Applying to grad schools has been a journey for me.

First off, there is the Graduate Record Exam, which I took in October. This is one of the hardest tests I have ever taken. I do not usually have to study for tests. I didn’t study for the ACT and did well so I thought it would be the same for the GRE.

I was wrong.

I felt like I basically needed to know every word in the dictionary, and the math was stuff I hadn’t done since high school.

Along with the GRE, there are all of the applications and things that go along with the application.

All of the schools I applied to had me submit everything online, which was nice because I did not have to deal with mailing anything.

The application wasn’t bad, except for the application fee.

I understand universities need money, but I think it’s a tad bit ridiculous to pay $60 to simply apply to a program.

Then it came time to send in transcripts. For some reason some schools want three transcripts from each prior institution. That means I had to send them a total of six transcripts because I took classes at a community college.

Why do they need so many transcripts? It makes no sense to me and it’s just more money that I had to spend.

After paying all the fees and submitting everything I thought that I had everything done and that now it was time to play the waiting game.

I thought wrong.

At one school, I applied for a program that is no longer offered. Apparently the school did not update its website or the application for the program.

So I’ve been playing phone and e-mail tag with multiple people from different departments trying to figure out what to do.

I don’t think anyone really knows. However, I did find out that now there is a fee for me to change programs.

I feel I should not have to pay because it’s not my fault the university did not update its information.

Plus, apparently I will not get a letter in the mail. Instead I’ll get an e-mail. So there will be no waving a letter in the air saying ‘hey mom I got in!’ This disappoints me.

So at this point I’m wondering why I decided to go to graduate school because all it has done so far is stress me out and cost me a lot of money.

Audrey Sawyer is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].