When can you apply to Graduate school for early admissions Fall 2015?

[Sgriffin1990]

I want to apply to graduate school Fall 2015 and I want to apply during the early deadlines. I know it's far in advance but when do schools usually start allowing people to apply for Fall 2015. I know every school is different in terms of their deadlines but I am just wondering generally when they open up to allow students to start applying? One month, two months, three months before?

[VioletAyame]

I remember for some of the schools I was interested in, if you subscribe to their email lists for prospective students (usually found on the admission page) they will email and let you know when they start accepting applications. For deadlines around December - January, I think the app season usually starts around September - October. But if your schools do not do rolling admission, it will not matter when you turn your materials in, and you may potentially suffer from a long long wait, almost half a year in some cases. It didn't happen to me, but if you look around on this forum, you can see how hard it can be on people.

In the meantime, you can spend time researching programs, contacting POIs, studying for the GRE, talking to your potential LOR writers, polishing you SOP and CV, etc. There's no shortage of tasks to do honestly. You can start the process early and still feel like you're running out of time at the end. Good luck with the process!

[*Jenny*]

It really varies from school to school and program to program. For my program at my choice school, the application season opened early September 2013 for admission for fall 2014. I applied on October 17, 2013, and here we are nearly 5 months later and I haven't heard a peep. The wait is brutal.

[juilletmercredi]

Most schools do not open their applications for the following year until September.

[Sgriffin1990]

Ugh lol okay thanks!!

[microarray]

i think September/October is the earliest the applications will be opened up.  In the meantime you can draft various length versions of your statements.

[Crucial BBQ]

Ok, so the situation is that I emailed a few different professors that I thought I'd be interested in working with when I was applying to Master's programs. One of my top choices answered pretty quickly and was very nice and encouraging, but said she wouldn't be able to take any more students for a while. I thanked her and moved on. 

Flash forward to being offered an internship in a University medical and veterinary entomology lab (this is the field I'm hoping to get into) through the state's Department of Health and then being offered a graduate research position at that school. So far, so good. 

While the department is pretty good and my current advisor is fantastic, I have no plans to continue on to do a Ph.D. at this school. This is partly because my degree would say "entomology and plant pathology" and that feels deceptive since I have no intention of actually working with plants and partly because I think it would be good for me to gain experience in different labs working with different people. 

 

So, back to the professor I emailed a while back who said she didn't have space. That school, and her program specifically, is still at the top of my list. It's a very good school and would, at this point, be a serious reach for me. However, I have more research under my belt than I did when I first contacted them and I have the entire 2+ years of my Master's program to improve my standing. I've been told that, since I've already spoken to her and I'm pretty certain this is what I want, I should contact her as soon as possible- maybe even before I start the Master's program- to let her know what I've been doing and tell her I'm still interested in working with her in the future if she has the space. 

My questions are: 1) is it a good idea to contact her again this early?  2) What should an email like that say? 

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thank you. 

 

I looked into a program at MIT (for the fourth straight year).  Every year this program opened applications and began the cycle sometime in August. I do believe that most programs start sometime between September and October.  Also, some schools/programs have rolling admissions and others will take applications at anytime despite what-ever their deadline states. 

Edited February 27, 2014 by Crucial BBQ