Applying for graduate programs; wondering what is realistic for me?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>This is the deal: I am graduating with my B.A. this winter from a public university in the Northwest— it's a decent school, but nothing super esteemed. I am currently applying to graduate programs for English, and I am really bad at gauging what my options are, realistically, so I was wondering if some of you could weigh in.</p>

<p>I anticipate to graduate with an overall GPA of 3.8, and around a 3.9 in my major GPA.</p>

<p>I took my GRE in November and did awful on the math (145), but I scored 159 in verbal reasoning, and scored 5 on my analytical writing section, which I've been told are both above average scores. As far as extra curriculars are concerned, I don't have a whole lot as I mostly worked nights throughout my time as an undergrad waiting tables— didn't have a lot of time for ECs.</p>

<p>That said, I did have a three month internship in the writing center at a local community college where I tutored college students, so I have that under my belt (worked with a lot of ELL students and others who just needed general help with academic writing). I also did unrelated volunteer work in high school doing errands for the elderly and things like that. This fall I completed an internship at a local farm teaching kids about sustainability and farming practices, but it was in correspondence with my university capstone requirements.</p>

<p>I have three letters of recommendation from people I'm comfortable with— one from a hard-ass of a professor who I took several classes with my junior and senior years, who I felt I learned most from. I sought him first because he pushed me and I did extremely well in his classes; he told me to rest assured that he would write me a very strong recommendation. My second letter is coming from the leader of the writing center where I was an intern. I worked with him for three months and he was a good mentor for me when it came to the art of "teaching" how to write. My last letter is coming from my capstone course instructor, who I sought because I wanted to have one of the letters in my application come from someone outside my main field for the sake of objectivity I suppose. She was a great professor and a really positive influence.</p>

<p>I have chipped away at my statement of purpose over the past five months. In it, I have lightly outlined my academic career, what I'm interested in in the field of literature and how I came to be interested in that, and briefly addressed my future goals.</p>

<p>All this considered, I am having a difficult time trying to gauge what I should be expecting with the stats/story I have. It may be absurd of me, but I don't really feel compelled to attend graduate school unless I can get into a solid program— I feel like going into a mediocre program is simply not worth my time or money. That said, I'm not banking on Harvard or Columbia or anything like that— I think I'm somewhat realistic, but you tell me. I am applying at the University of Washington, NYU, Fordham, and my current university (which I'm not even sure I'd want attend for grad school if I did get in). I know that NYU is probably a stretch, but I really have fallen in love with Fordham and am wondering if I have a fighting chance at their program. UW seems feasible, but still not necessarily easy to gain admittance to.</p>

<p>In all honesty, I am worried sick about this and am not sure I can deal with the next several months waiting to hear back from these schools. I feel like my entire future is hanging in the balance and I literally can't stop thinking about it.</p>

<p>There is a gap on my transcript in which I took a year off from school which bothers me a bit— I had cancer, but I didn't want to flat out say that in my statement of purpose, so I just acknowledged in a sentence that I had to take a year off from school due to a "serious illness." I avoided bringing that into the equation because I felt like it would be tacky and sympathy-seeking, but I had to acknowledge the year long gap in my records somehow.</p>

<p>Basically, I'm just unsure of myself and don't feel totally privy to what I should be reaching for in terms of graduate programs, or what realistic goals are for me. I have gotten some emails from the University of Chicago, USC, and Claremont asking me to apply to their programs (I believe this is because of my GRE scores), and my friends and family are confident in my applications because of this, but I feel like a lot of that is just schools reaching out for the sake of gaining more applicants; not necessarily because I'm good enough for them.</p>

<p>I know this is totally tl;dr, but I'm curious as to what other people would say based on this information. Are the schools I'm applying to totally out of reach? Is my head in the clouds on these? Like I said, I'd die to get into Fordham, but I'm not holding my breath on any of them because I don't really know what I'm worth to these schools. Help?</p>

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<p>ECs hold little weight in academic MA or PhD apps…</p>

3

<p>Your overall profile is pretty good. One thing that’s missing is research, or a conference paper, or a senior thesis.
The GRE verbal is a bit low for English (NYU likes 162 I’ve been told). You may have a shot at Fordham and UW, but I’d apply to one more program along the lines of UW. The issue is funding. MA/PHDs are NEVER worth it in the HUmanities if you’re not funded and your GRE scores may well mean that you will get in but won’t be funded. If you can take a year off to work and improve your GRE it may be best - you may want to WORK for your current university, since a perk tends to be a free course per semester, and take that free course to beef up your credentials, while working on improving your GRE verbal (math doesn’t really matter).</p>

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<p>The thing about my university is that I never had the opportunity to write a senior thesis— I have several writing samples that are of a decent length (15 pages), but my university’s curriculum basically replaced the senior thesis with a “capstone” curriculum in which you are required to take a course that is integrated with a community organization. Unfortunately, the closest capstone course offered that is related to my field is grant writing for local community partners, which I didn’t want to do, so I opted to work with a local farm and led field trips teaching the kids about farming and sustainability practices (which is totally unrelated to my field, but whatever). I struggled finding an internship related to the English department so badly that I had to go outside the university, which is how I ended up working at a local community college’s writing center. </p>

<p>I considered taking some time off to improve my GRE scores, but I’ve heard so many stories from people who tried to do that and ended up doing worse despite all their efforts to study. My ultimate goal is to work in the education field, either at a college level or in alternative programs of some sort. I’m slightly worried about funding, but I have some help and am willing to do what I have to with student loans— I’m graduating with my BA with under 12k in debt because I paid my way through a lot of it while working, so I don’t have a terrible loan burden on myself from my undergrad years.</p>

<p>As far as ECs not mattering on grad school applications, I’ve heard different things. I know they are tantamount when you’re an incoming freshman applicant right out of high school, but I still obviously listed them on my resume because I felt they were worth mentioning to provide an overall picture of my background.</p>

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<p>Also, as far as the GRE scores go, I know that I’m slightly on the lower end of NYU’s spectrum, but I still felt good about my scores— according to the ETS, I was in the 81st percentile on my verbal, and was in the 93rd on my writing. I checked out Fordham’s stats, and their average for English students was 161 verbal; the average scores for their writing were lower than I expected though, being 4 for M.A. students and 4.5 for PhD students. I scored a 5, so I felt good about that at least.</p>