Dave G. Mumby

I supervise graduate students and serve on graduate admissions committees at Concordia University in Montreal, Qc. I also am an academic advisor for the Psychology Department and hold frequent workshops on graduate school and the application process. Something that I hate having to do as part of my job is denying certain students entrance into our graduate programs. Many wishful applicants are rejected each year. I often consider that many of these rejected students are probably well-suited for graduate school but may never find out because their applications were unable to convince me that they truly have what it takes. I feel sorry for these students, but there is nothing I can do about their inability to sell themselves.

Occasionally, one comes across applicants who do an exceptional job of demonstrating that they possess attributes necessary for success in graduate school and in a related career afterwards. Those are the applicants who are accepted. You should be one of those applicants, and there is no reason why you can't be if you are willing to make appropriate use of the information and advice in this book.

Whether you are in your freshman or senior year, the time to begin planning for your graduate-school application is now. Don't wait until you are in your final semester of your senior year to begin taking the steps outlined in this book. Some of the recommended steps take a good deal of time to implement. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to improve your chances of getting into graduate school. Conversely, the sooner you begin, the easier it will be. But don't panic if you discover that you do not have enough time to take advantage of all of the strategies described in this book. There are a great many things that you can do "at the last minute" to improve your chances.

If you have weak grades and no notable and relevant accomplishments, then you might decide after reading this book that you don't have a realistic chance of getting into graduate school this year no matter what you do. Consider it a blessing that you figured this out before you wasted your time and money, and experienced much anguish. If you are serious about getting into graduate school, then you have plenty of time to take advantage of the advice in this book and prepare for application next year.

For more information on applying to graduate school and advice from me and other experts, I strongly recommend that you check out this web site: http://MyGraduateSchool.com