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Grad school admissions Q


luuknam
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I've attended 3 CCs and 2 universities thus far, and don't have a degree yet. I want to take lin alg, multi calc, and diff eq in the nearby future, but we might move again before I have a chance to finish my degree. Would grad school admissions care whether I take those at a CC or at the University of Buffalo? I mean, I don't think they'd care as far as course content is concerned (since I'd have to take more advanced courses to finish my degree), I'm mostly thinking about whether it would look worse to have to send in transcripts from 4 universities and 3 CCs, or 3 universities and 4 CCs, or, most likely, that it wouldn't matter one iota and that this point the only thing I can do is try to get straight As and hope for the best.

 

Part of me thinks that adding additional universities would look weirder than adding additional CCs, as it's probably more common to just use w/e CC is the cheapest, and odd to have a laundry list of 4-year institutions, but I don't work for a grad school, so I don't know how *they* would look at that. 

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For STEM courses, I have heard it is better to take them at a 4 year school than a CC because of the perceived challenge level difference.

 

I do know that the classes I took in the Speech & Language Pathology Assistant program at a CC were significantly easier than the classes I've taken towards my 2nd bachelor's in Communicative Disorders at a 4 year school. Open-book exams with multiple attempts vs. closed book & proctored with only a single attempt. I had >99% averages in the SLPA courses vs. usually somewhere in the 92-94% range for the bachelor's courses.

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I would imagine it depends on the field.

Is grad school very competetive in your field?

Is admission mainly based on transcripts, or mostly on performance on the GRE or similar exams (MCAT, LSAT)? I'd imagine a stellar score would be more important than the transcript.

Do other undergrad activities factor into admissions? (Undergrad research, professional organizations, etc)

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For STEM courses, I have heard it is better to take them at a 4 year school than a CC because of the perceived challenge level difference.

 

See, I figured that if I take, say, Lin Alg at the CC, and then Advanced Lin Alg at a 4-year, grad schools would pretty much not care where I took the first Lin Alg. But if I'm wrong, then that would be good to know.

 

I would imagine it depends on the field.

Is grad school very competetive in your field?

Is admission mainly based on transcripts, or mostly on performance on the GRE or similar exams (MCAT, LSAT)? I'd imagine a stellar score would be more important than the transcript.

Do other undergrad activities factor into admissions? (Undergrad research, professional organizations, etc)

 

 

I don't have a particular program in mind yet - I've been toying with the idea of a master's in biostatistics for quite a while now, but not at any particular university. My transcript up to this point isn't competitive at all - semesters of very good grades interspersed with semesters where I should've done the paperwork to withdraw from university for medical or w/e reasons, but instead have Fs. I've never been on academic probation though, so at least it's not *that* bad... but, my application would basically depend on doing a very good job in my remaining course work, and then getting a very good score on the GRE (which should be quite doable - I got a 1440 (720 on each section) on the SAT a month after I moved to the US, having only taken 2 practice tests and finishing each section of the test with *lots* of time left - I knew I was only applying to UTD, so I didn't really try to get a better score, so if I actually take the GRE seriously I should be able to do a good job on it). I figure undergrad research would be a plus, but I don't think I'd have a way to make that happen. I might end up working for a bit before applying to grad school - I don't know yet. 

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Luuknam, I missed this, sorry. 

 

Yes, nobody's going to give a rip about your lin alg at the CC if your advanced coursework is done at a good 4-yr university. Your recommendations from your professors at the 4-yr will carry a lot of weight and you want to blow them away. If you work for a while before applying to graduate school, I would try to keep in contact with your professors whom you think would be most likely to speak highly of you so that they don't forget who you are.

 

You are correct, though, that your spotty transcript will be problematic because they will be reluctant to admit you out of concern that things will go awry again. You need several good semesters in a row to mitigate this and it should also be addressed in your personal statement. Master's programs are a lot less competitive than phd programs -- your issue will probably not be getting admitted but rather be getting funding. They may require a trial semester first. 

 

That being said, I had a few dreadful semesters right at the beginning of my college career (which is probably what kept me out of the highly ranked programs I applied to) but with a long break, a good 4 years, and great recommendations, I was admitted and given funding at some other programs. 

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Master's programs are a lot less competitive than phd programs -- your issue will probably not be getting admitted but rather be getting funding. 

 

 

That's good to know - I obviously wasn't counting on any money for that, other than *maybe* if I could get it paid for through an employer, but that's not on my list of things to worry about just yet. 

 

Would it be problematic for grad school admissions if I take only one class per semester to finish up my bachelor's (because I'm homeschooling and dealing with my bipolar spouse who can go off the rails any moment)? I know grad schools aren't generally going to let me go that super-part time in grad school, so I'm not planning on doing that until I know I've got the time, energy, etc to be able to take the 9 hours they're going to want me to take)... just wondering if finish up my undergrad that way is going to look bad. I've got some semesters of taking a fair number of hours with decent results, though that's obviously from a long time ago - I took 19 hours one spring at UTD and iirc got an A in everything but one class, where I got a B+ (neuroanatomy, neuroscience lab methods, calculus 2, intro to digital systems, statistics and another class I don't recall), and took 15 hours with straight As in 8 weeks during summer (but at a CC... iirc that was accounting 1 & 2, business information systems, and English composition 2). 

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That one I can't answer as easily, but they're going to be interested to know what changed in your life that has made full-time school possible now when it wasn't before.

 

If you're SELF-pay, you can often take graduate level classes one per semester as well. A lot of teachers who were doing a master's degree in math were taking one per semester with two in the summer, and the classes that they tended to take were offered as evening classes. 

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That one I can't answer as easily, but they're going to be interested to know what changed in your life that has made full-time school possible now when it wasn't before.

 

If you're SELF-pay, you can often take graduate level classes one per semester as well. A lot of teachers who were doing a master's degree in math were taking one per semester with two in the summer, and the classes that they tended to take were offered as evening classes. 

 

 

Cool. The thing that would've changed would be that the kids are significantly older or possibly even off to college. 

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  If you're SELF-pay, you can often take graduate level classes one per semester as well. A lot of teachers who were doing a master's degree in math were taking one per semester with two in the summer, and the classes that they tended to take were offered as evening classes. 

 

Be careful about how many graduate credits earned while in non-matriculated status can later be applied towards a graduate degree. Most programs have a limit and anything taken beyond that limit will not count. 12 credits (out of 40something total) seems to be a common limit.

 

I took one grad-level course as an elective in my 2nd bachelor's. It may or may not transfer into the master's degree (that will depend on the specific program). I took it primarily for my own self-education so even if I don't get to count it towards anything other than the elective credit, it was worth it to me personally. I had actually signed up to audit it because the university admin hadn't wanted to let me register for it as an undergrad. But it wound up going onto my transcript with a letter grade after all. :confused1:

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