<p>Hi everybody!! I'm not from the US and i'm not very familiar with all the craziness and francticness associated with applying for gradschool, but I'm starting to get into it...</p>
<p>This is my story: i graduated (BA in Political Sciences and International Relations) 3 years ago from the best school in my latin american country with a pretty mediocre GPA but I did great with my thesis. I wrote about censorship to art during war times in my country and won a national award for it and it was published.</p>
<p>After graduation, these 3 years I have worked for a non-profit in a good position with a lot of fieldwork involving working with poverty, community development and education. I have been coordinator of several teams of volunteers in my country and travelled around a lot doing this and started getting in touch with high-level politics related to volunteering and social service.</p>
<p>I've been doing great but I really want to study more. I want to do something related to what I did in my thesis (cultural studies - latin american cultural studies) but also keep working with non-profits fighting poverty and "making a difference" for my people (development? international relations?)</p>
<p>The only way I could go to gradschool (even in my own country) is a scholarship or a fellowship. I work 10 hours a day here to barely make my living so i can't work less and study here, so i thought of looking for gradschools in the States or Europe with funding available. Not even partial funding is an option, i need full tuitions and stipend, so I've been reading everywhere and found that only in PhDs I could get that but I don't think I could gain admission to one without a master's degree or with a low GPA (or could I?). Are there any fully-funded Masters available? Would an american school value my experience and thesis or my low GPA would destroy all my chances? Should i get really good GRE scores?</p>
<p>Forgot to mention, i'm 23, finished high school at 15 and college at 20 (very uncommon around here). Thanks in advance for all your time!!</p>
<p>d</p>