众所周知，申请美国研究生是一件大事，美国研究生申请没你想象中那么容易。下面小编就和大家分享美国研究生申请需要提前多久准备比较好，希望能够帮助到大家，快来一起学习吧。

美国研究生申请需要提前多久准备比较好?

一、3-5个月:语言学习+GMAT/GRE学习+学校选择

首先要制定一个清晰的时间表和计划。在专业的顾问老师监督下，全程的申请都会有人指导和规划，DIY的学生则需要更多的帮助。

在这里我们假设申请人打算独立完成申请，任务包括:在校成绩(GPA)、托福/雅思和GMAT/GRE的准备、学校选择、材料准备、网上申请和投递。

很多人在刚开始拿单词书狂啃，两个月后发现不管是托福还是雅思都没有合适的时间和考试地点。还有一些人拿到了他们想要的语言成绩，却发现截止日期快到了，personal statement只写了初稿。

事实上，留学准备和申请并不一定是一项单一的任务，而是多线同时进行的。在申请出国留学的过程中，如果你必须先完成A，然后再做B，时间是远远不够的。

另外，语言和GMAT/GRE是最重要的方面之一，应该尽早准备。但同时，学生应该了解不同国家的基本信息，尽快确定目的地。所以前期的信息收集工作一定不能少。例如，由于政策因素，移民到英国比较困难，毕业后拿到工作签证也不容易。加拿大在申请研究生学习时，原则上不能改变专业。在美国，STEM(科学、技术、工程、数学)领域的学生更容易申请研究生工作签证，但文科学生的机会相对来说更少。

一般来说，语言和GMAT/GRE准备为3-5个月左右。一方面，设定这个期限是为了督促自己不要把战线拖得太久。另一方面，学生需要真正参加一次考试来检查学习成果，像语言学习的水平和制定后期专项的提高,从而有针对性地继续改进，去考第二次、第三次。

选校的话，现在网上有很多选择学校的工具，当然，各种网上的信息只能作为一个索引，所有信息最终都要以学校的官方网站为准。由于选择学校涉及的细节太多，建议申请人制作一份excel表格来记录不同学校的信息。

表格中至少要有以下内容:学校名称、院系名称、项目名称、入学条件、奖学金状况、申请截止日期、联系方式、备注，最重要的是保持良好的链接。这个过程可能很长。一开始，会有很多的学院和项目被保存下来，但是之后，可以慢慢的选择，最终的目标学院应在5-10所左右。这时候，选择一间靠谱的留学机构和负责任的顾问老师，根据学生的情况和需求，制定专业且合适的选校方案，则可以大大减少了学生在查校方面所产生的大量时间和人力成本。

为什么说选校和学习应该同时进行呢?

因为在准备学习的过程中，学生一般需要对自己的成绩有一个预测目标，而不同的学校有具体的语言成绩要求、GPA、GMAT/GRE要求等条件。这是一个相互选择和匹配的过程——每个人都想去一所著名的大学，但他们也应该根据自己的条件筛选最适合自身情况的院校。

二、3个月的实习+保持/提升在校成绩水平+材料准备

这个阶段基本上是在夏秋两季，虽然课程不多，学生可以找相关的实习，增加一些工作和实践经验。我必须补充一点，作为一名大二/大三的学生，大学的最后两年还有一些课程要上的。此外，可能还有学校要求参加实习，毕业论文也要确定题目。

不妨将这些与留学申请结合起来，尽可能选择与自己未来研究生课程相近的专业课程，寻找有帮助的实习和研究生研究方向。如果你能在实习和论文过程中做得很好，从你的导师那里得到一封推荐信并不难。

在之后的这个阶段是文书材料正式准备的开始。主要包括:个人陈述、简历、过往实习经历、科研、论文等。对于文书，我并不建议找外国人去润色语法和陈述，因为外国人和中国学生在语法方面会有先天的不一样，而国外各大高校的Admission对中国学生的表达模式早已熟记于心;使用外国人修改的文书去申请，有被认为不是本人创作，从而增大被拒录的风险。

三、最后3个月开始网申

如果你在这三个月里还在冲刺你的语言/GRE成绩，可以。但在这个阶段，学生需要关注每所学校的申请时间段，不要错过截止日期。

网申主要是申请页面建立账户,填写个人信息,之前准备好材料,如PS、简历上传一个接一个,比如成绩单需要再次扫描原始上传,语言等成绩需要在“页面填写,一些学院和大学要求申请者登记后再送点,之前也有问送分。有些学校要求你填写推荐人的电子邮件地址来完成推荐，所以一定要得到正确的推荐人的电子邮件地址。还要有一张支付申请费的信用卡等等。

网申要面对各种小问题，有些人在处理过程中出现了把PS上传到一所学校的B学校、艺术作品集只上传了一次等等乌龙事件，导致一切努力付诸东流。

请确保在单击submit之前进行了两次检查。在线申请系统可能不稳定，登录不顺畅，文件大小限制要求，无法支付申请费，无法提交各种技术问题都需要申请人的极大耐心。

最后，建议学生尽量不要在截止日期前提交。例如，学校申请的截止日期是1月1日。在网上申请结束后，学生可能需要向学校发送一些补充材料(有些学校要求在录取结果完成前发送，有些学校要求在录取结果完成后发送)。由于材料较多，建议申请人在材料中附上清单。所有的材料都要按照清单的顺序进行整理，或者按照一个好的顺序进行标记，让自己在整理时避免遗漏。最后选择快递，几个主要的国际快递公司和EMS公司实际上都可以完成任务，大致比较一下价格就可以了。

GRE阅读练习：鸟叫研究

Over the years, biolists have suggested two main pathways by which sexual selection may have shaped the evolution of male birdsong. In the first, male competition and intrasexual selection produce relatively short, simple songs used mainly in territorial behavior. In the second, female choice and intersexual selection produce longer, more complicated songs used mainly in mate attraction; like such visual ornamentation as the peacock’s tail, elaborate vocal characteristics increase the male’s chances of being chosen as a mate, and he thus enjoys more reproductive success than his less ostentatious rivals. The two pathways are not mutually exclusive, and we can expect to find examples that reflect their interaction. Teasing them apart has been an important challenge to evolutionary biolists.

Early research confirmed the role of intrasexual selection. In a variety of experiments in the field, males responded aggressively to recorded songs by exhibiting territorial behavior near the speakers. The breakthrough for research into intersexual selection came in the development of a new technique for investigating female response in the laboratory. When female cowbirds raised in isolation in sound-proof chambers were exposed to recordings of male song, they responded by exhibiting mating behavior. By quantifying the responses, researchers were able to determine what particular features of the song were most important. In further experiments on song sparrows, researchers found that when exposed to a single song type repeated several times or to a repertoire of different song types, females responded more to the latter. The beauty of the experimental design is that it effectively rules out confounding variables; acoustic isolation assures that the female can respond only to the song structure itself.

If intersexual selection operates as theorized, males with more complicated songs should not only attract females more readily but should also enjoy greater reproductive success. At first, however, researchers doing fieldwork with song sparrows found no correlation between larger repertoires and early mating, which has been shown to be one indicator of reproductive success; further, common measures of male quality used to predict reproductive success, such as weight, size, age, and territory, also failed to correlate with song complexity.

The confirmation researchers had been seeking was finally achieved in studies involving two varieties of warblers. Unlike the song sparrow, which repeats one of its several song types in bouts before switching to another, the warbler continuously composes much longer and more variable songs without repetition. For the first time, researchers found a significant correlation between repertoire size and early mating, and they discovered further that repertoire size had a more significant effect than any other measure of male quality on the number of young produced. The evidence suggests that warblers use their extremely elaborate songs primarily to attract females, clearly confirming the effect of intersexual selection on the evolution of birdsong.

17.1. The passage is primarily concerned with

(A) showing that intrasexual selection has a greater effect on birdsong than does intersexual selection

(B) contrasting the role of song complexity in several species of birds

(C) describing research confirming the suspected relationship between intersexual selection and the complexity of birdsong

(D) demonstrating the superiority of laboratory work over field studies in evolutionary bioly

(E) illustrating the effectiveness of a particular approach to experimental design in evolutionary bioly

17.2. The author mentions the peacock’s tail in line 8 most probably in order to

(A) cite an exception to the theory of the relationship between intrasexual selection and male competition

(B) illustrate the importance of both of the pathways that shaped the evolution of birdsong

(C) draw a distinction between competing theories of intersexual selection

(D) give an example of a feature that may have evolved through intersexual selection by female choice

(E) refute a commonly held assumption about the role of song in mate attraction

17.3. According to the passage, which of the following is specifically related to intrasexual selection?

(A) Female choice

(B) Territorial behavior

(C) Complex song types

(D) Large song repertoires

(E) Visual ornamentation

17.4. Which of the following, if true, would most clearly demonstrate the interaction mentioned in lines 11-13?

(A) Female larks respond similarly both to short, simple songs and to longer, more complicated songs.

(B) Male canaries use visual ornamentation as well as elaborate song repertoires for mate attraction.

(C) Both male and female blackbirds develop elaborate visual and vocal characteristics.

(D) Male jays use songs to compete among themselves and to attract females.

(E) Male robins with elaborate visual ornamentation have as much reproductive success as rivals with elaborate vocal characteristics.

17.5. The passage indicates that researchers raised female cowbirds in acoustic isolation in order to

(A) eliminate confounding variables

(B) approximate field conditions

(C) measure reproductive success

(D) quantify repertoire complexity

(E) prevent early mating

17.6. According to the passage, the song sparrow is unlike the warbler in that the song sparrow

(A) uses songs mainly in territorial behavior

(B) continuously composes long and complex songs

(C) has a much larger song repertoire

(D) repeats one song type before switching to another

(E) responds aggressively to recorded songs

17.7. The passage suggests that the song sparrow experiments mentioned in lines 37-43 failed to confirm the role of intersexual selection because

(A) females were allowed to respond only to the song structure

(B) song sparrows are unlike other species of birds

(C) the experiments provided no evidence that elaborate songs increased male reproductive success

(D) the experiments included the songs of only a small number of different song sparrows

(E) the experiments duplicated some of the limitations of previous field studies

GRE阅读：提速的取舍问题

GRE阅读取舍的标准是：

a)让步分句(如：带although的分句、带it is true的分句、带do的分句等)一律跳过(但是用括号括起来)，只看后半个分句;

b)such as后的内容一律跳过，也用括号括起来，不过我会数数列举的个数，如果是4个，则必出题，其他个数不用管，出题了再回头看;

c)for example举例只要提炼关键词的首字母就可以了，也要括起来，重点看后面或前面的结论。

d)原因——标志词常为BECause、since——一律跳过，括起来，只看结果。比较容易被忽略的是result in和result from，遇到这两个，我在下面划横线做标记。

e)老观点只把握关键词、知道讲的是什么就行，其他一律跳过。

f)冒号后一律跳过，冒号下做标记。

g)分号后一律跳过，因为表示并列，内容和前面大体一致，分号做标记，出题的话再回来看。

现在的标准是：上面这些全看，因为速度上来了，但看这些内容时仍然是“毫无感觉”地看，可以不用担心它们会分散注意力了。

当这些内容都做标记后，文章结构就非常清楚了，哪儿是举例、哪儿是结论、哪儿是原因、哪儿是转折一目了然，定位非常容易。

我的提高阅读速度的不二法门：反复阅读已经读过的文章，5遍左右吧!慢慢地就会产生一种直觉，知道哪里略读哪里重读。