<p>I am a senior in the honors program at Ohio State University. I was just wondering about my chances into a few grad school programs. The programs I am considering are all masters programs in education from Ohio State University, U Penn, Brown, NYU and Columbia. There isn't a lot of data available about masters program admission rates.</p>
<p>3.99 GPA, 610 Q, 530V and 5.0 Writing GRE, heavily involved (though I don't think it matters a great deal) and have some experience in education as a RA</p>
<p>this post probably should be moved to the graduate forum. but dam man, 3.99 GPA. Thats amazing. Congrats on that. With that solid of a GPA, a masters in education from top schools like Penn Brown and Columbia should be very very realistic. while they dont post stats for admissions to many masters programs, especially in education, i imagine at top schools like Brown, Penn and Columbia, average GPA's for admissions are around 3.4 or 3.5 or 3.6 (estimating). At a place like NYU likely a bit lower, maybe 3.2 or 3.3 or so (estimating). For Ohio State, probably around a 3.0 (estimating). I was on UCLA's site, which has one of the top 3 edu masters programs in the country. Their average GPA for their M.A. and M.Ed is around a 3.5. Remember, in graduate degrees in education, many other factors other than GPA are considered and very important in admissions such as experiences in education, volunteerwork, etc.</p>
<p>I was actually quite surprised when I read the very little information they had about secondary ed in the US news. OSU was actually the 2nd highest ranked school i am going to apply to (next to the Teachers College at Columbia). Are my GRE scores a major problem?</p>
<p>No, in general education GRE scores are signifcantly lower at top grad schools than they are other disciplines. Your verbal is a tad bit low, but your writing and quantitive are fine. i think your GPA should deff make up the the verbal. again, just make sure you emphasize your experiences in education and volunteerwork in urban education etc. these are very very important to top schools of education, often as much as GPA and GRE's. you could always retake your GRE if you are worried about it and try to get your Verbal up a bit and maybe your writing up a bit. But i really doubt with your GPA that they will be a problem for masters admissions.</p>
<p>I really don't have a lot of experience with education. I tutored student athletes at OSU, designed programs geared towards education for my residents (as a resident advisor) and will start tutoring columbus youth in the fall. Should I be looking to do more? I am heavily involved with student government (so that takes a big chunk of my time)</p>
<p>I would deff donate some time at a local ymca or boys and girls clubs. The tutoring atheletes is a good thing. My gf applied to UCLA's TEP (Teacher Ed Program -Credential/M.Ed). She was very very well qualified and considered UCLA as a sure bet as they have a admit percentage of over 50%. She graduated UCSD as a Political Science/Political Theory major with a 3.75 GPA, had taught at the YMCA, donated lots of time to charities, etc. Yet, she was denied. Obviously she was quite unhappy about the admissions decision and we both feel her race played a large roll in why she was denied. When we called to ask why she was denied they said she had excellent grades and letters of rec and personal statement, but that her extra ciriculars and experiences in education were lagging behind those that were admitted. So my experience with admissions for top education programs is that unlike many ph.d programs and other masters programs where an excellent gpa from a highly ranked school and good letters of rec from noted scholars in their field is usually enough to give you a good shot at admissions, top education schools often want to you to be involved and have experience before applying. Im not sure if this was the case with her as they say, again i believe since the UCLA TEP program teaches in very low income areas, they were more interested in attaining latin americans and african americans (i read the make up of white students in the UCLA TEP Program was only 13%) than white kids from the burbs. I was just surprised since she graduated Cum-Laude from a top 30 or 35 school and had plenty of education experience and was denied. Also they told her that since she applied as a social science secondary teacher, that area was much more impacted for admissions than was science and math and such. I want to emphasize again that her experiences were not the norm. I know plenty of people who have been admitted to top notch programs with much lower GPA's than her and with less experiences in education. I just thought i would share just to give you a heads up that extra experiences in education might be a deff plus when applying.</p>
<p>I will be using my hall director (OSU wants a non-academic reference), the dean of my college (he nominated me for an undergrad writing award for a paper i wrote for his political parties class), a professor emeritus (former dean), econ prof i had three classes with and anthro prof i had 2 classes with.</p>
<p>^^ He/She's got it right. Letters of Rec are very important in grad school admissions. While in a masters in education admissions they probably arent as important as say a phd in political science or econ, but they are still important.</p>
<p>I know many at this board attend top 25 schools. As a result, OSU probably doesn't sound as impressive would put up to the other schools. Do you think attending Ohio State will hurt (with honors). I know our honors program isn't the best, but hopefully taking 6-8 honors classes and graduate with a 3.9 (or greater) will help</p>