To apply or not apply. That is the question many of you are asking yourselves as admissions deadlines approach. Is it time to go for the MBA? The JD? MD? PhD?

Here’s the answer: it depends.

I know that’s a cop out, but it’s true. It really depends on you, your circumstances, and your goals. I’ve seen too many people—clients, friends, and others—target degrees that ultimately don’t make sense for them. And with today’s unprecedented (in our lifetimes) economic challenges, making the right decision about how to spend the next one to eight (PhD’s can take that long) years of your life is even more crucial.

As someone on his fourth career—counting at-home dad—I should know. My full bio’s elsewhere on this site, but I went straight from undergrad to a PhD program in clinical psychology. It took six years to complete the degree and less than six months for me to leave the field, afterward. Do I regret doing my PhD? Not really: it helped me secure a management consulting position and writing work in academia; and those three letters do look nice on business cards. Do I wish I’d thought more about my strengths and interests and gotten more professional experience before taking that six-year plunge? Absolutely.

In that spirit, let me offer some thoughts on each major graduate degree, and what to think about as you consider applying.

PhD: Having earned one, I think the best reason to pursue a PhD is to secure a career in academia. For professorships at big-name research institutes, it’s the only way in. Sure, people go into industry after becoming this “other kind” of doctor, but I would argue that they don’t need the degree to get there, and even that their time would be better spent gaining real-world experience. Beyond that goal issue, this is the right degree for you if you live and breathe research—using data of all kinds to build on existing theories, generate new ones, and explain phenomena. You should love all things research, including debating theory and methodology with others, to be a serious PhD candidate. As you can imagine, earning a PhD also takes tremendous discipline—for that matter, so does being a professor. It’s not for those who need a lot of structure and guidance.

MBA: The vast majority of my clients are MBA applicants. I help most write very specific goals into their essays. My guess is that post-MBA very few end up doing exactly what they say they will. That tells you several things, one of which is that this is a strong all-purpose degree, and not just for the business world. What other degree turns out so many bankers, consultants, non-profit heads, marketers, operations consultants, policymakers, and so on? None. So there are many good reasons to get the degree, which takes the least time of any advanced degree (one to two years) and generates a lot of job opportunities. Even today. Beyond recruiting, MBA programs endow students with fantastic networks—some debate this point, but I’ve seen how much my friends, colleagues, and even my wife (Kellogg MBA) have benefited from b-school contacts. Any reasons not to go? If business or related fields aren’t really your thing—as I discovered as a strategy consultant—don’t go. If you hate structure and data-based problem-solving and team projects, don’t go.

MD: My brother, both brothers-in-law, and many, many friends are doctors—not med students, not residents, not fellows, but practicing doctors. Most hate how long it took for them to get to this point: they watched friends make “real money” for years while they worked impossibly long hours for little monetary reward. Now, most love what they do, and are thrilled to be in such a stable field that allows them to truly help people while making a reasonable living. But is it for you? I think it comes down to enjoying solving the problems that doctors solve. That sounds self-evident, but I think people forget, especially after all the TV shows that highlight the profession’s highest and lowest moments, that in the end it’s often you in a room with patients and/or other doctors, trying figure out how to diagnose and treat a given set of symptoms. Are you good at that kind of pattern-matching-based problem-solving? Are you okay with the idea of dissecting a cadaver (you have to, in med school)? Do you mind dealing with people often at their worst (other than pathology, radiology, and maybe some other specialties, you’ll have to)? Ask yourself these questions to understand if you’d be happy as a physician.

JD: I know the least about this grad degree. But I do know that a very large number of trained lawyers do not work as attorneys—many are in the business world and elsewhere. That tells me at least a couple things: one, that getting a job as an attorney may be difficult, given supply and demand (it’s definitely a bad job market for lawyers right now); two, that many people rush into law school without really knowing if they want to be lawyers. So think hard about it. Maybe it makes sense to work in the field before committing to grad school. Research what attorneys do, day to day. Again, TV has glamorized litigation (i.e., trial work), but many lawyers rarely set foot in the courtroom. If you find a path that seems to match your skills and interests well, it’s a good sign.

The bottom line: think hard about your grad-school decision. Don’t get a degree because you feel you “should” or you don’t have a lot of other options. If and when you decide a graduate degree is the way to go, my fellow editors and I would be happy to help you make it happen.

By Dr. Sachin Waikar, formerly a McKinsey consultant and now an author and advisor to business and grad school applicants.

Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School, by Linda Abraham and Rebecca Blustein, shows you how to get the financial support you need to attend the graduate school of your choice.

In Financing Your Future, an instantly downloadable ebook, you’ll learn about:

• Different types of scholarships.
• When to apply for financial aid.
• How to assemble a strong application.
• Applying for high-prestige scholarships.
• Specific program tips and interview advice.

Check out Financing Your Future: Winning Fellowships, Scholarships and Awards for Grad School.

This is Alex. Everyone say “Hi Alex!”.  All her life, Alex wanted to be an astronaut because she thought it sounded cute - "Alex the Astronaut" and anyway, her hometown, Little Creek, South Dakota, was a little boring.  She finally made it to graduation (never thought she’d make it that far..) and here she is now, deciding on her career path for the future.  Somehow, the astronaut idea had lost its appeal, so she’s actually debating between a combustion engineer (rocket scientist) or entrepreneur to launch her career.

So her search began to Choose the Right College. Alex wondered- “Does it matter which college you choose?”  Then she read Lynn Mattoon's article What Are You Really Going to College For? posted at myUsearch blog which suggests it is more about what you do than where you go.  She realized before you choose, you need to first figure out why are you going to college.  So Alex’s combustion engineer goal kind of exploded. Or imploded. 

But where should Alex actually go? While looking to find a review of a particular college, she found some tips to use in Tom Tessin’s  Student Reviews of Colleges - Finding Them posted at FCC Student Blog.  She also read up on Great College Advice's article by Katherine Price, the Top 5 Reasons to Go to College Out-of-State,
where Katherine noted that you may have an easier time being admitted to great universities outside your home state.  And tuition may not be any more expensive than attending college down the road. 

Speaking of tuition, Alex realized she had better enter the long road of applying for Scholarships.  She started with admissions expert Julie Manhan best tips to secure a scholarship for those high tuition bills in How to Begin Your Scholarship Search posted at myUsearch blog.  After securing as many scholarships as she could, Alex realized that the funds, together with her little piggy bank, just wouldn’t cut it to cover tuition. 

She needed to find out about Financial Aid options. Knowing that college can be a very financially challenging time, but also a time of great discovery, she read up on Jim Wang’s 40 Money Tips for College Students posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. So now she was a bit more economically savvy, but Alex wasn’t sure she was maximizing her student loan eligibility.  After reading Sophie's seven frequently asked questions and the answers needed to ensure she was not missing any money she may have been eligible for at 7 FAFSA Myths-Don't Lose this Money posted at Sophie's Blog, she felt more relieved, and secured enough funds to pursue her dreams. Almost...

She still had to work on Getting Admitted.
She began working on her application to Dream Business School, conveniently located in Big Creek, North Dakota. She was almost done and thought her application was exactly what the adcom wants to read.  Suddenly, she felt ill. She realized she was suffering from Generic Itis. After a quick search online, she found out the symptoms and prevented it from ruining her application with Linda Abraham's Application Essay Tip: Generic-Itis Prevention posted on the Accepted Admissions Almanac. She also checked out Sophie’s Crucial tips about College Accreditation, learn how it will affect your wallet posted at Sophie's Blog while deciding which courses to take.

Finally, Alex crossed the application bridge and made it to College Life! Amazingly, she received more mail regarding credit card options than from her Dream College (she got in- by the way), so she read MBB’s College Students and Use Of Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book Blog and made sure to get the best card for her. And yeah, not give away her SSN.

Comfortably ensconced in college life, Alex decided to explore some Other Cool Stuff on the Horizon.

She met students who went directly to graduate business school and insisted they get a lot out of their studies without working first. But many business-school officials didn't agree. She found out the real deal with Khan's Full-time Job After Graduation or Start Work on an M.B.A posted at Higher Education and Career Blog. Alex really wanted to keep everyone updated, but didn’t realize just how difficult is it to blog and attend school as an undergraduate. It seemed that most student blogs were not current, or they have long spaces of inactivity as these students attend to life as they know it. She checked out the ones who stayed on top in Frederick Yarmy's Top 50 Blogs By Undergrad Students posted at Undergraduate Degree and began her own blog called In Alex’s Outer Space. 

Then she posted this carnival detailing her exciting journey to this point in her life. 3….2…1….Time to take off on your own college journey! Good Luck!

On behalf of Accepted.com, Alex thanks Mark Montgomery of Great College Advice for organizing this carnival. For future carnivals, please submit your articles here.

*Photos Courtesy of Accepted.com 2009 Beautiful B-School Photo Contest. 2010 Contest Starting Soon.

Inside Higher Ed reports that according to a study by the Council of Graduate Schools, enrollment of international students at American grad schools has plateaued this year, after four years of growth. Meanwhile, the number of first-time American students at grad schools is up six percent.

It is difficult to detect a trend in these numbers, since some grad schools have larger increases in American students, while others have decreases. Doctoral schools, in general, experienced larger increases than master’s-oriented schools. Enrollment of grad students from China continued to rise, but those from India and South Korea declined, while those from Turkey and the Middle East climbed dramatically  when compared to recent years.

The reason for the decline in Indian and South Korean enrollment is unclear, but could be related to reductions in financial aid packages being offered to international students, particularly those from India. More competition could also be a factor, as other Western countries like Britain and Canada are pursuing foreign students, and countries like China and India have developed their own graduate education offerings. 

I am almost finished reading Made to Stick by the brothers Chip and Dan Heath. I recommend it highly to those of you in sales, communications, or teaching. Quant jocks? You probably don't need it.

The authors researched and identified the factors that cause communications to succeed or fail. They boiled their research down to "six principles of stickiness."  

1. Simplicity.
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories

Over the next several weeks I am going to explore these SUCCES principles and apply them to personal statements and application essays. For today let's talk about Simplicity.

Your personal statement or application essay needs a core idea. That essence or central point becomes the driver of all content for that essay. When responding to specific questions, your core must directly and elegantly answer the question. When writing a less-directed personal statement, you still need a driving concept; you just have more choice as to what that concept should be. Everything else in the essay should support that concept.

If writing multiple essays for one application, each essay has to have a core. Those concepts should mesh and complement each other, but not duplicate.

The remaining principles of Making It Stick are means of effectively relating your core idea, but first you need to have a core. Unfortunately, many applicants treat their essays like many teenagers treat their bedroom closets -- as a place to put all kinds of "stuff" that may be useful or perhaps once was useful. There is no logic or organizing principle, no driving force. These messy closet essays then read like the mishmash they are.

Essays that are resumes in prose or that attempt to tell your entire life story descend into the mishmash category. Personal statements replete with irrelevant detail stray from their central mission.  They are not engaging or persuasive. In fact they bore.

When you write your essay, start with a central idea and then make sure that everything else supports it. That elegant simplicity is not simplistic. It is not even easy. It is highly effective.