Ultimate PhD Application Checklist | How to Get Into a Top PhD Program in 2025 transcript

Hi, my name is Dr. Padilla. I'm a professor in computer science and psychology, and I've been a professor for over 5 years now. Today I wanted to do something that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and that is to give you my ultimate PhD application checklist. This will be a comprehensive list of everything you need for your PhD applications. You should be able to follow along, and if you can check off all of the elements on this list, you will have an excellent PhD application.

The first thing you need when you're applying to graduate schools is a CV. Now, in order to have a good CV—not just a regular CV—there's some components that you'll want to ensure that are very strong. The major thing that you'll want on your CV are your research and your research interests. Ideally, you have been doing research for a little bit of time now—at a minimum, we're talking one semester of research up to two or three years of research for top applicants.

So you will have a research section where you outline which labs that you've worked at, the faculty that you've worked at, and the projects that you've worked on with those individuals. When you're doing this, you're trying to give people a sense of your research interests based on your previous experiences in research labs. The next thing you'll have on your CV is your writing experience. This is including any type of writing that you've done in a scholarly context.

You will include things like peer-reviewed journal articles that are published, conference proceedings that are published, and abstracts from conferences that are published. Okay, so hopefully you have one or more of those. The top applicants usually have a first-authored publication of some degree. Okay, um, but it's very common for people to have, you know, second, third-author publications—a few of those on their application.

We're in a situation where there are fewer PhD spots available, so we're truly looking at a situation where the top applicants are going to be the ones who are picked. It's going to be a very small minority of people who are getting those slots, and they are going to have a first-author publication. So you should really push in your time now to get a first-author or second-author publication on your CV. The other things that you can include in terms of writing experience is anything that is in preparation, if it is truly well-developed.

So we're talking about over 50% of the material has already been written—you can include that as a manuscript in preparation. So you might have a few of those, and you can include them as long as it truly is in preparation. What I've seen not work well is I've seen applicants put "manuscripts in preparation" and they have the co-author list, and I know a few of those co-authors. So I emailed the people that were supposed to be co-authors, and they had never heard of this manuscript before.

So don't lie. But if you have something that is truly in preparation—over 50% completed—you can include it as a manuscript in preparation on your CV. Next section on your CV is presentation experience. You should be taking every single opportunity available to you to present your work. This is undergraduate presentations at your university. You can apply to conference presentations as well. There's oftentimes regional conferences that are not the major conference but in your area, so it'll be easier for you to travel to.

Take every single one of those opportunities and put those on your CV. It will demonstrate that you are engaging in scholarly activity, that you're seeking out research opportunities, and it doesn't matter how big or small—apply to every single type of presentation that you're eligible to apply for. Next part of your CV is awards. Again, apply to every single award that you're eligible for. Doesn't matter how big or small—put the award on the CV.

It might seem uncomfortable to be listing out all of these accomplishments. You might be from a culture that it is inappropriate to brag, but the CV—and truly this whole application—is a place for you to brag. So everything, even if you're on the Dean's List, put that on there. It's just one line. Okay, every single award you've ever gotten, every scholarship, big or small—even in high school—it all goes on your CV. The trick is that it's all going to add up.

Some of them might be small, but some of them might be bigger, and when you start to get more of these awards, they will lead to more awards. So add them all up. Put them all on an individual line on your CV. And the last thing for your CV is: you must proofread. In order to succeed, you must proofread, proofread, proofread. There can't be any typos on this document. Um, it's not enough for you to proofread it. You will not see the typos because you've written the whole document.

You need to give it to a few other people to look over the sections and make sure it is perfect because you are in a situation where you're competing against the brightest people, you know, all around the world—and there are so many fewer spots now. So every little thing is going to stand out. In order to succeed, you must proofread. Take this to heart. The next part of your PhD application will be your personal statement.

Sometimes this is called a research statement, depending on where you're applying to. Um, it's usually a single document. In the past it used to be two documents, so you might see that at some places, but by and large people have switched to a single document. And this is where you get to contextualize who you are and what you want to do. There is, I think, a golden template for putting these together. Some people might disagree with me, but I think that the best way to put together a research statement is to start with a big opening description of your idea or mission—like, what do you want to pursue?

What is driving you? What is your, um, the main thing that you're really excited about to pursue for your PhD? Okay, that's kind of the opening bit—the opening statement. Then you fill in with: what were your prior experiences that prepared you to reach your ultimate goals in research and in life? Okay, that's where you list out the things that you've done. And don't list it like a laundry list. I see a lot of people do that, where they say, "My first year of undergrad I did this, and the second year I did this," blah blah blah, in chronological order.

That is super boring. Don't do that. Instead, describe the skills that you are acquiring and how one skill or expertise or interest led into the next. Think about it as a narrative story—not just a laundry list of the things that you have done. Okay, and the whole purpose of that is you want to describe how all of these amazing skills and opportunities that you sought out prepared you for your PhD. The next part that you'll want to write about is the things that you're excited to learn in your PhD from a particular professor.

These might be methods. This might be this area of research—just what are you really excited to learn beyond the things that you already know? And then you conclude that with: what can you bring to the lab or professor that might be useful for them? So it's sort of saying, "I want to learn all of these great things, and I am bringing these extra skills that will advance the research in this particular way." So you're sort of saying the unified elements of my background and what I'm going to learn and the things I'm bringing to lab are going to make us ride off into the sunset and be, you know, successful and famous altogether.

I think that is a winning approach for writing these research statements. There's no hard and fast rule, um, but I think if you have some flavor of that where you contextualize your previous experiences, talk about the new things you want to learn, and describe what you're bringing to the lab, you'll be very successful. And the document that is most important for you to get feedback on is this research or personal statement.

You need other people to read it, because it will be really hard for you to tell if you're going into too much detail or maybe volunteering too much personal information—that type of thing. You simply must have people read it. And it's best if you have someone read it who evaluates these things. So hopefully you're doing research right now. This is the time where you send the statement to your current adviser, your undergraduate adviser, or your master's adviser.

They will be happy to read these and they will give you very candid feedback because they read so many. Do not be afraid to send your documents to people for review. You need to do it with sufficient time—I'm talking more than 3 weeks before the deadline. This should be done way in advance. Um, but they will be happy to give you feedback. That is absolutely what they do. Do not be afraid to ask for feedback from professors.

This is where I think certain people that are shy or uncomfortable or from cultures where that's inappropriate—they don't ask for the feedback they need, and they get outcompeted by people who are just willing to ask anyone for their feedback and support. So this is a time where you gather up all your confidence, send that document to an adviser—and graduate students as well, because they wrote successful ones that are currently in school—and get as much feedback on it as possible.

Third item on your PhD application checklist is new for 2025, and that is to try to secure funding. Okay, we are in a world where the funding is so incredibly limited. So the trick for securing funding is: a) determining if there's funding in a particular program with a particular adviser—there might not be this year—or b) look for independent funding yourself. So all the mechanisms to secure funding still exist that were there previously—there's just a smaller pot of money.

So you're going to have to do more work to determine if a professor is, in fact, accepting students. Usually, on their websites, they might say that they're accepting students—maybe not. So this requires many more cold emails to people to determine: are they accepting students? And you don't have to ask if they have funding. You can just ask if they're accepting students. If they are, they will find the funding. Okay, if there is no funding available to them to give to you, they will say they're not accepting students.

And they might find funding, you know, from TA ships or from grants, etc. But if they say they're accepting students, that is code for: there is funding for someone to get a spot. Okay, so you need to do that groundwork much further in advance. Do a lot more personal investing in the people that do have funding—there's going to be fewer of them. So that means trying to get more facetime with them, showing up to conferences that they're at, watching their talks.

Go to conferences where they have workshops—that's a great opportunity to get to meet them one-on-one because they will spend more time at those workshops. Go over and beyond for those small pots of money. And also apply for funding yourself. If you know of any funding mechanisms that are available, apply for them all. The NSF GRFP—you’re allowed to apply for that before you get into graduate school one time, and then once when you're in graduate school.

That's for US residents only. The truth is that funding is going to be so much tighter for international students. Um, it's going to be a harder road for you, so you're going to have to be more creative in procuring your funding. But be aware: applications 2025—that is going to be a major concern—is establishing where your funding's coming from. So you need to do a lot more work than people had to do in the past, frankly.

My fourth item on my PhD application checklist is securing your letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation are playing an increasingly larger role in PhD applications. We are getting less information overall because we have fewer test scores—standardized tests—so people tend to rely more heavily on these letters of recommendation. Um, so what you want is three letters of recommendation, which are required. It is best if all three come from a tenure-track faculty member that you have worked directly with.

Okay, so you want to do a lot of groundwork where you're doing research with people who can write letters and describe what it's like to work with you. There—like I said—there's less money now, so people are really thinking about: is this a sure thing, this particular student? So a way for them to know is if someone that they respect says, "I've worked with this person before. They're great. They will be excellent student." That is more of a sure thing.

So you want a lot of those. You need three faculty members to write those. And that can be, um, a hard road. So it is really about making lots of personal connections with people, working in their labs, and developing those letters of recommendation. You, of course, can get letters of rec from people that you haven't worked with directly—like a professor that you just took their class. Um, that will be less useful than someone that you have direct experience with.

So if you want the best, strongest application, you're talking three tenure-track professors who can write glowing letters about working with you directly. Now, when you're asking for these letters of recommendation, it's really important to do it early and to check on the progress. Because professors are asked to write many of these all of the time, and we can just forget, frankly, who we're being asked to write letters for.

And it's not to be mean at all. It's that we might get asked to write 20 or 30 letters for different students, right? And each of them are applying to five, six, 10 different schools, and all these emails come in and we just forget. Okay, we're very absent-minded people. So be very organized in terms of remembering who you asked for letters, to which schools, and what the deadlines are. Usually there's an automated mechanism that will ask the professors for letters of recommendation if they haven't sent them in—but maybe not.

It could be that you actually have to go back into the system and click the button to re-ask for those letters of recommendation. So just try to keep very organized as to when the letters are required to go in and who you've asked. And double-check that, in fact, they've done it. If it is, um, let's say, 3 days before the deadline for their letter of recommendation, that's a good time to ping them again. Send them an email saying, "Hey, I just wanted to remind you about this." Okay?

Because they truly may have forgotten. But don't be afraid to do the reminder letter to the letter writer. They will definitely appreciate it—if it's about 3 days before the deadline. If it's 2 weeks before the deadline and you're sending them a reminder email—don't. Don't do it. They're going to wait till it's closer to the deadline. So the 3 days is the sweet spot for sending those reminder letters. The final item on my checklist is actually submitting all of these.

You will find that each different school has a different online portal where you have to upload and do different things in different ways, and you might have to include all of the information from your CV in their portal. So don't leave it to the last minute. Start those applications early—like weeks in advance—because they might take a lot of time just simply to fill in all of the buttons. It can be a time-consuming process, unfortunately.

So make sure you have all those materials ready and just start going through the process as early as reasonably possible. And proofread. Proofread everything. If you don't proofread, you won't succeed. You must proofread everything, and that is from every element of this application process, because at this point, they're looking for reasons to exclude people. And simple spelling and grammar errors is a really easy way to get kicked out of the applicant pool before people even evaluate your quality.

Okay, so those are all the required items on my ultimate PhD application checklist. I have a bonus one for you. This is totally optional, but I think it does help your success, and that is to have an online presence that is academic. That is, having your own personal website, making sure you have a LinkedIn page. This is so when people view your application, they might Google you. And what you want to come up is something good.

You want something positive that reflects your scholarly prowess. Okay, um, so again, not required, but I do think it helps people have a visual with who they're looking at in terms of their application. You don't need to have that ready as soon as you submit the application, because it will truly be at least a month before anyone is reviewing your application. So you have time to get that going, but definitely consider it if you want a leg up on other applicants.

This has been my ultimate PhD application checklist. I hope you found this useful. I think that it is, you know, an exciting time to be applying for graduate school. It is also very challenging. It's going to be much more competitive than in any of the past years, so I think you need to step up your game. But I think you can do it, and by making sure you have everything lined up, I think you'll have a very strong application.

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