- Hey, everyone.
This is Self Made Millennial.
I'm Madeline Mann,
and let me ask you,
what is one of the best ways
to get into a graduate school program?
It's to meet some of the current
or former students of that program.
Trust me.
I will tell you why getting
in contact with students
and alumni is one of the
best things you can do
to get into a grad program.
I'll tell you how to find these people,
and then I'll give you
the three step script
to connect with these alumni
who you've never met before,
and increase your odds of getting in.
So, there are several reasons
why reaching out to students
and alumni of your desired program will
give you an arm and a leg up.
First, programs with similar names
have very different
approaches and curriculum.
Talking to students, you
often get a better overview
of what you're getting yourself into
more than an administrator
for the program,
or even a professor would
be able to give you.
I cannot tell you how many
people have come to me,
and you know, they read
the names of the courses,
and saw, I guess,
the syllabus of a few classes,
and thought, oh, yeah,
this is the program for me,
and the program ends up
being vastly different
than what they'd imagined it to be.
Not because the program
itself misled them,
but you really need to talk
to someone who's done it
and make sure that this is a good use
of your time and money and sanity.
Second, once you know
what the program is about,
you can better position yourself for it.
I was on the admissions board
of a program that is highly applied,
which means it was very
focused on the real world,
on building skills for the business world,
not to go do research,
go in academia or to
help people get a PhD.
However, people would apply to the program
and talk mostly about their deep
academic research background,
and they would get rejected.
Instead, they could've mentioned
that they've done research in the field,
but put much more focus
on their work experience
and they would've much
more likely gotten in.
Students and alumni will give you
the way way low-down before you
apply so you don't make these mistakes.
It blows my wind chimes that you
wouldn't reach out to students
and alumni of a program
you're interested in.
I mean, you are about to
spend thousands of dollars
and years of your life on a program,
don't you not only want to know
what you're getting yourself into,
but also maximize the chances that you
will get into the best
possible program for you?
But I know this request
that I'm telling you
comes with a lot of anxiety.
The thing I hear the
most is it seems weird
to reach out to these people I don't know,
I feel awkward,
and they probably won't help me.
And to that I say,
build a bridge
and get over it.
If you don't reach out to anyone,
no one will help you.
That's just guaranteed.
So if you do reach out to people
and they don't respond,
no love lost,
you're just back in the same situation
as if you'd never reached out
to anyone in the first place.
This fear is built in your head,
and you actually have nothing to lose,
and guess what,
your competition is out there
reaching out to alumni
and they're sliding in ahead
of you on that wait list,
those rascals.
So here is how to reach
out to students and alumni.
First, you gotta find them.
You just need some basic cyber
sleuthing skills to do this,
nothing too complicated.
Do a keyword search for
the degree on LinkedIn,
and then reach out to those
who have that degree on their profile
or reach out to the program
and ask for suggestions of
alumni for you to speak to,
or finally, go on the program
website or social media
and sometimes they have student
and alumni testimonials.
So you can reach out to those people
or even they'll tag
students in their photos.
Seriously, the power of internet stalking
abilities should make this
part pretty darn easy.
Next, make sure you find them
on LinkedIn to send them a message there
or you can find their
email by using a tool
like hunter.io or voilanorbert.com.
Now, let's move on to the
email template to send them.
So obviously, you wanna
start out by saying hi,
then part one, say who you are.
Such as what school you are from,
any professional information about you.
For example, you could say that
you graduated two years ago
and you found your
passion in interior design
and were thinking about
pursuing an XYZ degree, great.
Part two, why them?
Let them know why you
chose to reach out to them.
You obviously saw that
they were in that program
that you want to apply to, perfect,
and you could leave it at that,
or you can also add anything
else that you have in common.
Maybe they have a career path
that you would like to emulate
or they went to the same
school as you in the past.
Adding another layer of
relation to that person
with a light dabble of compliments
is always good to boost
that response rate.
Part three, make the ask.
Ask to talk to them quickly about
their experience in the program,
then just sign off with gratitude,
thank you or all the best or whatever.
Here is a perfect email that I received
from someone who was interested
in enrolling in the MAPP Program,
which is the Masters of
Applied Psychology at USC,
which is where I earned my degree.
She starts off by saying who she is
and then relates to me since
I also went to UCSD for undergrad,
and then she says something nice,
which you know, flatter will
will get you everywhere,
and then she made the ask.
She stuck the landing 10
out of 10 from the judges.
Just don't overthink it.
I agreed to help her.
We got on the phone,
and she admitted that she
was nervous to reach out,
but it totally worked out.
Now, sidebar, I would say
the majority of the time,
I'm not able to respond to
random people's requests
to get on the phone just
because I really want to,
I want to help everyone,
but there's just not enough hours
in the day to help everyone.
And so just don't take it as offense
if someone who really wants to help you
ends up saying no because
they're just too busy.
Though, she's one of the rare occasions
where she was able to get me on the phone,
that's for two reasons.
Her message was obviously
customized to me,
and second, she messages
me when I was free.
I had a free moment,
and I just wrote her back.
If you can talk now,
I will get on the phone and help you.
And so, sometimes it's just pure luck
that you'll be able to get
in contact with people.
And then I gave her lots of intel
and look at the result!
She got in.
Wow,
so incredible.
This stuff really works.
And this is really just one piece
to getting into grad school.
You'll need a few more strategies
to really make a splash.
I have a video called Inside
Grad School Admissions
where I talk about my personal experience
on a grad school admissions committee
and I give actual tips of how
to stand out among other applicants
and get that admissions letter.
So if you haven't watched that yet,
it is essential viewing
if you're applying to grad schools
and I will link it in the description.
Thanks so much, everyone.
Wifi high five!
(claps)
