We strongly recommend giving an annual presentation to undergraduates on Why go to graduate school? Ideally the presentation is given early in the Fall term.
Presentation Resources
You’re welcome to use a slide deck CRA-E developed (in 2019). The slides are quite full as they are also intended to be read by interested students. Here is the slide deck in .ppt format for adapting to your needs. An shorter earlier version of this slide deck was developed and tested at Harvey Mudd and Purdue.
The presentation of the 2019 slide deck takes easily 50 minutes to present and expect Q&A to take 20 minutes or more. We encourage you to customize the presentation for your time needs and for your institution. Here are some suggestions:
- Add true stories about students from your institution who went on to graduate school (e.g., where they applied, where they went, what they’re doing now).
- Provide information about admission rates from your department to various graduate programs (e.g., your institution might have a particularly good track record at some specific graduate programs).
Who Should Be Invited?
All undergraduates, from freshmen to seniors, should be invited to this presentation. For younger students, this presentation can get them thinking about graduate school. For more senior students, the presentation offers pragmatic advice and tips for applying. In our experience, some students will come to the presentation twice: once in their junior year as they begin contemplating graduate school and once in their senior year to be reminded of the nuts-and-bolts.
