Planning for Graduate school, or something

Status
Not open for further replies.

Necronic

Staff member
I have a BS in Chemistry from University of Texas and have been working for about 5 years in a relavant field. I have a very good job as a research technician at a very good company. It's probably the best job I could get at a stable company with my education. Since that's not good enough I want a better education.

Right now I am looking at a Masters of Industrial Engineering. It's kind of like an Engineers take on an MBA.

Oh yeah, some details I should mention. My undergrad GPA was ~2.5. Yeah. Not great. Actually, pretty much wholly unacceptable for a graduate program.

So, I'm taking levelling courses at the school I plan on getting my Masters at, and trying to bring that GPA up at the same time. From what I can tell they look at my last 60 hours of course work, and I need a 3.0 or higher. If I take ~20-30 hours of undergrad classes (pretty much what I need for the levelling) and maintain a 3.75, I can bring that GPA up to 3.0.

Hopefully I can acomplish this in 2 years. I'm taking my second class right now, which is engineering math (got an A in the first one.) That covers differential equations and linear algebra. Seeing as I haven't taken calculus in 10 years, my current B average in that class is pretty good. Although I want an A. Frankly, getting A's at this school is pretty easy. Not to be a dick but compared to UT it's a walk in the park. Next semester I will take 2 classes. We'll see how well I can handle that.

Anyways. Long story short. I wanted to know if yall had any advice. With my abominable undergrad GPA, I'm guessing I am totally incapable of getting accepted now, but do you think my plan will work? Also, does anyone have any experience taking a Masters course at night, and if so, how hard was it? I haven't decided if I will take an academic leave to do the masters or not.

Edit: Oh yeah, my other option is completing a bachelors in Industrial Engineering instead of going for the Masters. Since I have to take ~24 hours of levelling courses I would only need another ~20-30 or so to get the degree. Getting the degree would be much easier than the masters.
 
I fail at understanding the Americana "education" system. I'll leave this in Dave's hands.

But good luck!
 
It depends a lot on the program. Some programs place a huge emphasis on post-undergrad work experience, some prefer an undergrad min GPA, some don't care about undergrad as long as you pass the GRE (or w/e applicable standardized test) with flying colors.

Did you speak with the program administrator about it? They can usually tell you exactly what is expected of incoming students and what you would need to do to be considered as a prospect.

Re: the night classes thing, it depends highly on your daily work-load of both your actual work and your classes. I took night M.A. classes while I was working at an ad agency, and that was fine for a year, but eventually my responsibilities grew so high in both that I was unable make the time for both, and I had to pick one and let the other go to avoid having them both crash down around me.

(Now, if I had known that the economy was going to crash a month later, I would have picked the other way, but that's another story...)
 
R

rabbitgod

In addition to the things you are doing I would do 2.5 other things.

1) Call up the program administrator a la SpecialKO. Sometimes programs are incredibly frank about what you need. They might straight up say "Wow, that's not a good GPA." or "Hey, we've taken worse GPAs who have your experience."

1.5)Find out what their deficiency policy is again a la SpecialKO. Some will admit you as a provisional student if you have one category that isn't so good, low GPA, low GRE, degree in unrelated area.

2) Find out what kind of Non-Degree Seeking grad status you can get. Many schools allow you in and you can take what ever classes you want (as long as you pay) but you are not officially in the program. If they have it take advantage of it by taking a class in the program. It'll do a series of things, get you used to the pace of grad school, show the program that you are capable despite a few hickups when you were younger, and credits that you might be able to apply directly to the program. I did this when I got my bachelors and have a few grad credits that I can apply to an anthropology program. (I'm not going there now, but in the future I have it.)
 
All of the above. Additionally, since you are at the school you want to apply to, start getting to know the profs of the program you want to apply to. They may have a say on who is admitted. If they have a somewhat loose application of the guidelines they use, then the profs are your way in. It does depend on the department, though, and how they actually go through the selection process.
 
C

Chazwozel

From my experience, Grad schools care less about your GPA and more your experience.
 

Dave

Staff member
They care about the GPA to gain admission in most cases. If you have a BS degree and got it with a 2.4 GPA it'll be very difficult to get in to a reputable school without knowing someone. Or having that industry experience.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top