LaBelleDameSansMerci

I'm applying for my Masters of Education Policy this next year and I just got an email from the University of Washington saying that they interview every candidate for their program (I'm guessing this only applies to the Education department because a close friend applied here for Engineering last year and didn't get interviewed at all.) Has anyone else been through this interview? My interview will be via skype sometime early in February. I'd love to hear stories or insights or questions from interviews with this school. It will be my first interview for graduate school so I'm not sure what to expect and I think this can make or break my application since my qualifications on paper are "meh."

This made my night. I'd totally forgotten that the admissions people are people and not hateful GRE score crunching robots. Thanks

I'm applying for my Masters in Education Policy and similar programs at: Harvard Vanderbilt NYU WUSTL University of Washington The University of Pittsburgh BC Vermont Mills Towson And this is so stressful I'm surprised I haven't started peeing the bed like an eight year old. Being a grown up is rough.

I'm new on this forum but my best friend said this is the best place to ask all these questions. I'll try to be brief to avoid wasting anyone's time. I'm applying to these schools for my Masters of Education Policy or something very similar depending on the programs offered: Harvard Vanderbilt New York University Washington University in St. Louis University of Washington The University of Pittsburgh Boston College University of Vermont Mills College Towson University My stats: Undergrad -- B.S., Biology, Average State School GPA -- 2.7 GRE -- 1060 and 5.0 on the writing. I did REALLY shitty on the math but a registration error ruined my last chance to retake. Other stuff -- I had a research grant in undergrad that I was awarded among a big pool of applicants. I also have hands on teaching experience from a new program at my college called MTeach and an internship doing education research and a couple of volunteer things in education. Oh, I was an intern in the education department at the Aquarium of the Pacific after I graduated. Odds and Ends -- I'm a very strong writer and my statement of purpose is probably a higher caliber than the norm. It has a quick section about my poor grades and what caused this, but I didn't want to tarry on the negatives. I tried to spin it as a positive because I'm really going into education policy to correct a lot of the things that made school so difficult for me and having the experience of being on the losing side of education might be very beneficial. At a few schools, I included a second essay (Personal History Statement) better explaining my grades, but it did not make it into the Harvard, Vanderbilt, or Boston College applications. I chose schools all up and down the rankings because I honestly don't know where I stand. From what I understood from my education professors in college, education is a bit desperate right now and may be a little bit easier to get into as a result. Of course, I'm deeply passionate about the matter, but I don't know how much that will matter to the schools, and even if it does, I don't know how well I communicated this. I did the best I could with just a short essay. Harvard is a bit of a crap shoot. I suspect they get far too many applicants with better "on-paper" credentials to look much at me. I'm guessing I have a 5-10% chance with Vandy. They've accepted a lot of people I knew in college who had pretty similar grades, but most of the people I know are in hard science. I'm hoping that at the worst, one of the state schools will accept me. Pittsburgh doesn't seem terribly discerning. But this is a Master's, not undergrad. So I'm pretty terrified. Thank you to anyone who has any advice. I appreciate your taking the time to read this and try to help.