It is fantastic that so many students are inspired to consider graduate school in the biological sciences. I think this is a wonderful sign that many professors and graduate students are advocating so well for their field of research. However, many people make the decision to apply to graduate school with painfully little concept of what graduate school actually involves, or how to choose a program and apply successfully.

If you are thinking about graduate school, do your best to inform yourself about the process. At this point the most efficient plan for me is to link to the helpful thoughts that other people have provided. If you have any particular questions, feel free to ask!

Joan Strassman’s Blog Post- sociobiology.wordpress.com has a lot of other great stuff too!

A followup to Joan’s post on the Oikos Blog.

“Some Modest Advice” from Stephen Stearns

Eileen Lacey’s Tips for Applying to Graduate School

Results from a survey about success in graduate school posted by Matt Ayres

Download John Thompson’s advice on graduate school from his web page.

I’d also recommend the Dynamic Ecology blog.

The Molecular Ecologist is another fantastic blog- it mainly provides reviews of papers and techniques but has some great interviews with scientists and how they work.

For a variety of first-person perspectives of being a woman in academia, check out Tenure, She Wrote.

This is from a website about getting into an MBA program, but most of the advice holds for other fields as well.