Curious - how long did it take you to finish an app?

[Loric]

I'm just curious - pulled up my application and noticed the day I first started the process on the checklist.

 

I've been getting this hammered out, letters sent, transcripts processed, etc.. since 8/31 and i still have one letter of rec that's unaccounted for.

 

How long has everyone else taken so far? I never expected it to take this long to get everything together and submitted. I thought a week or two, max, when I started.

[MikKar]

It can take months, mate. Especially with LORs, as recommenders are rarely readily available.

[katiegud]

Mine took about 2 months and letters of recommendation are still getting sent. It will probably be 3 months total by the time everything is in. 

[Loric]

It's done!

 

Yay!!! So that's about 2 and 3/4 months

[TakeruK]

I think I spent about an average 1 hour per school to fill out their application form online. Luckily a good number of my schools used Embark so my personal details (name address etc.) are saved so I don't have to fill it out again every time. I made a sticky note on my bulletin board of all of my schools' mailing addresses (who uses that??), phone numbers etc. Some schools were very straight forward so it was quick but some schools have very complicated and strange forms/questions which took longer! 

 

The longest part was writing my CV and SOP and PHS (for a few schools). I think I spent maybe 6 hours of actual work time writing my CV and 6 hours to write my template SOP, plus 30-60 minutes to customise each SOP to each school. I might have spent 2 hours on a PHS for the 2 schools that required it.

 

A few schools had extra difficult things to fill out, such as a listing of all of my courses relevant to my degree, in addition to uploading a transcript. 

 

But overall, I spent 14 hours doing things common to all schools, plus 2 hours to do school-specific things. I applied to 8 schools, so that is a total of 30 hours of work in total to fill out applications, or just under 4 hours per school. Maybe add another hour for ordering transcripts (one of my school required handwritten snail mail forms!) I would consider this not too bad, since it is on par with the total time I spent on the GRE and Physics GRE, each. 

 

The 30 hours of total work was spread out over a period of 1-2 months, with gaps filled in by complaining about stupid forms, getting frustrated at confusing instructions, and generally procrastinating! The bulk of the work was completed in the first month though (started writing in about November, first deadline was early December), so the things like CVs and SOPs were written in November.

[Loric]

I changed my answers to the 100word/1000 character "short answer" questions on the app at least a dozen times.

[smootie]

Keep in mind that my situation is really unusual, but it took five days for me.

 

I went to check out the program (it's a department at my undergraduate school) and ended up liking them a lot.  They liked me a lot, too.  The professor who talked to me encouraged me to rush an application so that I could begin in the spring, even though the deadline was the next day.  Admission isn't very competitive so the application process was really simple.  It took two days to get my LoRs, and a few days to write my SoP.  I got a decision about two weeks later.

[Cesare]

I took the GRE on Sept. 11th and started my SoP on the 12th. I think I am finally done (Nov. 21st) with editing the writing sample, CV, and SoP (including personalizing it for each school), but knowing me, I will still read over them until I actually submit. Official transcripts (only for the schools that require a paper copy) have been sent, but some have yet to receive them. Still waiting for some letters to be submitted...

[socioholic]

Still don't have all my recs. Most of the time was spent revising the SOP over and over and over again. Sans recs, they took about 3 weeks.

[Loric]

I recall the first day 1 "app" having some short answers I quickly filled in, not thinking much of them. I have no idea what those even said anymore.

 

Here's hoping I didn't blatantly contradict myself somewhere!

[TakeruK]

I was also worried about not giving consistent answers, so I actually prepared a document where I copied and pasted my answers to the common "short answer" questions, so I could see everything at once. Also, this was only more time consuming for the first few applications -- afterwards, I can just copy and paste my stock responses from that list into other applications.

[sunpenguin]

I would say it has taken me the equivalent of 2-3 full business days to finish each app. That includes tailoring SOPs and short answers to answer the university's specific questions, researching POIs and, in many cases, spending time crafting emails to the POIs. Then there's ordering transcripts and filling out all the general information. I've attended a lot of past educational institutions, so just filling out the "educational background" sections usually takes a chunk of time.

 

In August, I did a couple of apps that were open early. Since then, I've been working on this since September, and I still have one app I'm planning to reread and double check so I can submit it today. One of my recommenders is very helpful but has been pretty swamped lately, so he has left most of the letters until the last minute and will be submitting those over the next couple of weeks as the deadlines come up.