grad application weekend

I've grounded myself, at least until Sunday evening when I go for sake bombs with the other grad students at Miyake's. I am going to attempt to do 13 doctoral program applications in one weekend. So far I've done 1/2 of two applications. Fuck. Each program has about 10+ components - often 2 transcripts for each school attended, statement of purpose, online application, GRE scores, 3 letters of rec, financial affidavit for international students, writing sample, supplementary application for the department, CV/resume, international student form, fellowship/teaching application, and some miscellaneous shit for other schools. Some of those components go to the Graduate Admissions people, other stuff goes straight to the department you are applying to. The schools are not consistent in how they handle these docs and where they need them sent. I have a monster Excel spreadsheet to track all this and it's still hard. My advice to those of you thinking of applying to grad school, especially tougher programs like PhD, MBA, law, medicine:

1. Start your research early. It took me 4 months to narrow down my list of schools
2. Start your statement of purpose early and allow for at least 2 rounds of editing and revisions
3. Have smart profs you trust give you feedback on your statement of purpose
4. Give people at least a month to do your letters of rec and give them all the info they need - addresses, mailing labels, info etc.
5. Get ready to bend over - if you are American, you can cry poor and request they waive the application fee of $60 - 120; If you are international it adds up quick. ETS also charges $15 for each school it reports your scores to.
6. Read the fine print - International students often have deadlines that come 2 to 3 months before the regular deadline
7. If you haven't done your GRE/LSAT/GMAT yet, do it ASAP to allow for a rewrite in case you need one (like I did because I got all ADD, got the urge to pee and had to hold it, and then miscalculated how much time I had left for that last reading comp question). Studying for those exams is no walk in the park, be prepared to dedicate several months of hardcore study especially if you're not used to standardized testing (e.g. you didn't take the SAT). Princeton and Kaplan make the best study guides and Kaplan gives free practice tests at their centers with minimal sales pitching at the end of it. Bring earplugs to the exam. There will be annoying people there (foot tappers, mouth breathers, pencil tappers, throat clearers, snot snorters you know...). General rule, if your quant and verbal don't add up to 1000, you REALLY need to retake the exam as that is a bare minimum cutoff for some schools. If you're going for a science/tech/math related program, you better score pretty darn close to 800 on your quant. If you're going into English/Humanities, you better score pretty darn close to 800 on verbal.
8. Use Adobe Acrobat full version to fill in these damn PDF forms. Handwriting would be hell. And who in the world still uses a typewriter?
9. Buy a buttload of stamps and envelopes and make sure you have your own printer.
10. Be organized and, again, START EARLY as this is a massive undertaking
11. Don't plan on writing your thesis concurrently. It won't happen. I will even bet you $20 right now.

I was going to go work out to psych myself up for all this but instead I got suckered into going to happy hour at El Torrito. Damn you Shannph. Now I'm kinda sleepy and loopy from my two sleeves of beer. Oh well.