Overwhelmed?

[LateAntique]

I'm by no means an expert on education (though with as many years as I've been in undergrad one would think I am), I think one reason this is overwhelming for me is that it's entirely new. This is not writing another paper or studying for another test: taking the GRE, writing up a CV, writing up a statement of purpose (the most dreadful genre and obviously Satanic in origin), etc, is all new. Particularly with the SoP, I feel as if I'm writing poetry. I scrutinize the aspect of every verb, make sure I use certain words only once (and find synonymns ifI need to speak about something twice), and try to place my prepositions in the perfect spots. It's all ridiculous. I've never in my life had a headache from writing until this.

That said: taking things one at a time is pretty crucial. I study for the GRE a certain amount of time every day, I work on my SoP little by little, etc. I suppose the thing to keep in mind is that every fall thousands of people are in the exact same position - 99.9% of the people who applied to the same program you're applying to did so with crossed fingers ( and toes and whatever else), even the ones who got in.