mardi 2 décembre 2014

How will my background (good and bad) affect my chances for grad school?


I'd like your opinion on my situation, please. I went to college (Rhode Island College) straight from high school in 1999 as an education major and just couldn't get my act together. I wasn't ready, and after years of floundering and trying to get my GPA higher so that I could do my practicum and graduate, I left school with a 2.14 GPA and moved to the UK. Upon returning a year later in 2006, I worked in schools for several years and then began doing in-home behavioral therapy using ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis).


This spurned a fascination with ABA and in turn, Psychology, and I managed to transfer to another university in 2012 (Fitchburg State University) and began a degree in Psychology. I am one semester away from graduating and I have a GPA of 3.76 (3.86 in my major) and my GRE scores were 165 Verbal (95th percentile), 164 in Quantitative Reasoning (88th percentile) and 5.5 in Analytical Reasoning (98th percentile).


Now, here is my question: what are my chances of getting into grad school? My current shortlist includes: Rivier University, Brandeis University, Boston University, Mount Holyoke College, and Connecticut College. I think I'm a strong candidate but I have very little formal research experience (except what I've carried out in classes). However, I have had a lot of work experience in school systems and with ABA. I'm worried that grad schools will judge me negatively because of how long it has taken me to get my Bachelor's degree and if I'm required to include my transcript from Rhode Island College it won't look great (it's a weird mixture of failed classes mixed with As and Bs). My plans are to get a terminal Master's and then hopefully apply to get into a PhD program. I am interested in research (not clinical), specifically neuroscience, meditation, and ABA.


Any thoughts, advice, or opinions would be welcome! Thank you!





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