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I am a recent U.Va graduate with a low gpa and a tumultuous educational past. As the offspring of diplomats, I have spent my secondary school years globe trotting and moving from and into different school systems. My grades have always been rather lackluster. I moved to the U.S in 2003 and promptly enrolled in a public high school. The problem was, because of my cross- atlantic move, I had missed all but the last 3 months of 10th grade. So I ended up spending the remainder of sophomore year in my Guidance Councelor's office taking 2 online classes and auditing all of the other classes. The rest of high school, I ended up playing catch up and it was just a big enormous academic mess because of trying to settle the differences between the British System in which I had finished my 9th grade and the American high school system. I graduated high school with a 2.8 gpa and enrolled at a local community college. There I started to study biology, a subject I later learned was far from suited to my career goals and aspirations. I got my associates degree and with a 3.3 gpa was accepted to the U.Va college of arts and sciences. My struggle with keeping up with biology hit me hard that first semester at U.Va. I burned and crashed and practically got D's and C's in my major courses. My Guidance Counselor wasn't too worried however, and said that this wasn't very unusual of community college transfers. To learn how to study at U.Va, he enrolled me in a class designed for CC transfers where we were taught the ins and outs of the curriculum and how to make best of the resources we were given.
That following semester, I improved a lot, avoiding any D's on my transcript. I was doing really well on my non-major classes incidentally, something that I should have paid more attention to earlier on. Even with my vast improvement second semester,my gpa had plummted and would not improve much in the last two semesters I had left in college. When the new year came along, I was torn; continue down my disastrous path to a degree in biology or change my major. I ultimately decided to change my major to english and finish up my undergrad education taking tons of classes that people took 4 years to complete. My last year was a complete mess, I was over scheduled, over worked and over exhausted. Enrolling in 4 and then 5 upper level reading and writing classes got to me. On top of that, things back home hit rock bottom. My dad, whom i am extremely close to, got a really scary diagnosis,which sent him and my family into an unraveling spiral. We also were hit hard by our continuing financial troubles aggravated by my college tuition. My parents had basically gone broke and into 40k+ in debt to finance my education and here I was screwing everything up. I was an emotional wreck and found my way to therapy where i tried to make sense of everything going on in my life.
I finally managed to graduate in May with a 2.8 undergad gpa from U.Va, and A 3.0 in my major. I am so irked and annoyed that I could have done sooo much better in my english courses, had I not rushed through the major and made solid B's and B+s throughout.
Despite my far from stellar academic history, I genuinely love learning and am so eager to continue further education. I want to take a year or 2 off to get some work and internship experience and then try to go to grad school. Problem is, every grad program worth the name requires stellar academics. I am freaking out that my academic dreams are doomed...Is there really no hope for me now? How can I possibly further my education given my admittedly rocky academic past?
please, any advice and input will be so appreciated!
Last edited by mariagostrey; 01-02-2011 at 02:17 PM..
Register as an undergrad in a good but different BA program in the target grad school. Take courses that will meet prerequisite requirements or even count toward grad school electives. Maintain 4.0. and apply to grad school.
Register as an undergrad in a good but different BA program in the target grad school. Take courses that will meet prerequisite requirements or even count toward grad school electives. Maintain 4.0. and apply to grad school.
that sounds great but how would i finance it? i'm not exactly loaded you know.
I am a recent U.Va graduate with a low gpa and a tumultuous educational past. As the offspring of diplomats, I have spent my secondary school years globe trotting and moving from and into different school systems. My grades have always been rather lackluster. I moved to the U.S in 2003 and promptly enrolled in a public high school. The problem was, because of my cross- atlantic move, I had missed all but the last 3 months of 10th grade. So I ended up spending the remainder of sophomore year in my Guidance Councelor's office taking 2 online classes and auditing all of the other classes. The rest of high school, I ended up playing catch up and it was just a big enormous academic mess because of trying to settle the differences between the British System in which I had finished my 9th grade and the American high school system. I graduated high school with a 2.8 gpa and enrolled at a local community college. There I started to study biology, a subject I later learned was far from suited to my career goals and aspirations. I got my associates degree and with a 3.3 gpa was accepted to the U.Va college of arts and sciences. My struggle with keeping up with biology hit me hard that first semester at U.Va. I burned and crashed and practically got D's and C's in my major courses. My Guidance Counselor wasn't too worried however, and said that this wasn't very unusual of community college transfers. To learn how to study at U.Va, he enrolled me in a class designed for CC transfers where we were taught the ins and outs of the curriculum and how to make best of the resources we were given.
That following semester, I improved a lot, avoiding any D's on my transcript. I was doing really well on my non-major classes incidentally, something that I should have paid more attention to earlier on. Even with my vast improvement second semester,my gpa had plummted and would not improve much in the last two semesters I had left in college. When the new year came along, I was torn; continue down my disastrous path to a degree in biology or change my major. I ultimately decided to change my major to english and finish up my undergrad education taking tons of classes that people took 4 years to complete. My last year was a complete mess, I was over scheduled, over worked and over exhausted. Enrolling in 4 and then 5 upper level reading and writing classes got to me. On top of that, things back home hit rock bottom. My dad, whom i am extremely close to, got a really scary diagnosis,which sent him and my family into an unraveling spiral. We also were hit hard by our continuing financial troubles aggravated by my college tuition. My parents had basically gone broke and into 40k+ in debt to finance my education and here I was screwing everything up. I was an emotional wreck and found my way to therapy where i tried to make sense of everything going on in my life.
I finally managed to graduate in May with a 2.8 undergad gpa from U.Va, and A 3.0 in my major. I am so irked and annoyed that I could have done sooo much better in my english courses, had I not rushed through the major and made solid B's and B+s throughout.
Despite my far from stellar academic history, I genuinely love learning and am so eager to continue further education. I want to take a year or 2 off to get some work and internship experience and then try to go to grad school. Problem is, every grad program worth the name requires stellar academics. I am freaking out that my academic dreams are doomed...Is there really no hope for me now? How can I possibly further my education given my admittedly rocky academic past?
please, any advice and input will be so appreciated!
Well, what do you want to study in grad school? English? Grad school admissions are different than undergrad. With undergrad, they are more concerned with your ability to keep up with "college" education, and, even with how well you will fit into the particular school. For the most part, they are only really interested in how well of student you will be at which-ever particular school you apply to. Grad is different in that they are only really concerned with how well you prepared yourself for advanced study. GPA is only a portion of that. There are accounts of students who have been admitted to Harvard and MIT at the grad school level who had undergrad GPAs in the mid to high 2.Xs.
While GPA will matter, more often than not your recommendations, RA experience if you have any, and letter of intent will carry more weight.
Are you doomed? No. Don't fall prey to the idea that GPA is everything.
Taking a year or two off to gain experience in which-ever industry applies to your major is a good idea. It may not help-depending on the case-but it definitely will not hurt you in the least.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but I would suggest you use spell check.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wilson1010
Register as an undergrad in a good but different BA program in the target grad school. Take courses that will meet prerequisite requirements or even count toward grad school electives. Maintain 4.0. and apply to grad school.
This could be a good idea. A second B.A. could be obtained in two years tops, since you would more than likely have fulfilled all elective and core curiculum requirements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mariagostrey
that sounds great but how would i finance it? i'm not exactly loaded you know.
Umm....how would you finance grad school?
Are you a legal resident of the US? If you are, you can just enroll into which-ever state college is nearest to your home. Even if you are not a legal resident, some states extend in-state tuition to legal, non-resident, foreign students.
I don't mean to be too critical, but you sound like you are making an awful lot of excuses for what has happened in your life. It does sound like you've been through a lot--but everyone has to deal with stuff that is beyond their control. Part of being a mature adult is taking responsibility for your circumstances, even if they aren't your fault. A graduate school is going to want to see you demonstrate that maturity.
I'm just trying to be supportive here--with your GPA, the best chance you have is to demonstrate that you've moved beyond your past, not to go into lengthy excuses and explanations. You might want to spend more time developing that sense of responsibility, to improve your chances of acceptance. Pursuing another bachelor's degree could very well be a good way to do that but there may be other ways as well.
Some working experience might also be a good way to demonstrate responsibility, but remember: employers are going to expect you demonstrate responsibility as well. They are going to be looking for similar qualities as admissions boards.
Your post said that you were thinking of taking a year or two off from school to work or do an internship. I think that's a brilliant move. Taking some time off from school will allow you to think about what you want your future to be like, and to think about whether or not grad school is really what you need. As you're considering whether or not to go to grad school, you can be researching various universities and programs, to see what fits your needs best.
It has been my personal experience that you can get into a decent graduate program with less than stellar grades, particularly if you have good GRE scores. So I'd suggest taking some kind of GRE review program to help you achieve a good score. You do not need a second B.A., unless you decide that you want to get a graduate degree in an area where you have little course work.
Grad school, particularly in English, is a very bad idea if you don't have a very clear idea about why you want a graduate degree in English. If you want to teach in a university, you'll need a Ph.D.; you'll never get hired in a tenure-track program with only a master's degree. And you'll need a very good scholarship and publication record, even before you graduate. Ph.D.'s in English are a dime a dozen -- if you want a tenure-track job, you'll need to be a "star."
But to answer your original question: no, you don't need great undergraduate grades to get into grad school. Do your research. Figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, and find the universities that will make that happen for you. It is definitely do-able. Very good luck!
I am going to say the thing you are not supposed. If you didn't get a good enough GPA to get into grad school you do not BELONG at grad school.
If you have some burning desire than go back to your undergrad and retake the classes you did really badly in, might bring you up to a B-. But you have to pay for it, as you should.
I am going to say the thing you are not supposed. If you didn't get a good enough GPA to get into grad school you do not BELONG at grad school.
If you have some burning desire than go back to your undergrad and retake the classes you did really badly in, might bring you up to a B-. But you have to pay for it, as you should.
that is an entirely unfair assumption to make. people change, their circumstances change. i got that low gpa because i didn't or was unable at the time to put in the effort required to do a better job. it is not an indicator of my inherent abilities as a student.
Some time off for work and internships sounds like an excellent idea. Perhaps also audit some courses (you can sometimes get special registration status as a non-degree-seeking graduate student); doing very well in those, and getting the resulting recommendations from a professor, will help. I do think that time away is necessary in your case, as realistically most people will look at your record and not have much reason to assume that you are currently ready for graduate school. I wouldn't bring up all the details of your past problems, either; while it sounds like you've had a hard time, some of it does come off as making excuses. Grad school is tough and you will be overloaded, time-wise; you don't want someone to get the idea that you won't be able to hack it. A couple of years to prove yourself before applying will go a long way to help overcome those past issues. Are you close with any of your previous professors? Do they have advice for you? I'd talk to them, too. Also, don't be afraid to submit things for publication, or to attend -- and present -- at conferences even now. Having a solid professional academic track record, even if established post-BA, will show grad schools that you're serious, as well as get you jump-started in an academic career. (assuming that's what you want; if not, then you may want to reconsider grad school at all, at least grad school for something like English.) And yes, stellar GRE scores will certainly help. Since your grades are a definite weak spot you'll need to make sure that the rest of your academic CV is strong enough to compensate. It can definitely be done, but use these couple of years wisely.
I am going to say the thing you are not supposed. If you didn't get a good enough GPA to get into grad school you do not BELONG at grad school.
If you have some burning desire than go back to your undergrad and retake the classes you did really badly in, might bring you up to a B-. But you have to pay for it, as you should.
I SECOND that statement even though I was in a similar situation as the OP (had a 2.8 Undergrad GPA at UC Berkeley.. got accepted to maybe 2 out of 15 grad schools I applied for and settled for UC Davis.)
Ashamed to admit it but at the time, parents pressured me to apply and attend grad school even though my motivation was mediocre at the time.
I worked my ***** off at Davis since I had miraculously gotten in despite my abysmal GPA. 2 years later, I found out the hard way scientific research isn't my cup of tea and I'd rather be working for an engineering firm.
2 years wasted.
Please THOROUGHLY examine your motivations for going to grad school.. if you decide to go, please apply to as many programs as your time permits (since it's an uphill battle with your GPA)!
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Please Take Some Time Off From School ...
