effort, and money. Although a bachelor’s degree may have already prepared you for the initial steps of your career, having advanced knowledge pertinent to a certain field can make a difference.
The graduate thesis is probably the most important part prerequisite for getting that graduate diploma. That said, thesis preparation must be done with care and with proper application of gained knowledge either school taught or from research works. After all, writing a graduate thesis proves just the amount of learning a student had for the whole duration of his study. For the sake of coming up with a good graduate thesis, a general flow would be:
Becoming a professor’s research assistant certainly has its perks. Earning an advanced degree can be costly and taking a full-time job is sometimes not an option especially if you have decided on a much heavier load for a certain term. Being a student assistant or a research assistant gives a degree earner more time to focus on his or her studies while earning a bit more cash to pay for some of the miscellaneous expenses. Here are some of the advantages of being a research assistant:
While there may be valid reasons for pursuing graduate school, the fact that there are wrong ones still remains. Some of these reasons may sound noble and genuine but no one’s to say which is which exactly. The bottom line is that if the motives aren’t that of meeting career goals, the very reasons for entering graduate school may just as well be sham.
Coping with stress is quite tricky when you’re not used to having it around. Specially in graduate school, having too much to juggle can beat the life out of you unless you’re able to make things work. Although you were able to go through college despite the undergrad pressure, being in graduate school offers a lot more problems.
In graduate school, you need all the help you can get when it comes to furthering your education. You need your professors’ insights and your colleagues’ ideas to help improve your academic aptitude. One effective way to enrich your knowledge is to join a well-organized study group.
The graduate school admission interview, though it is not the sole basis of your graduate school application, is something you have to excel in. You have to present yourself properly and politely to give the interviewer an impression that you’re somebody who deserves to be a part of their academic institution. Here are some tips to help you survive a graduate school admission interview:
The main purpose of establishing honor societies is not to confirm social statuses, but to celebrate academic achievements. Honor societies, despite their Greek sounding names, are neither equivalent to nor associated with fraternities and sororities. Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy by simply being a member of an honor society:
The academe, like any other setting, still suffers from the harsh realities of office politics. Gossips and rumors are inevitable and it is up to you to handle them. Office politics, no matter how nasty it gets, must never affect your job or purpose. After all, you did not sign up for a teaching post or a research duty to participate in gossips and badmouthing activities. Here are some of the values you need to keep in mind to help you stay away from office politics:

