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One of the hardest and most critical tasks facing a grad school candidate is picking the right schools to apply to (and then attend). Fit is so important not just for improving admissions prospects, but for creating the best possible graduate school experience. Unfortunately, distinguishing top programs -- especially among law schools and business schools -- can be very difficult. Plus, there is a propensity to let the tail wag the dog. In other words, students decide the schools they like first and then make any sort of research (visits included) fit the existing paradigm, rather than coming to conclusions based off of authentic exploration.
So how should students go about determining "fit?" If you have the resources, we advise handing over your information -- background, skills, goals, etc. -- to a trusted expert and letting them give you an objective list of matching programs. Obviously, that requires a significant financial outlay and it starts to feel a little bit strange offshoring the whole operation.
Fortunately, there is a middle ground in the form of "The Fit Grid."
The Fit Grid is simply a way to prioritize on the front end, based on factors, and then create results on the back end that help move you away from preconceived notions. It is pretty simple and not a perfect solution, but it definitely helps.
Basically, what you want to do is create a list of important factors that you think will play a major role in shaping your graduate school experience. Common factors include: location, prestige of program, career placement (specifically in your area of interest), international program opportunities, ability to take classes in areas of interest, student organizations, cost, scholarship opportunities, admissions chances, and culture.
Once you create your grid on the y axis, you can put all of your schools on the x axis and start filling in the boxes with scores for each program in each area. The goal is obviously to focus exclusively on that factor at each place, so that, again, the preconceived ideas you have about the entire school don't weigh you down. You can also weight various categories based on what matters most to you.
One example might look like this, for Chicago's Booth School of Business (to keep things simple, I'll rate every category on a scale of 1-to-10):
Location -- 10, because I've always wanted to live in Chicago and it’s a great city
Prestige of the program -- 9, not quite as prestigious as many some others on my list, but right up there
Career placement -- 7, because I'm in marketing and while the program is sneaky good and the same companies recruit at Booth as do at Kellogg, the placement numbers still don't bear out a major trend in marketing jobs
International programs -- 9, not quite the pinnacle of global education (like, say, Wharton, Columbia, or Duke), but with the International Business Exchange Program (IBEP) and the opportunity to take five "global" classes to get an IMBA, Booth has great opportunities for someone like me who is interested in global studies
Scheduling flexibility -- 9, the only mark against Booth here is that the bidding system for getting certain professors can be tough, but the flexibility of the core is almost unmatched
If I stopped there, Booth would come in with a very high score of 44 of 50, and probably rate as one of my top choices.
Again, it can be difficult to remove yourself from the big picture in order to fairly and truly assess each piece of each school, but if you go through the exercise, you will be able to get a better handle on the schools that are truly a good match. More importantly, you will even start to understand your own goals and your own candidacy better as a result.
