Undegrad: UMich, 3.1GPA, 2 sport varsity athlete, U.S. Team, student government, President of 100 member club campus organization
Grad: UT Austin, 4.0GPA, semi-professional athlete, national champ, scholarship recipient, strong internship experience
I’m applying to PhD schools and I feel fairly confident in the above credentials, but my GRE scores are really low. I scored a 298 combined, and a 5.5 on my writing. I can score higher on the GRE, but I just rushed through it my first time due to the last minutes decision of entering a masters program when I did.
I want to apply to some top tier schools, mainly because I’ve found that these are where most of the professors that are doing similar research are. Do my GRE scores (and low UG GPA) automatically take me out of the running for any top tier schools?
(Not sure if this matters, but my PhD research revolves around sport so that’s why I added those credentials)
Though graduate admissions tend to actually be holistic, I feel that your GPA/GRE combination is too low for top tier programs. Not saying you’re not going to get in or shouldn’t apply, but I’d say that your chances of admission are fairly low due to the competition you’ll be facing.
I wouldn’t give up yet. You already have the master’s (or are working on it) so that can potentially supersede everything else. Do you have publications from that program? Does your current advisor have any connections at the program you wish to attend?
I am looking for connections right now actually. I have two pieces of research with completed IRB’s and they are ready to go. I want to mention that I already have two solid leads for publication, but not sure where I would do that in my application. There are four programs that I feel very strongly I would excel in. Two are definitely top tier (one’s an IVY) one is right on the cusp of tier 1/2 and the fourth is a solid tier 2 school.
“Solid leads for publication” won’t sway adcoms… but publication definitely might. As will terrific LORs. I agree that a Master’s and your grades in grad school will overcome undergrad grades.
While I am not entirely familiar with your field, it would be a bit strange in mine for a PhD applicant who already has a master’s degree to have no publications or conference proceedings (unless it was a non-thesis master’s program). If it is a thesis-based master’s program, that would be a bit of a red flag for me. If you don’t have anything like that to show for your time in the master’s program, then it is a lot less likely to completely supersede your undergraduate stats.
I did an M.Ed. so it was an internship for my culminating project. I am applying schools of education. I do have two strong papers I am using for my writing sample, one my professor suggested I look into publication for.
What are your GRE scores for each section? It is far more helpful if you break them out than if you combine it. They’re not really meant to be combined. All I can think is that’s about an average of 149 for both sections, which is quite low. But things could be different if, for example, you scored a 154 verbal and a 144 quant (some education programs that emphasize quant would reject you summarily; some education programs that cared less would not care so much about the quant). Or if it was the other way around - I think most programs would frown upon that.
Either way, if you know that you can do better on the GRE, why don’t you retake it? Yes, your GRE scores may very well take you out of the running for some top tier schools.
Extracurriculars like your sports/athletics, student government, and the club presidency don’t matter for PhD admissions - even if your research area is sport. Playing/doing sports is functionally different from doing research about them, and your professors won’t really care whether you have athletic experience when evaluating your suitability as a potential researcher. The “national champ” might, if it were something education-related, but it doesn’t matter if it’s not.
TBQH, right now the only real strength in your application is your M.Ed and concomitant GPA. How much research experience do you have? You say that you have two pieces of research with completed IRB applications. What does that mean - that you completed the IRB and are ready to do the research, or that you have completed the research work already and are in the process of writing up? The second part is better; the first part doesn’t make you very competitive. Have you ever worked as a research assistant alongside an education researcher in their research group? What was the context of the two pieces of research that you’ve already begun/competed? Not even having presented at a conference will make you less competitive, as this is something expected of undergraduate applicants, and especially a master’s level candidate interested in a research program.
What do you mean by “leads” for a publication? Publications that are valued by PhD programs are papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and there’s really no such thing as a ‘lead’ for that. You might have an idea of where you want to publish the work, but it would still need to be peer reviewed, probably revised and resubmitted, and then reviewed again before it could even be in-press. You could submit it soon so that you can write “submitted”, but if you’re just thinking about it, that doesn’t go anywhere on your application. You could briefly mention in your personal statement that you have two projects you are preparing for publication, but you’d have to be ready to seriously discuss them in an interview.
My GRE scores were about within two points of each other so nothing special. I want to retake the GRE, but all my applications are due December 1st and it says it takes 10-15 days to get the scores back so I would assume it would be pointless to do it now…
At this point, then, all you can do is apply and see what happens! Some programs may decide to overlook your scores because of something else about your application and some programs will reject you (either because of the scores or because of them combined with other factors). Really, the only way to know is to try!
But you’ll regret not trying, so I suggest that you apply to the schools you really want to attend. If you don’t get in anywhere, you’ll know early enough so that you can retake the GRE for a go in the 2017-2018 application cycle.