Lessons from the graduate application process
After my first essay, I've decided to move forward and share all the lessons I've learnt from the graduate application process.
This text doesn't aim to give a holistic view of the process but, rather, to be a useful resource conciliating all the information I've learnt coming from an almost no-name European institution and applying to some of the best graduate courses in the world.
Start early: everyone says it but I can't remark how important this is. 4-5 months I would say is the ideal. In my case, I started looking for courses in July. Until September however, I was still not 100% sure of where I would have applied (don't follow my schedule lol).
Decide on a plan and stick to it: GRE vs. NO GRE, which course you're planning to apply to ecc ecc. For many of this audience it might seem obvious but for somebody I'm sure it won't be as obvious.
You should decide on a course type and stick to it. That's it.
It just doesn't make sense to do applications in graduate Statistics courses and then, half way through, apply also for Econ. Or, at least, you can still succeed but maybe the odds aren't as high (?).
In general, my take is that in that case, you will not be able to re-leverage the essays and the reference letters, and you will find yourself with a lower quality application.
Focus on the references
This is THE most important component of the application.
"Everyone bullshit on their resume those days, references are the only thing that truly matters." — Stanford Professor
A practical timeline
In the end, I want to give a sort of practical timeline of what worked for me:
March: Decided to write my thesis on time series forecasting, one of the best choices of my life.
July: Started looking for graduate courses. Understood all the requirements. Created the spreadsheet. I found it really useful having a Notion // Google Sheet documenting all of the requirements and important dates.
August: Do the IELTS // TOEFL test. In my case, the IELTS was much easier to score high on than the TOEFL. Most U.S. institutions, besides Stanford, accept the IELTS test.
September // October: If you think you should do the GRE, then, this is the optimal timeframe to do it. My take on it is that, if you're coming from a economics // management background and you want to switch towards something more technical, then, it might be useful to have it rather than not. It tells the admissions board that you have the technical background for that course.
November: Lock-in. Personally, I literally locked-in. For ten days straight I haven't done anything else than drafting the base of what would have been later my statement of purpose. In this period, you should also iterate a lot. I myself have been through many rounds of iterations and improvements.
In numbers, I would say that over November and December, per each application I went through, I did 20 iteration loops where in the last 4-5 iterations I would have asked for external feedback.
In my case, I didn't established it formally but I had 3-4 friends (2 Oxford, 2 Phd) that reviewed my statement and really helped me. On this, a particular note to everyone that helped me out in the process: I can't thank you enough.
December // January: Be ready for a bit of sacrifice. December and January was the time where I really went from 0 to 1 and completed all of them. It will be a bit hard but it will be well worth it.
§ Appendix
When writing your statement of purpose, you should think of this sentence: I'm not hiring Matteo's project - I'm hiring Matteo as a person and all the value he can bring to the college body. You need to think that, if you've already done a lot and your projects were strong, this course is what unlocks a whole other league for you.