I want to attend grad school but...?

Question

I attended college right after highschool and totally met a mess of it. I earned all my credits but my GPA was too low to be awared my diploma. 10 years later I am wanting to "redeem " myself and attend grad school in order to make a career advance. I have been fortunate enough to be gainfully employed in my chosen field and I understand that my work experience could count towards grad admissions. My issue though is raising my undergrad GPA enough to be awarded my degree...Does anybody have any advice for me? Short of starting over again completely, I don't know where to start.

Answer 1

There are a lot of things you can do. My first suggestion would be to contact some potential advisors and get their advice. I spent 30+ years as a biochemistry professor, and mentored several Ph.D students. There were students who had sub-par marks for whatever reasons (work priorities, family priorities, etc) but that shouldn't be a barrier to getting into grad school, and with other evidence of potential scholarly success, I gave some of them the opportunity, and only one of them disappointed me, some of the others went on to do post-docs in the laboratories of Nobel Laureates .

Since you didn't mention your area of interest, I'll generalize

1. Work experience is considered an asset for graduate school because it displays previous work ethic, and is considered practical knowledge. The longer the work experience, the less emphasis that may be placed on your undergraduate grades.
2. Study and take the GRE exam - and do well! Not taking the exam suggests to some that you are scared of it. By taking it, and doing well, it is another plus for you.
3. If you do well on the GRE Exam, seek out and talk to potential advisors about having your undergraduate grades de-emphasized in lieu of work experience (Don't be alarmed if they ask you to take a test to demonstrate your knowledge - I have done this on many occassions to potential grad students)

There is no harm in taking the time to find out what is required, and what you have to do to get where you want to go. Most Principal Investigators who are seeking graduate students are seeking out quality, and quality is not always found on your undergraduate transcript.

After talking with people, you may find that you need to take a few senior undergraduate courses to get your GPA up. Do it if you can. Maybe you can get into a conditional Masters program and do those courses while starting your thesis research.

Be keen, this can go a long way, I have met far too many students who had great marks, great GRE scores, but were doing their Ph.D because they felt they 'needed' to, not because they 'wanted' to. Want is more important than need!

Feel free to send me an email for more advice.

Answer 2

It really depends.

Scenario 1: Lets say your school required 2.0 to graduate and you had a 1.0. Your number of units was 120. To be able to make it to a 2.0 you'll have to take 120 more units and get a 3.0 in them. It would be better to start all over again. Also, see scenario 3 as alternative.

Scenerio 2: Lets say you kept a 2.0 all until the senior year, but you messed up your senior year and got a 1.5. This means you'll probably have to do re-do 1 year with 2.5 GPA. Best thing to do is to do this year.

Scenario 3: Your school lets you re-take classes you failed. Lets say you got a D in 10 classes, you can re-do 5 of them with a 3.0 GPA and that'll balance the D's and B's into a 2.0. I think this would be the shortest and best path.

Scenario 4: Your school requires a 2.5 GPA to graduate your major. Transfer all classes onto another school that takes a 2.0 GPA graduation. Do their residence requirement of units and graduate.

If all you need is lower division work done, go to a community college and then transfer it. I personally think that your best bet would be to start all over again. A 2.0 GPA is not competitive enough, even with a strong GRE, to make it into any graduate school. The minimum in California is a 2.5, so keep that in mind incase it'll be all a waste of time.

Answer 3

Find a college or university close to home, and speak to their admissions office about transferring in what credits you did earn all those years ago. (You should do this soon, because in some cases, credits "expire" after a certain number of years, since advances in the field of study can make outdated knowledge useless.) Then take as many courses as you need to earn your degree. Your employer may even assist you with tuition reimbursement.

So... earn your degree at the local college, and then think about grad school. And when you apply to grad school, you'll have newly completed coursework on your transcript, a newly awarded bachelor's degree, and also, hopefully, a MUCH improved GPA, which will demonstrate your readiness for graduate-level work.

Best wishes to you!

Answer 4

I think you should determine where you want to go, and then speak with an academic advisor about your situation and get your options. Some colleges, however, do not allow completion after 5 years of no work on the degree. Some say ten years. They say you have to start over. But before going that drastic, I would speak with an advisor.

I applaud you for wanting to finish you degree and work on a grad school degree. And yes your work experience grad school can be tested for certain classes and if you get enough points, can test out of that class and get credit for it.

I will pray for you. I dont know you, but we all need prayer.

Stay blessed!

Answer 5

I would start by speaking with an advisor at the school in which you would like to attend to earn your masters. See what they suggest you do. Since every school and/or program may have different enterance requirements. You may need to retake just some of the classes from you undergrad.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Have you tried contacting your college to ask them what you should do next?