<p>I'll try not to be too long winded about this. I am 27 years old and am now back in college for the third time at Penn State. My cumulative GPA is a 2.86 (would be a 3.14 but I failed three classes my last semester four years ago because I stopped going to school). I am aiming to get at least 3.8 each semester my last four semester which should bring my GPA up to around a 3.3 or so, maybe a little higher. I am hoping that four consecutive semesters of great grades and great GRE scores will put me in a decent grad school. </p>
<p>What I mean by decent is better than Penn State, I guess. I got in here with a 3.3 high school GPA and 1250 SAT (+ SAT II - 550 Spanish, 560 History, 740 Writing), and all of maybe 3 extracurricular activities, with no volunteer work, no part time job, basically nothing going for me except above average grades.</p>
<p>So what I'm getting at is if I kick ass for the remainder of my collegiate career will that be enough to get into a good grad school or do I need to start getting involved and starting my own business or building space ships or something? I don't know what I would want to pursue in grad school, perhaps something along the lines of urban planning, historic preservation, architecture, photography, film. Leaning towards the creative. Or maybe something in the social sciences, history, criminal justice. Maybe even M.Ed or M.A.T. or maybe even Law School. I am considering a lot of things at this juncture. Absolutely no interest in Ph.D in any field whatsoever, though. </p>
<p>Outside of school, I am a full time father and really don't have the time to be building houses with habitat for humanity or other such things to make me look good. </p>
<p>Well this got long winded anyway. Can I get into a good grad school? Should I make time to make myself look better or should I just get great grades and keep my fingers crossed? I'd even be willing to transfer out, as long as I don't have to start from scratch, or go for another bachelor when I am done here. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>First of all, you definitely need to improve your grades if you want a shot at grad school, and will need to do at least passably well on the GRE as well. Beyond that, it depends a bit on what you want to do - law school admissions (for which there is a separate forum) are very different than admissions for research-based grad degrees.</p>
<p>You are probably out of luck for a decent law school - they are driven by similar things as undergrad admissions, most notably test scores and GPA, and even at your best effort you are not going to be able to raise your GPA to the point where a T14 law school will consider you.</p>
<p>For an art-based program, I know you would need to develop a portfolio, but beyond that I am not sure. Just bear in mind that getting into programs like this generally requires demonstrating a substantial level of skill in the area to be studied.</p>
<p>For a research-based program, other than GPA and GRE you really need to make a decision about what field you want to enter and then focus on getting involved in some research.</p>
<p>The first thing you need to do is narrow down what you want to pursue. I got dizzy trying to sort all of the different options you listed, and that’s not good. Are you pursing graduate school for personal fulfillment or are you hoping to actually work in that field? Many of the things you listed are quite different from each other, so no one can give you a concrete list of things you would need because it varies by field.</p>
<p>Some fields lean heavily on the exams (LSAT) while others place little to no emphasis on them. Your GPA will be important for most things though, especially since the highest you will obtain is a 3.3 (and that’s you assuming you will get majority As). That isn’t a bad GPA by any means, but Penn State is a good school for a lot of things so I don’t know if saying “better than PSU” really means much.</p>
<p>First of all, Penn State has some excellent graduate programs. So don’t discount it. It’s a great school for undergrad and is a great to excellent school for graduate school depending on the field.</p>
<p>But to answer your question, no. Even professional programs are going to want to see some out-of-class involvement. Playing soccer or being in a Greek organization won’t matter; but if you want to apply for an environmental studies program, chairing the green initiative committee or starting a recycling program at your school will. If you want to apply for international affairs, studying abroad or doing Model UN will - you see what I’m getting at?</p>
<p>But first of all, the fields you listed are so disparate as to be almost wholly unrelated. The kinds of things you would do for an urban planning career would be totally different from photography and film school. A law school application would be almost entirely dependent on your grades and LSAT scores, but if you wanted an MA in history or one of the social sciences, you’d be expected to do at least a little research in the field (and if you have no interest in a PhD, I’m not sure it’s worth it). First you need to decide what it is you want to do, and find out what people who do that have degrees in. Then get that degree.</p>