Anyone who wants to further their education and attend graduate school must endure the many stressors of graduate school. These range from currently keeping your grades up, saving money (to pay for grad school or even visit them) and the entire application process.

I genuinely thought that the college application/acceptance/decision was as stressful as it gets but now that I am heading into the summer of my junior year I realize I was sadly mistaken. These are the most stressful parts of applying to graduate school, for me.

Deciding what school to apply to

This is honestly the hardest decision for me because this school will decide how my career as a chiropractor goes. There are so many different criteria to look at like location, techniques taught, price and Board Scores. These are important because the location is important to where I want to live for the next three or four years and let’s be honest you do not want to be hate where you’re living and be stuck there for an extended period.

As a future chiropractic student, it is important to look at the number of techniques taught so that you can reach a wider variety of patients. You also are required to take and pass four different National Boards to practice Chiropractic Care.

Saving money

The saying “I’m a broke college student” is not a joke and more of a reality for many college students. We are full-time students and that’s our job. That’s why we are here. But many of us work as well. Some people even have multiple jobs. I am one of those people I have 3 jobs and am a full-time student trying to pay everything off. It certainly isn’t easy but it is possible. The hardest part is remembering to save the little bit of extra money that I do have.

The importance of saving money when applying to graduate schools is so that you are able to visit the schools, pay for application fees and ultimately have some money left over for when you get there. When applying to undergraduate programs you probably went on a bunch of college tours and had an idea of what you were looking at. When applying to graduate schools, in my case the majority of them require a plane ticket to go visit making it an expensive trip.

Furthermore, each application has at least a $50-$100 application fee (that doesn’t even begin to include the deposit). Lastly, graduate school is a full-time job and a lot of the time you will not have time to work outside of school. I know chiropractic school is 8 a.m to 5 p.m Monday through Friday and then you have homework on top of that. You’re going to need to have money saved up in order to maintain a social life.

The application process

This is where you have to broadcast yourself and make yourself a good candidate. Unfortunately, if you are like me you don’t enjoy talking about yourself making this part the hardest part. Many graduate schools also require interviews so they get to know the candidate on a more personal level. I am one of those people who is super awkward and gets so nervous during interviews so that is the worst part.

Then you have to find references and have good letters of recommendations. There are so many steps to the application that it not difficult to accidentally miss one. As much as you want the entire process to be over you have to remember to take your time and thoroughly fill out the application.

And THE WAIT…

Easily the worst part of applying to graduate school, waiting to hear back. Many graduate schools are continuously accepting applications but only release acceptances in small batches. When that first batch is released, if you don’t hear back, you panic. But just remember not all the acceptances have been decided or released yet. Take a deep breath, and wait some more.

Through all of these stressful, difficult decisions remember to breath, keep your head up and be confident in yourself. It is hard but went through this once with undergraduate college now just power through and survive it again.