One of the most important things you should be doing is making sure that going to school at a university like Notre Dame is a good idea for you, and the most important way of doing that isn't just learning what you can from Notre Dame, it's about talking to your friends and family.
I guess that this is something I know because it's something I made the mistake of not doing, once, when I was applying to graduate school for something else, photography. I'm a magazine writer, but I've worked in the photo field for about six years now. At the time, when I decided to apply to school for photography, it seemed like a no-brainer, because it was a subject I'd learned a lot about--though I'm hardly an expert--and had been working with so long that I'd come to really love it, and had also hit a point where I wasn't advancing far enough to really take my photography to the next level.
And like I said I've been working in this field for so long that from the moment I decided to apply, I only had one school in mind, which was the same school most of the photographers I've worked with in New York have gone to. Because I've been in the field so long, it wasn't hard to get a few in-person tours of the school at the beginning; and it wasn't hard to get a first interview to discuss the application process.
Something that came as a surprise to me, though, which is something that I really should have stopped to consider, was that at this first interview where I'd expressed my desire to attend, I was stopped completely dead cold and told that the application process was one that was lengthy and complicated and which I absolutely had to excel and match on every single level before I would even be granted another interview. I wasn't surprised by that, per se; it was more the fact that these were also people I'd worked in the same field with for such a long time that I thought it would be evident to them as well whether or not I'd make a good match for the program. I should have stopped to consider this, I guess, because the fact is that they had known me long enough to know whether I'd make a good match, so if they didn't accept me immediately chances are we might not make a good fit at all.
The problem is that I did want to go to this school badly enough that I didn't stop to consider this before immediately throwing myself into everything I could find about the application process and, since the portfolio seemed the most important part, working nonstop on my portfolio. There were a lot of problems with this: one was that to improve my portfolio, seemingly the most important thing, I was trying all kinds of new techniques I wasn't familiar with, without any critical feedback as to whether or not they were working or how to improve them, other than by modeling them against other work on that university's website. Secondly, the list of specifications and the amount of information I seemed to have to know before getting into the program was so massive that it basically took up all my time, and I was working constantly under a state of exhaustion, because after this first interview I was told after nearly every voice message I left at the university that I wouldn't be able to get a second one until my application was completely prepared. And in the meantime, because I was working so hard on this application--it took about three months--I completely lost touch with my friends and family. I didn't seem to have the time to even talk to them about the fact that I was, in fact, working constantly on an application to photography school.
I had basically completed my application completely up until the point of deadline, when I got to go to a single group seminar; I'd been posting a lot of my work for the portfolio on my Flickr website and, since I know that people at that university have access to my site, I was hoping I'd at least get a general sense of whether or not I was closer to acceptance, but I didn't get that sense in real life at all.
And then after I'd spent all that time getting my application together, I got to the last part, which was getting reviews from my friends to submit with the electronic application.
And this, the last part, was kind of a telling moment. It was the first time I'd sat down or phoned and had long conversations with a lot of my good friends who know my work about my application to this program, and every single one of them refused to contribute a review on the electronic application. Because after I'd told them about the three months putting together the portfolio and application for review, they all said the same thing, which was: "If this was what the application process was like, it just means that this program is not a good match for you." Every single one of them agreed that if the university already knew me and my work, which they had for a very long time, then if we were a good match they would have given me a fast entry instead of making me go through a length application process. Every single one of my friends also expressed the concern that I'd put everything else in my life on hold for this one program, about the fact that I hadn't gotten any in-person meetings along the process, that if the program, knowing the work I was doing by the posts I was putting on Flickr, actually wanted me with them at any point they would have stopped me, and that, in short, me going to this photo school was a bad idea altogether and under no circumstances should I do it.
Even my family--particularly one member who has always actually expressed the most confidence in my decisions about things like grad school in real life, but who is the one I discuss things like this the least (and never really did have a conversation with about it), basically reached out after a conversation about something else and said, "I'm not really sure what you're planning, but I'm really worried about you and whatever it is, isn't a good idea."
And I kind of realized that was true.
Basically, in the final moments, after I'd put in all this work, I realized that this program and I were not the right fit after all. That if we were, after me working in the field for five years, I would have gotten a fast track entry after all. That the fact I didn't means that there's no way I should have spent all that time on the application process, and that in the end, me going to school for this wouldn't work out.
And it was a really tough moment, because at that point, I'd almost gotten addicted to the work I was doing. And I felt good in certain ways about the work that I'd been doing for an actual application, so it felt weird to realize that the purpose of it--enrolling at this specific university--wasn't a good long-term decision. It kind of took me back to when I'd first taken actual photography classes, a few years earlier (which was, in fact, at this university) and tried to put together a portfolio for review; at least one person said to me then, "you'll never really be a photographer," which, I guess, is why it took me so long to get up the actual confidence to submit an application. All of my friends told me then the same thing; what you hear from the university in real life is what matters, and if that's what you hear, that means you shouldn't be there.
I was just looking at my application now. It made me a little sad.
I guess that's what it made me think of. It's good that you're asking questions about something like this from other architects, but the most important thing is to talk to your friends and family; the way I talked to all of my closest friends about my application, who all told me the exact same thing, which is that it wasn't a good idea. It will be a hard thing to hear if they do tell you that, but in the end, your close friends and family are the ones who know you best, and when you really talk to them about it, will have the best advice.
Plus, life is short anyways. At the end of working on my application, all of my friends and family told me they'd just really missed me for three months, and that if the application process was so complicated and difficult that they never ever saw me, then they wouldn't stop me from applying, but they wouldn't be happy about me going there. Which is why none of them would submit something like an electronic reference.
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I'm deep into classical and it's what I want to do mostly, but I still respect and like a good bit of modern work as well.
Great post.
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