After graduation students ultimately have two options: enter the workforce or continue their education. Though students can wait to start sending out job applications, several graduate programs require planning and forethought.

Medical schools and law schools require that applicants take the MCAT or LSAT either the summer before or the fall of their senior year. But one of the first things students can do to prepare for graduate school is to have a strong GPA.

I wish someone wouldve reiterated that your GPA matters, said Emily Pence 10, a current student at Indiana Universitys Maurer Law School. She, like many of the panelists at the Life after DePauw forum on Thursday, encouraged the use of the Kaplan Prep courses for their respective graduate school tests.

About 24 percent of DePauw students typically enter further post graduate education, said Bill Tobin, director of Institutional Research. Six percent of those students head to either law school or medical school with the other 18 percent pursuing post-graduate education in a variety of fields, according to Tobin.

Michelle Sollman Sharp08, who went studied occupational therapy post-grad at Marian University, said students should be your own advocate meaning that it is ultimately the students responsibility to search out deadlines and the processes that are required for their respective graduate schools.

Adrienne Cobb 09 wishes that she had followed preparation more closely while she was at DePauw.

Since we dont have a set pre-med major, I didnt have someone to spell it out for me, Cobb said.

As a result, she and several of the other panelists, especially those who went into the medical field, nearly missed deadlines to apply for graduate school.

Although the application process to graduate school is in many ways similar to the application process for undergraduate institutions, the differences end there. According to the panelists, the biggest changes between life at DePauw and graduate programs are the class size and the specialty necessarily involved in graduate studies.

You are focused on one area, Sharp said. The fun sociology class no longer exists.

The rest is here:
Graduate school alumni offer advice to hopefuls