<p>3 Majors
Political Science 3.59
Economics 3.52
Philosophy 3.89
Overall GPA 3.6
Last Two Years GPA 3.7</p>
<p>GRE V/Q/W 680/760/5</p>
<p>I will be graduating a quarter early and I have almost 300 units even though you only need 180 to graduate and I usually take twice as many units as other students. Plus I have taken 3 graduate classes in the social sciences (unrelated to east asia) and I got As in all three. </p>
<p>I am hoping that the larger class load will make up for the low GPA a little since a course load of 30 units per quarter will seem more ambitious and rigorous than the normal 15.</p>
<p>I am fluent in Chinese and Japanese and have taken two years of korean. Plus fluent in German and french. </p>
<p>Also, I will be getting a letter of rec from my counselor, is this no good? I can get an ok lor from another prof but the lor from the counselor will be just extraordinary. He has known me for 4 years plus he always speaks very highly of me. </p>
<p>I will apply to UCLA, which I will definitely get into, but I'm hoping for something higher. </p>
<p>I'm gonna apply to Harvard and Yale's East asian Programs, what are my chances?</p>
<p>You’re kidding right that you have twice the number of credits necessary to graduate? It sounds like you’re taking a while to graduate with all those majors. Really, a second or third major is not a big deal at all for graduate school admissions. They DON’T care as long as you excel in the primary area that you’re interested (say, economics if you’re looking to study the economics of East Asia).</p>
<p>3.6 is NOT low. It is acceptable. How would you know that you’re definitely “in” at UCLA? It sounds to me that you’re trying to go after prestige. If you care that much, then just apply to Harvard and Yale and just see what happens.</p>
<p>I’m actually gonna graduate one quarter early so I’m not taking a while. The reason why I have so many credits is cause I take alot of classes that interest me that are not related to my major. Plus I take a lot of language classes for fun. </p>
<p>And I’m not just going after prestige. Yes it would be nice to say I go to Harvard, but the class list is much more fleshed out there, same with Yale.</p>
<p>And 3.6 is lower than what Harvard and Yale say they are looking for in an successful applicant</p>
<p>I am hoping that the larger class load will make up for the low GPA a little since a course load of 30 units per quarter will seem more ambitious and rigorous than the normal 15.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. The admissions committee will wonder why you took so many classes per semester when it had an obvious effect on your GPA, if your GPA were actually low. But it’s not - a 3.6 is fine. The numbers schools post are averages - some people have higher and some people have lower.</p>
<p>No, you should not get a letter of recommendation from your counselor. That is a kiss of death. You want to give off vibes of stability and maturity, and getting a recommendation from a counselor does not convey that. Besides, a counselor cannot comment on your academic preparedness for an MA program. Get recommendation letters from three professors in whose classes you have done well.</p>
<p>I cannot comment on your chances, because you’ve only listed your GPA and GRE scores and there is more to graduate admissions than that, even at the MA level. Have you written a senior thesis or are you planning to? Have you done any independent study? Is your writing sample tight? Usually I believe a top MA program in East Asian studies will ask for a writing sample, because you will be expected to write a lot.</p>
<p>I never understood the purpose of a triple major. A double-major maybe.</p>
<p>I have never done a senior thesis nor will I, same with independent study. </p>
<p>My writing sample is pretty tight. It was the paper I did for one of the grad classes I took and I had the teacher edit it and then I revised it and submitted it to another teacher who also gave me notes on it, so I think its pretty good. However, it is about russia and not east asia, will that matter?</p>
<p>Yes, it will matter that your writing sample does not pertain to your intended field of study.</p>
<p>Your language preparation is excellent and should go a long way toward making your application stand out. Your GPA and GRE scores are good enough to get you past the first cut. The question is whether you can elevate your application above the other applicants to get an offer of admission.</p>
<p>Master’s programs are generally easier to gain admission to than PhD programs, so you may not need independent research. That said, you must get at least two letters of recommendation from professors in the field. Because East Asian Studies is interdisciplinary, you could get one from, say, a professor of economics who specializes in Asian economies. I also highly recommend that you get one from a professor who teaches upper level courses in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. The most important consideration when getting an LOR is how well the professor knows your work in some branch of East Asian studies. Ideally, he/she should know you beyond how well you did in the course. Toss out the letter from the counselor. Programs don’t care about your personal character except as it pertains to academic research.</p>
<p>And that writing sample? Graduate programs don’t care how well you write in general. They are looking for a well-written paper that exhibits high-level analysis relevant to the field.</p>
<p>I’m currently at Yale in the MA and they didn’t require a writing sample. I had LORs from my Japanese prof/major advisor, Sociology prof/minor advisor and the prof that lead my study group in Japan.</p>
<p>Why East Asian Studies? None of your majors are directly related and the languages are the only thing you mentioned that relates at all. The personal statement for Yale asks you to explain your background/preparation, why you want to do the EA program and what you want to do with it. That will be more important to them than how many credits you took.</p>
<p>I majored in Japanese and minored in Sociology, studied abroad in Japan for a semester, and completed a high honors thesis for Japanese, as well as taking a semester of Chinese. Even in non-Japan related courses, I tried to work it in - for my anthropology course I chose to write a paper on an ethnography about traditions in a small Japanese town and for a CORE curriculum distinction course did a research paper and project on a minority group in Japan. After graduating I worked for a financial firm focused on Asia and took Japanese classes at NYC’s Japan Society for language maintenance. Many of the students in the program are from Asia or were East Asian Studies or Chinese lit majors. Most people are planning on going on to a PHD in a related field, though occasionally people don’t end up in academia. Is that what you want to do?</p>
<p>momwaitingfornew, my lors will come from classes that have little to do with east asia. They will however be substantial and positive letters from profs with whom I took seminars. I cannot get a lor from anyone relating to east asia, unfortunately.</p>
<p>lydia08, I want to do eas because I want to pursue a PhD down the line focusing on US/China/Japan economic and military cooperation and contestation. I have already written my sop and it articulates my goal well I think. Also, I thought the point of a masters was to gain further experience with the region prior to a PhD. I think its great that you know so early that you wanted to focus on EA but the fact that I didn’t should not be held against me at the masters level, especially since I want to look and Politics and economics of the region and I have BAs in those areas.</p>
<p>Plus I do have some exp in that area, the languages, plus i’m taking three classes, one econ, two history, that relates to EA in the fall and I will have those grades prior to deadline.</p>
<p>As for the writing same, if I show that my writing is good and I can write a good research paper on a region, that should count for something and the fact that its not about ea should get some leeway esp since this is just a masters</p>
<p>You seem to have nothing to worry about then - it’s not that you’d be faulted for not knowing so early, it’s just that you didn’t mention any of that in your original post.</p>
<p>Not all MA programs are to continue on to a PhD and not all students necessarily want to do that even here, though that is what most people that have gone through this program do. At this point I’m leaning towards not going on to a PhD, but that may change sometime during the year.</p>
<p>and Bluejay, I do want a eas ma, all the programs I’m applying to let you choose what classes you want to take and you can take poly sci classes as well. I have a ba in polisci so I don’t need/want to take more generic polysci classes at this point that don’t relate to ea</p>
<p>as for ir, I could be wrong about this but from what Ive read that doesn’t really look like the appropriate stepping stone to a phd, plus I have limited and unrelated work exp</p>
<p>and Juliet, the more I think about it, you are dead right. I’m gonna get that lor from the prof and Ill send the letter from the counselor as a 4th</p>
<p>Like the title says, I’m new to Asian Studies. During Undergrad, my field was culture but my emphasis was French language & literature. Before I graduated, I started taking courses in this field and realized what I was missing.</p>
<p>(enough of the boring back story, here are my stat.s)</p>
<p>Graduated: 2010
GPA: 2.7
Undergrad school: Cal State LA
Major: French literature & culture
Relevant coursework: Anthro / Poli Sci / Basic Chinese / Basic Korean
GRE: haven’t taken it yet, i’m still prepping.
WE: I started working after undergrad because I thought the time off from school would give me more time to prep. Unfortunately, none of my WE is relevant to Asian Studies.</p>
<p>I was just wondering what my chances were for some of Asian/East Asian MA prog.s</p>
<p>I’m not all that interested in tier…(given my stat.s i think thats best)</p>
<p>Here are some of the programs I’m interested in: (Keeping it at 10, maybe should i add)</p>
<p>Concordia University, Irvine (They are MA in China Program)
FIU
Univ. South Florida
Univ. of San Francisco
NYU
Univ. of Washington
Univ of Hawaii, Manoa
USC
St. John’s University
Columbia Univ. [i can still dream:) ]
Cal State LA</p>
<p>OP, seriously NO LOR from your counselor. Seriously! I know it’s hard to let go but graduate admissions is entirely a different animal than undergraduate. LORs should be from people with PhDs.</p>
<p>ticklemepink not even as a 4th letter? I have to go to my counselor every time I wanna take more than the standard number of units and he always talks about how motivated I am and how he’s never seen someone work as hard as I do. I would imagine that that would be helpful to admissions</p>
<p>Will, from what I know, it looks like your gonna have an uphill battle, first USC requires a 3.0 so thats a no (I also bet a few other places have this requirment so I would check that out), also columbia, really? nyu is also pretty tough. </p>
<p>The gpa’s the week point, but your language prep is a plus. you need to make sure you dominate the gre and get around 1350 or 1400 if you can. plus, keep practicing with the languages, perhaps with a tutor, so that you can say you are prepared for the advanced level when you start the program (and make sure thats the truth) </p>
<p>then you may have a shot at some of the lower programs, but frankly, that gpa at a non competitive school, is gonna hold you back</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. I know columbia is way outta my league…just lost myself in the dream.</p>
<p>Anyway, back to reality. What are the lower programs? Everytime I search for schools that have this field, they tend to be higher tiered schools because those schools tend to have everything. I haven’t really found rankings for programs in this field.</p>
<p>Will, I meant the other schools on your list, like cal state la, usf (both), manoa etc, just not columbia, nyu etc. you probably gotta shot at some of these, just make sure you got a very good sop that states your goals well, which is a necessity since you don’t have much exp in eas other than language</p>
<p>Santa Cruz how much experience do you actually have in Asia. I like another poster here was an East Asian studies major and debated between going for a phD in East Asian studies or go the IR route. Ultimately I went for the IR route (but probably will go back for one in a few years for a phD in East Asian History) but before that I looked a lot into what these programs want. First of all I would like to ask if any of the asian languages you speak are heritage based? If they are not and you learned them merely through classes I’d highly suggest that you don’t use the word fluent in your applications. I say this because many of these admissions counselors for east asian studies programs give a huge sigh when a student states they are fluent in a language and then mentions language grants in said language. If they are heritage based then there shouldn’t be a problem. Second of all, if you don’t have any experience inside East Asia that will definitely be a huge strike against you for the top tier programs. You’ll be competing against hard core east asian specialists that used every possible opportunity to be abroad to study, research, and do internships. I have currently 4 classmates from my program at top tier MA program in East Asian Studies and we were all constantly in the countries of our specialization. You have a good gpa but you will need to explain why they should choose you against the student that has similar interests in you but did more etc etc. East Asian STudies graduate programs are interesting in that in my opinion there is a sense of academic arrogance in that nearly every kid in the MA program was doing EAS for their BA.</p>
<p>Bluejay, none of my languages are heritage and I dont use the word fluent in my cv, i use the word proficient, which they define as 3rd year level, i should have said proficient here too. </p>
<p>as for exp in ea I have none now, but I will be doing a semester in fudan in shanghai this spring, which will be my last quarter in UG and I will talk about this in my app, and by the time I apply, i should know exactly which classes I will be taking which will relate to ea</p>