Ok, long story short, I took a few cool jobs after college and postponed my grad school plans, but have always had the desire to go back for intellectual enlightenment/finding the meaning of life.
Finally getting serious about setting up grad school applications to start applying NEXT fall.
Have some anxiety about how smart I'm not- I want to study legal theory (majored in poli sci and english) and realize that my choices are yale law, oxford, or a top tier political theory program (please do correct me if I'm wrong- my understanding is legal theory/philosophy is not generally offered at most places here)
I apologize in advance for general ignorance of life and things.
Here are my major questions:
1) Great GRE scores won't promise me anything; but low GRE scores may disqualify me...correct?
2) Have been out of academics for about 4 years- can definitely awkwardly manage to contact 2 professors I was close with, but what happens to that last rec I need? Former boss, girlfriend, one of you guys? No seriously, how much does a non-academic rec hurt, keeping in mind I've been working for about 4 years.
3) What do you do to generally prepare for applying to a specific program? Look up publications, essays, and books, read them, and then try to think of one specific thing you want to study in the field? How reasonable of an approach is this with little to no guidance from academic people?
4) How reasonable is it to say, "I'm going to research my own topic and create a writing sample NOW because I'm not 100% satisfied with any of my writing samples from college. I realize I have a full time job and no academic mentoring from anyone currently, but I will still research and write a paper that shows my intelligence and commitment."
I totally get that there are no right answers; that's why I'm applying to grad school ! (i think)..all I'm looking for is some reasonable advice or meaningful experience. If you're first reaction is "Wow dude this is a really dumb plan" let me know- that's valuable feedback for me (and yes, hurtful as well, but the value is worth it).
Thanks!