I'm applying to graduate schools right now. Why? Because I am a psychology major. My two options in life are graduate school or spending the rest of my life asking people if they'd like fries with that.

Actually, I have a third option: I can go into business. This is also the only thing you can do with every other BA in the College of Arts and Letters. That's how the business majors get their revenge on us for making fun of them for four years — they're the ones who preside over our pathetic attempts to sell out.

Applying to graduate school is not like applying to college. For one thing, graduate schools, at least in psychology, do not appear to want students. They have a 3 to 5 percent acceptance rate. These are not people who want to teach. These are people who want to hole up in their offices and play Snood.

Applying to graduate school is also ridiculously complicated. First, you have to find information. As graduate schools are not interested in having students, they do not recruit. I had two boxes full of college materials, but so far the only people who have recruited me for graduate school are Notre Dame and the Philadelphia School of Podiatry.

The place to find information, as we all know, is online, which is also complicated. The first thing you have to do is find the graduate school application. So, if you're me, you first look at the graduate school web page.

It says that the application for the graduate school is available on the department web page. Okay, that makes no sense, as there are 50 departments and only one grad school, but who are you to ask questions? So you cruise over to the psychology department and look around for something involving the word graduate and click.

This takes you to a page that talks about their graduate programs. So you pick the Clinical Program and click. You are then taken to a page that talks about the program. After five minutes of searching, you finally find a link involving the word admissions. It does not, however, have the application, because this is about getting admitted, not about applying, two obviously separate things.

So you hit the back button and begin combing the page for "application." You finally find the word and click. There are many links, and one says it is the link to the graduate application. It is, however, actually a link back to the graduate school page that says that the graduate application is available from the department.

Back button again. Another link. A different page that eventually links you back to the original page that says that the graduate application is available from the department. This time the back button doesn't work, so you are forced to re-log in to the University's webpage and go through all 16 steps again. You try the last link you see, and the application is beginning to load when the computer crashes.

So you try giving the department a call. Maybe they will send you a paper application. The receptionist picks up, and you politely request a paper application.

There is a pause. "A what?"

"Um, a paper application, please."

"We don't have paper applications. They're all online now. It's much more convenient. Just check the website." And she hangs up.

Now, if you're smart you're applying to at least 15 schools because even then, with your top estimate of a 5 percent acceptance rate, you only have a 53.7 percent chance of being accepted anywhere at all, with a 46.3 percent chance of living in a box some time in the immediate aftermath of graduation. So you have to do this hide-and-go-seek thing with 15 different graduate applications.

You also have to do it again with 15 different departmental applications, because you have to apply to both the graduate school itself and the department. Apparently departments are not capable of good choices about who to let into their school.

I guess the grad schools are worried that the department will be so overwhelmed by great research records or fabulous essays that they will fail to notice students' 0.9 GPAs. Or perhaps if the departments were left to their own devices they would accept 6 or even 8 percent of the applicants, and then where would the University be?

I'm not really worried about getting into grad school, though. My family never throws anything away, and I know for a fact that we have some very large boxes in our garage. Maybe my parents will give me one for graduation.

Marlayna Soenneker is a second semester senior without any classes, also known as a first semester alumna. She can still be reached at msoennek@nd.edu.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

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