When to start the process
If you are a junior right now, and are thinking about graduate school, start immediately. For a variety of reasons, your chances of getting to work with your first choice of mentor at a top-tier school, in the very year you desired, is dramatically increased if you begin your search early.

Search strategies
Using brochures, web sites, articles, and advice from Swarthmore faculty, make a list of graduate programs and potential graduate research advisors that interest you. Note that some truly great people are in truly atrocious departments, and sometimes wonderful programs have several exceptionally awful faculty. Brochures often fail to mention this. You should also ascertain the general mood of the program toward your potential advisor (this is not easy, but you must find out before you decide to go!). As a graduate student, you will have no choice but to also have a thesis committee, which means that you will suffer terribly if other faculty members lash out at your advisor by abusing you. In making this list of possible laboratories, don't overlook the vast network of Swarthmore alums who have faculty positions around the country, and who often love to bring alums into their laboratories. Also, do not forget that often the best way to find that perfect advisor is to talk to people at national meetings, where you can accumulate some truly delicious gossip on just about anyone, and observe potential advisors in their natural habitat.

Researching faculty and programs via brochures and web sites
Many graduate departments spend an embarrassingly large amount of money on producing glossy brochures to lure prospective students into their programs. These brochures purposefully feature photographs of smiling graduate students with neat appearances doing fieldwork in the tropics, and faculty in loud T-shirts doing something zany in their laboratories (e.g., a computer modeler looking into a microscope). Some of these brochures are already at Swarthmore, stored in a filing cabinet labeled, "Graduate Institutions", in room 219 of Martin Hall, although 99% of the brochures are too old to be useful. (By the way, in the bottom drawer of this cabinet is information on fellowships and special internships. Also in the room is a very old book on degree-granting programs in the natural sciences, a reference that also includes average GRE scores, availability of financial aid, and other information for all programs.)

The quality of departmental web sites varies tremendously as a resource for choosing a mentor or a program. When the department's or university's computing staff write the pages (e.g., Brown University's Department of Ecology and Evolution), the result is very similar to the printed brochure, except that it is more likely to include changes in faculty rosters due to hirings, firings, moves, and deaths. Increasingly, faculty are taking charge of their own web sites. For these departments you may notice that some faculty have very rich sites, while others have nothing , not even an e-mail link. Many in this latter category are faculty who fear that material on their web sites will be stolen by unscrupulous scientists, too busy to post their interests in the first place, or both. Therefore, although you might assume that a content-weak faculty page is a clear sign of dead wood, you might be overlooking a very high-quality advisor in some cases. Conversely, many faculty with very rich sites are not necessarily great mentors. (Increasingly, although surprisingly slowly, faculty at graduate programs are realizing that in order to attract large numbers of prospective students--and thus have the option of picking the best-- they must have slick, informative web sites that specifically encourage interested students to contact them. Web sites lacking a photograph of the faculty member are at a huge disadvantage in attracting students, too.)

One important trick to choosing a good advisor is to make sure that they are doing the type of research you think they are doing based on their web site and brochure blurb . A person's published research is not necessarily his or her's current research. So, spy on their current research activity by searching for the name of the faculty member in the grants databases at various government funding agencies (NSF, USDA, NIH) and also HHMI.

Try to find some titles of their graduate students' thesis projects (sometimes provided at the very end of program brochures). Do students work on the mentor's project, or can students choose topics more broadly? The answer to this question is important in determining whether a particular mentor is right for you.

First contact
The comments below all relate in some way to how you might interact with prospective advisors.

Send letters to several people who interest you, not just your favorite. The responses you get from your second, third, and fourth choices might surprise you, so give these people a chance to attract you to their laboratories. This letter should be a letter, on heavy-bond paper. Include in the envelope a current résumé also printed on heavy-bond paper. If you have any doubts about the content or format of your résumé, obtain a copy of the extremely well written "Guide to writing résumés and cover letters" by Patricia Trinder of the Career Planning & Placement office (Parrish 140) and pay particular attention to the checklist on the last page (appendix D).

Your goal is to convince these persons that you are very interested in their work, that you think their papers have all been insightful, and that you are intelligent, enjoy working through obstacles, and would be able to get along with other students, post doctoral associates, and assorted hangers-on in a laboratory. Achieve this by writing a nicely worded letter. Try to portray yourself as a collaborator, not just a student: people like graduate students that will enrich their laboratories, not just populate them. While crafting your letter to each of your prospective advisors, keep in mind that they are busy and that they probably receive dozens, if not hundreds, of similar letters each year. Make sure your letter has real content, that you are sincere about your interests and future goals, and that you have not misspelled their favorite study organism. To show your interest, it is advisable to ask in your letter whether they might be willing to chat on the phone sometime, and always be sure to mention how interesting their recently awarded grant sounds (if you have found an abstract of such on one of the government databases).

If you are unsure of what to ask your prospective mentors and prospective departments, an invaluable list of possible "issues" is available at Reed College's Career Services web site.

Send the letter as early as possible to make sure that it arrives before the dozens of equally amazing letters from undergraduates who also wish to work in that laboratory.

The really productive, really supportive faculty are, for good reason, overloaded with graduate students. You should assume that they are thinking, "Boy, it sure would be nice to have fewer graduate students in the next couple of years." For a variety of reasons, these are the same people that just cannot say no to a good student, so be persistent if they sound like they are waffling about adequate space in their laboratories.

After you have sent the letter, how long should you wait before bugging them for a response? This is always a tough question to answer. If they have not written or called or otherwise sent you a reply within 3 weeks, they are probably sufficiently guilt-laden about their delay, so call them then, when they are guilty and probably still remember why.

Will they ever say "Sorry, not interested"? Yes, and for a variety of reasons that often have nothing to do with you. Some faculty leave academia, some are kicked out, some go nuts and are committed, and some go away on sabbaticals right when you want to start graduate school. But the vast majority of the people will respond with extremely encouraging, richly detailed letters. Send them a thank-you card when they write something even remotely encouraging so that they know you are still interested. (They will assume that you are exploring several options, so do not feel obliged to hide this fact.)

Many schools require that incoming students rotate in various laboratories before choosing an advisor, so in certain cases you are left without a good source of advice regarding admission. In the end, it always pays to choose an unofficial "advisor", albeit a temporary one, with whom you can plead your case and seek advice.

And, finally, be sure send a thank-you card to the faculty that write back.

Requesting letters of reference
Letters of recommendation should be requested as early as possible. When requesting letters, please supply an updated version of you curriculum vitae, a list of other letter writers (this is very useful information for a letter writer), the "official" envelope if the graduate school or fellowship office provides them, and the due date (very important). If you want to be extra sure that your letter writers produce great letters, provide them with additional materials such as manuscripts you might have worked on, Xeroxes of the prospective mentor's research interests, lists of classes that you have taken that are relevant to the subject area, or perhaps a paragraph on why you think this particular mentor or institution is perfect for you.

To really impress your letter writers with your organizational skills, package all of the above materials in a plain folder so that they do not immediately lose the pieces in different parts of their offices, which they will surely do. If you are worried that the faculty member will forget to write the letter on time (always a good thing to worry about), attach a flashy Post-It reminder on the envelope so he or she will not forget as easily. You can always ask the person to send you a "Letter has been sent" e-mail to alert you of its completion (put your e-mail on the Post-It).

If you request letters from faculty from whom you have taken classes but who do not know you otherwise, they will almost certainly comment about your performance in that class. If you did extremely well in the class (usually the case, because that is why you are asking them for the letter in the first place) this is to your advantage. But if you were not in the top of the class, the letter writer may still feel obliged to comment on your specific grade. If for some reason you think you might get a better letter from a person whose class you bombed, be honest with the letter writer by saying, "I know I did not get a great grade in your course, but nevertheless I really would like a letter from you for the following reasons". Being open about this will not prevent the letter writer from still mentioning your grade, but he or she will have better insight into your overall goals and personal character, and will be better able to discuss your performance in a more favorable light.

GPA and GREs
It is important to note that although it is critical to first establish positive and meaningful contact with a faculty member, it is often the university's admissions office that first filters all applications to its various graduate schools. In other words, your academic record (GPA and GRE scores) must typically satisfy campus-wide criteria. In regards to GPAs, it might comfort you to know that all admissions officers have on their desk a thick table that adjusts your GPAs higher or lower depending on whether grades at your institution are inflated: Swarthmore's are not (particularly in the Division of Natural Sciences), in case you had not noticed.

Interviewing
A mentor may love your letters of reference, your grades, and your GRE scores, but they will invariably suffer at night wondering whether you are going to work out if you are admitted to the laboratory. To alleviate any lingering doubts, invite yourself for a short visit to talk with them about research, the facilities, and to meet other faculty and students in the department. Such a visit is critical for you as well, because often you may realize that you have an allergic reaction to somebody who previously had been your first choice of mentor. Contact former alumni for advice on these visits, or come talk with a faculty member in your research area.

Paying for graduate school
Although many graduate students are supported by teaching assistantships, some faculty have grant money to hire graduate students on as research assistants. They will usually try to fill these positions with people that have contacted them personally, but sometimes they will post a public advertisement, which are sometimes posted at McMaster College. You should, however, realize that the string attached to these positions is the understanding that you will do their research, at least part of the time, rather than focusing on some project of your own.

Do not underestimate the value of trying to get funding for yourself. In the eyes of prospective advisors, the fact that you are trying to obtain such outside funding is very happily noted, and they will rightfully view you as motivated and confident about your abilities (and thus more competitive among pool of applicants). Two important sources are HHMI predoctoral fellowships in the Biological Sciences (due early November); and NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (also due early November).

Other sources of advice
For the best advice, talk to recent alums who have gone through the process. Addresses and e-mails of alums at various institutions can be requested at Career Planning and Placement.

Attend the Biology Department's fall "Career Night" at which one or more faculty members will give you an oral overview of tricks they found useful when they were in your position, and will entertain any questions you might have about careers or lack thereof.

Check out the new Swarthmore Career Planning and Placement web site, especially the graduate school page.

More advice can be found in the following documents:

"Graduate schools in biology". Swarthmore Biology Majors Handbook. Section XI.

"How to apply to graduate school in biology and remain sane during your senior year". 1996. Tari Suprapto. Matrix 1:19-20.

(Contact Rob Griffin for back issues of Matrix. Please note that although these are useful documents to read, the due dates for some of the critical events have changed.)