Grad School

I just finished applying to Graduate school this week and holy crap was it a PAIN in the butt. Utah State wasn't too bad. I just had to find three people to write me a letter of recommendation, write a letter of intent, take the lovely yet horrendous GRE (graduate records exam) and score in the 40th percentile on both sections. The GRE could be a whole post in and of itself but I will leave it at that. Check Check and Check.

Idaho State was a freaking joke! I actually want to go there so I made sure back in August that I knew exactly what they wanted. I started the application process and then waited a few months to get the my letters of recommendation and the scores to the GRE. Low and behold in NOVEMBER they change the entire process. So I got to do it all over again. They require that you apply to the graduate school, which makes sense because you can't get into a program without the school accepting you first. Check. Then they have you apply to a "third" party. Which was a nightmare:

• I had to send my transcripts to Maine... I guess I missed the connection between Pocatello, Idaho and Maine.
• Then write another letter
• give them all the information about the people who were writing my letters.
• I had to try to remember every single volunteer event I helped with, and/or anything I may have done that pertains to my major
• I had to type in EVERY single course I have ever taken and tell them what category I felt it fit into and the grade I received. Weird didn't I just send them my transcripts?
• One more ridiculous joke about the transcripts: once they received my official transcript from USU, they compared that to what I filled in and then gave their own recommendation for what my GPA should be.

Check.

So I am somewhat panicked at this point. But all is well I am pretty sure I have every thing completed when I realize that the department I am applying for also requires me to mail them a hard copy of another application that is just for their department! This was probably the biggest pain the butt! I had to look at the classes they have their students take and write out the classes I have taken that are similar to theirs. If this is an indication of what my grad school experience is going to be like, I may be better off staying in Utah!