Information and tips on how to plan for graduate/professional school programs:

Graduate school, in most cases, is very specialized training in an academic discipline that suits primarily two fields: teaching and/or research.  Professional education (law, medicine, etc.) involves being training for a particular occupation, i.e. law-school students are preparing to be lawyers; med-school students are preparing to be doctors, etc. Faculty advisors serve as a resource to students wishing to continue their educations after leaving GCC. Graduate school in the arts or sciences (MA/PhD) or professional school (JD/MD/MBA/M.Ed., etc.) involves a great deal of planning and preparation. If you think graduate school might be in your future, schedule an appointment to discuss this with your advisor and, perhaps, other faculty in the your department.

Begin the process by reviewing the following:

• Contact Dr. Caleb Verbois, Pre-Law Advisor for more information on pre-law programs
  
  
• Contact Mrs. Kathy Leonard, Director of Advising, for more information on pre-health programs
  

Here are some planning websites for you to review: (Searching the internet will provide many more sources.)

• Purdue University
  
  
• Princeton Review

Admissions Exams:
Make sure you know when the test for your type of program is offered and that you'll have taken it in sufficient time to have it returned prior to your application deadline for the colleges/universities to which you are making application.

Here are websites for the following exams:

• GRE Tests (Graduate Record Exams): Required of most graduate programs. There is a general test and individual subject tests.
  
  
• LSAT (Law School Admission Test): Required by all law schools.
  
  
• MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test): Required by all medical schools.
  
  
• GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test): Required for all business schools.

• DAT (Dental Admission Test)

• OAT (Optometry Admission Test) Required by optometry schools.

• PCAT (Pharmacy College Admission Test)

Test Preparation:

If you’re considering using one of the many test prep companies for either the GRE or MCAT exam, you may be interested in looking at a website called Review.com.  Their research team produced a list of 22 GRE prep course companies and chose the top seven to review based on 34 of the most important features.  They also collected a list of 22 MCAT prep course companies and then selected the best eight to review using 35 defining features.

2018 GRE Reviews.com link:  http://www.reviews.com/gre-prep-courses/

2018 MCAT Reviews.com link:  http://www.reviews.com/mcat-prep-courses/

Personal Statements on Applications:
Most schools require a personal statement or letter of intent that specifies your goals and objectives. 

Here are a few websites that will help you with this part of the application: 

• University of California at Berkeley

• Purdue University

• Association of American Medical Colleges

Recommendation Letters:
Every graduate school will require recommendation letters from faculty.  Here are some general tips as well as a few websites:

• General tips

• About.com

• About.com sample letter

• Tips from GCC Faculty - Dr. Celine Leon and Dr. David Ayers