5 Mistakes I Made Before Applying to Grad School

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Written By: Nick Nguyen | Read full profile

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It’s been a tough and long 2 years, but here I am 5 months post graduation from grad school. At some point in my life, I gave up on my dream of ever going to an Ivy League. It just never felt like a possibility. So, when everyone was in lockdown, I decided to throw my hat in for the impossible. I applied for a Masters in Public Health. 

I set myself up for failure. I only applied to one program (Harvard’s)...it was in a completely foreign field to me (Health Policy)...I waited until 4 hours before the deadline to get my application together…

I shot for the stars, really hoping that I’d land back on solid ground to continue working on NL. So, no surprise that I was totally unprepared to get the acceptance letter. Here’s 5 things I wish I did differently in the process: 

1. Apply to More Than 1 School 

When I was in undergrad, one of my professors always shared stories about how students could pit schools against each other to negotiate for financial aid. Although not guaranteed, having more options means that you’ll have leverage if one gives you a ton of money. It never hurts to ask, and even if it costs you an extra $150 to apply to another school, it’s absolutely worth it if you can get even an extra $500 in aid when you ask schools for more money. 

2. Search for Mentors

Very cliché, but think about what you want to do in the next year. 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Then look for someone at the program who did exactly that on the timeline that you want to do it. Look up their CVs and professional track records. See how active they are on Twitter (I guess now “X”?), Instagram, threads, and LinkedIn. Don’t just go for someone who seems like a rockstar in the field or happens to have a lot of similar interests to you. Or if you do, see if you can get an informational meeting with them first. Get a vibe check as soon as you can and don’t be afraid to find more than one mentor. We’re multi-dimensional people who have a lot of interests. Find a mentor who can help you grow each of those interests. 

3. Look up Classes 

I go back and forth on this, but I might even start when you’re in the process of picking which schools to apply for. See if you can get a sense of how their course catalog and registration system works. Expand your class search to ones that are outside of your program as well. This will quickly tell you if the school’s a right fit. At least at Harvard, you can take classes across every campus. What they don’t tell you is how to navigate “cross-registration” and how hard it can be, but I’ll expand on that in a future blog. For now, focus on creating a list of every class you want to take. That way when registration opens, you’re not fumbling around looking for something to take and then missing out because it was full. Can you tell I’m speaking from experience? 

Oh and don’t forget, try to save room for a few classes that are completely outside of your wheelhouse but look fun. These are typically the most interesting, and you’ll actually feel like you learned something. 

4. Come Up with a List of Conferences 

In undergrad, you could get away with never going to a conference. But in grad school, this is where you’ll quickly get exposed to all the different ideas and possibilities there are in your field. Start first with a specific field: Healthcare? Education? Entrepreneurship? Then dig deeper: Healthcare Administration? Healthcare Financing? Health Tech? And then map out when the conferences are throughout the year so you can coordinate with professors early. And don’t forget to check out if your school offers financial professional assistance to help pay for these conferences. I never bothered looking because I couldn’t afford the $100-200 registration fees on top of travel expenses. At least not until my last semester when I stumbled across an email talking about the school’s professional assistance fund.

5. Think Carefully About Housing

Where you live really dictates your entire experience from the program. How long you’ll spend commuting, who you’ll probably run into, whether you’ll be able to make certain events and outings…If I could go back in time, I would’ve fought harder to get into university housing or to live in a more centralized location like Cambridge. At least then I wouldn’t be sitting on the T for an hour at a time and would’ve really been able to bond with all the other students in my program. Sure, it was a bit more expensive, but an extra $5000 a year for a lifetime of friendships is well worth it. Remember, your grad program is short and expensive already, so make it count.