Non-Degree Seeking Graduate Student?

Graduate School
1

<p>I am a senior graduating (May 2009) magna cum laude (cgpa: 3.77, major gpa: 3.91) with a BA in Middle Eastern Studies and minors in History and Philosophy. I have been accepted into to a local history MA program, but ultimately want to pursue my PhD (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations program) at a local Ivy. Unfortunately, before I transfered to a 4-year institution, I received a cgpa of 3.0 at a CC, bringing my overall gpa to a 3.4 or 3.5. However, CC is almost 7 years in the past at this point.</p>

<p>I have also been accepted to this Ivy as a non-degree seeking graduate student and will be taking Arabic literature courses at the Ivy (I have the equivalent of 8 semesters of Arabic study, 3 semesters of Persian, + Greek, Latin, German, French and Hebrew at the Elementary level). My question really is how will being a non-degree student at an institution affect an applicant's admissions there? Also, how important is knowing the head of a dept you're applying to, during admissions, since this is ultimately an advantage I will have (i.e., what is the real weight of knowing faculty in the dept, beforehand, during admission)? Or, will I not even make it past the "first cut" with my 8-year cGPA (or does that even exist) for the dept head to make a say-so?</p>

2

<p>Doing really well in your classes as a non-degree student will – hopefully – result in excellent letters of recommendation from your professors. Those letters would help a great deal with admissions later on.</p>

3

<p>In addition to being an employee at my current institution, I am also a non degree seeking student. This arrangement has allowed me to take courses with professors I might want to work with (this is all moot now). I was offered admission directly to the program based on the strength of my performance in those courses. I would imagine if you do well as a non degree student, if you don’t get offered admission straight out, you would be a shoo-in through the official admissions channels.</p>