<p>Hi everyone, this is my first time posting on this site so let me know if I'm doing something wrong :)</p>
<p>I am currently a senior at a small liberal arts college. My GPA is around a 3.6. I just took the GRE today and got 550 verbal/730 quantitative. I am a business major with a minor in French, a member of the honors program and 3 national honor societies, and I like to think I'm pretty involved (RA, volunteer work and charity groups, president of a club and treasurer of another, peer tutoring and mentoring, among various other things). I'm also planning to do an internship at Res Life next semester.</p>
<p>I've been kind of torn between going straight to graduate school and getting some professional experience first. I want to pursue a career in higher education, and my first choice for grad school is BC. I'm very much leaning toward looking for a job as a resident director at a college before going into graduate school to gain professional experience that will hopefully help me get into BC and also get experience as an RD to hopefully apply for a residential life assistantship.</p>
<p>So my questions are:
- How do I go about getting recommendations from professors? I'm probably not going to graduate school right away but I don't want to e-mail 3 years later for recommendations and have them be like, "Who are you?" Can I ask for them now and keep them on file without having a particular school in mind?
- Should I retake the GREs? I was a little disappointed with my verbal score, but being such a busy college student I didn't have much prep time. If I retook in a few years I might do better but at the same time, I might be kind of out of the habit of doing math and studying so it might be harder.
- Will having work experience actually help me get into a better school in this field?
- Am I setting my sights to high on Boston College? I'm obviously going to apply to back up schools when the time comes, but BC is really my first choice.</p>
<p>I took four years to work in my field between undergrad and grad school. I felt that my experience was critical to the development of my career. </p>
<p>However, my wife works in higher ed administration and has taken a few years before starting a masters in the above field. For what it is worth, I think that in her field, the jobs she had without the graduate degree are not as good. Those jobs tend to have less student contact, less responsibility and as always in academia, low salary. In contrast, a masters degree in higher ed administration allows you to enter at asst director levels and do more with your time. IMHO, you should go ahead and try to get into a good program right away.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is attending graduate school in HEA at William and Mary. In her case, she had 3 years of experience working in Residence Life (as an RA) and did very well in the admissions/funding process (this was the 2007-2008 cycle). My impression is that HEA is a field where related experience really helps. Good luck! :)</p>
<p>I second belevitt’s advice. You have solid experience right now in Res Life. To advance further (to RD especially) you are going to need a Masters in Higher Ed. I’d say go for it, apply. Your GREs are fine. Your experience, interview, and recommendations will count for a lot more. </p>
<p>My friend’s currently at UMass’s HEA masters program. She loves it. Went straight in from undergrad (3 years as an active RA).</p>