There are three main sections to the eBook. This first section, Truths and Myths About Graduate School, explains why some of the most widely held ideas that students have about graduate school are inaccurate. eChapter 1 gives hope to students who previously thought that they were unqualified to gain entry to a graduate program because their grades were less than outstanding; meanwhile, this chapter is also meant to instill a little bit of healthy fear into students who previously thought that their outstanding grades virtually guaranteed that they would get into graduate school.

Understanding what graduate study in your discipline involves is critical to applying successfully to a graduate program and having success once you're there. eChapter 2 covers some of the things that you need to know before you can plan a successful application to graduate school. For instance, in order to devise a successful graduate-school application, you need to understand the process by which applicants are selected in most programs. Most of the mistakes that students make when applying to graduate school stem from not understanding how or why the successful applicants are selected, or why the unsuccessful ones are rejected. Accordingly, much of eChapter 2 is aimed at describing common graduate-program selection processes. This chapter also describes the basic components of most graduate school applications and the roles that each of them plays in leading to the success or failure of a particular applicant.

Your success will also depend on choosing a graduate program that is appropriate for your specific goals, and in those disciplines where graduate studies are done under the supervision of a faculty member, on the selection of an appropriate supervisor. eChapter 3 offers suggestions on how to approach the task of making these important decisions.

The second section, How To Prepare a Graduate-School Application That Will Beat the Competition, will get you started on improving your chances of getting into a graduate program. E-chapter 4 puts the nature of the graduate-school application competition into perspective so that you can devise a general strategy for gaining an advantage over other applicants. For many students, eChapter 5 will be the most important chapter in the book. It explains what admissions committees and faculty members are really looking for when they view each component of your application. E-chapter 5 also contains numerous suggestions that you can use to enhance the quality of each component of your application package and help make your application stand out and above the rest.

The third section, Going Beyond the Basic Application Requirements, is all about taking extra steps that will greatly improve the likelihood that you will be accepted into a graduate program. Most of the ideas and strategies outlined in this section never even occur to most students, but those who do use them in developing a strategy for applying to graduate school are almost always successful.

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