I just finished my BA in Teaching English as a Second Language with a minor in Japanese. I went to Kent State University for the four years that I was there, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I know that Kent State isn’t a prestigious school, but I chose the school with little prestige because it allowed me to get my BA for free. However, I did slack around for the first year and half of college. I constantly bounced around between various majors, not knowing which one I truly wanted to set as the foundation for my future career. I got disinterested in many of the general education courses and chose the immature decision of just saying, “Screw it” and taking Ds for about four classes. I withdrew from one, so there’s also a W on my record. Half way through my sophomore year, I was sitting at a 2.54 GPA. I finally realized that, if I wanted to attend a good graduate school, this GPA was not good enough. I finally found a major that I enjoy (teaching English), and I pulled myself together. I consistently finished each semester thereafter with at least a 3.7 GPA. There is an incredibly strong upward trend on my transcripts. I ended up finishing with a 3.3 cumulative GPA, a 3.87 major GPA, and, for the Japanese minor, a 3.91 GPA.
So here’s the situation: I really wanted to go to Ohio State University for undergrad, but they didn’t offer me nearly enough scholarships to help pay for the room and board and tuition costs. I do, however, want to go to Ohio State to get a Master’s in Education in English Education/Integrated Language Arts to teach English to grades 7-12. I know that it’s an incredibly good program, but I’m worried that my cumulative GPA wouldn’t be competitive enough to get in. I was banking on offsetting the lower cumulative GPA with a high major GPA. I am able to get astounding letters of recommendation from fellow professors at Kent State. Would admissions take into account everything about my application (the strong upward trend, the high major GPA, the high minor GPA) despite the low cumulative? I’m the first person in my family to ever go to college, let alone graduate school, so I’m not sure how graduate admissions look at applications. I’m hoping for a holistic approach rather than me being crucified by my lowly cumulative GPA.
A second option is for me to go to the JET program which is a program run by the Japanese government to get students to be ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) for various Japanese public schools. This lasts between 3-5 years. I don’t know if I should try to apply directly to the master’s program at OSU right now, or take this job to gain work experience. Would the work experience help me in getting into the master’s program?