Grad school/Ph D program application - what are they looking for?

[meemee]

So help me mama's.

my situation is rather complicated.

i have been misled by so many counsellors - misinformed or not informed.

i have a BA in english from a developing country and my anthro proff just pointed out i should try and apply for grad school. my intention is nothing less than a Ph D - in anthropology. i have been in community college for years and now am trying to figure out the red tape to transfer to a grad program.

so here is my question.

for those of you who know...

what makes a univ want to take you for a grad student. what qualities must you have. apart from the academics?

what are they looking for.

honestly due to family reasons i can only apply to ONE univ and i need to make sure i can get in there.

what do i need to do? any pointers? how do i get them to choose me?

[Carita]

talk right to those professors. most often if you meet minimum univ requirements, its a subset of faculty in your program that decide who is admitted with funding.

you'll want to show through correspondence, TOEFL scores, and in person that you have good English skills. A big bonus - if you already know what you want to study and if there is a perfect advisor fit in the department - then that is directly who you will want to talk to. You want to convince them you have the skill, determination, direction and experience to complete a PhD.

[wholewheatchick]

I think one of the biggest things is convincing them that you absolutely know that this is 100% what you want to do with your life, and that you definitely will finish the program. And as the PP said, finding an advisor within the department. You can usually look up individual prof's websites/CVs and then find research areas similar to yours, and email or call them, asking specific questions about what to emphasize in your application. Also, they will probably want you to have background in your method of research.

[GranoLLLy-girl]

I am a little confused by your post--but I'll try to help. I have a PhD. I also teach at both a community college (adjunct) and a four year institution--as far as I know, the highest degree you can get from a community college is an associate's degree. That has been my experience in teaching at a community college and from the knowledge that I have in education. So you would first need a bachelor's degree in order to go on to a master's degree. And then, depending on the master's degree, you could go on for the PhD. My master's degree is a terminal degree (which means that there is no doctorate above the degree that I hold; I wrote a dissertation with the degree and it is a three year degree)--which meant that for me to go on to a PhD, I had to go in a slightly different direction, not just straight from the master's to the PhD. So my PhD is not only from a different university, but also in a different discipline--and only slightly related to my master's. Some degrees/institutions do offer an opportunity to go straight from the master's level to the doctoral level.
But I think at this point your biggest concern would be to get a bachelor's degree first. Then from there think about the next step.

[meemee]

sorry for the confusion.

where i come from if you want to change your major you start from scratch again. your undergrad. so i was in the process of doing that and panicking that it will take me 15 yearsw to finish school. which is why i am at community college finishing up my requirements for my undergrad transfer to a 4 year college.

there are two parts to my trip to grad school.

1. the logistics - academic logistics. i DO have a bachelors but from a different country. and i am working on that. i have completed a whole bunch of units at the community college level, taken Honours classes and been on the deans list so i can prove i am a good student.

2. the other side. which is my essay, goal and convincing them that i want to get my Ph D. this is the aspect i am interested in. anyone can make the grades. what sets a student aside that a faculty looks at and says i want them IN my program.

the second part is what interests me.

so if i applied to grad school and i made the academic requirements, why would you include me in your program?

[Carita]

in my opinion - besides good GPAs, etc. I would explain you odd academic history in your cultural context (because a reviewer will be confused as well why you decided to take comm college courses) and then talk specifically about what you want to study. Really - the best thing that will make them want you is - probably in this order:
1) A well laid out idea of what exactly you want to study and an advisor match in that department - for this you will need to talk to prof in that department
2) Prior research or real-life experience with your degree or some other convincing explanation as to why you want to switch fields (not just sounding flaky about switching fields)
3) Good grades/scores/recommendations

[AnnaNova]

just a note - you dont have to re-take classes if you have a degree from a different country. you can have your foreign credits evaluated by an accredited institution (for example, ece.com), they'd tell you how exactly your credits relate into american credits, and you can apply for grad school with that unless there are some special requirements, or unless you want to retake the classes.
i can see how some things you'd have to re-take... something with law or history or things of that sort that are country-specific, but things like biology or math or chemistry are pretty universal and you could definetely apply those credits to your study here.

[marinak1977]

I'm a neuroscience graduate student and in any science/reseach dominated field the main thing the school would care for is research experience. Showing that you have some goes a long way.