Advice, Lessons Learned, Etc. from 2020 Cycle

[hopealways]

Following the trend in many other sub-forums here, what are everyone's tips, advice, lessons learned, regrets from this past application season? Hopefully this thread will benefit the Fall 2021 applicants, or at least serve as a space of reflection/rants/anything else for this past season's applicants.

I was a PhD applicant (in theology) this past cycle, so I can personally probably only speak to PhD (or possibly even MTS/ MAR) applications and less so to MDiv applications btw-- will comment with my own thoughts/lessons learned soon once I get my thoughts together.

[pax et caritas]

I was worried I wouldn't be able to afford applying to several schools I was interested in, but I was able to get fee waivers from almost all the places I applied. They're not too difficult to get--at most the school would ask me for a paystub and then they'd approve me. So if you're worried about the financial burden, remember some institutions are about as wealthy as small countries, so please don't feel bad asking for help!

I also applied to a few different types of programs, as I wasn't totally set on just one kind (MDiv, MTS, MA, MSt, etc.). I ended up settling on the MDiv pretty early in the process, but I was still happy to have options not only as for what university I wanted to attend, but what kind of program as well (at only the cost of extra time! Fee waivers). 

Oh, and I'd recommend applying to more than a couple places, if that's doable. I've seen people apply to only one or two of their top choices--and they might be good applicants too--but sometimes, for whatever reason, their application is unsuccessful (or they don't receive as much funding as they expected). Remember, even good applicants sometimes get shot down. I think I was a good applicant for UChicago's MDiv, but they had other ideas, and that's okay. I applied to plenty of other places, so it didn't worry me. Also! If you apply to more places, there's a greater chance you'll get at least one pretty strong financial aid package, and you might be able to leverage that offer to increase funding at, say, another program you were accepted to but didn't receive great funding for. A friend of mine did this when she applied for her M* program.