supererock

I don't mean to be the negative one here, but I do think this needs to be said for your benefit: Honestly, I would seriously consider whether graduate school is the right decision for you. It's one thing to have personal issues that lead to temporarily low grades, but an overall GPA of 2.2 over several years of schooling is indicative of consistently below-average coursework. The thing is, graduate school is not going to be any easier than your undergrad was (and, if anything, will be significantly more difficult). So unless there was some issue that led to your poor grades that is now fully resolved, schools are going to have serious doubts about your potential to succeed an academic environment. If whatever issue led to your poor grades is in fact now resolved and you are completely intent on pursuing a PhD, I think the best course of action would be to get a masters degree at a low-tier school, as suggested by another poster. If you get absolutely stellar grades in this program and do great research, it will make it much more believable that you have what it takes to succeed academically. However, this would almost certainly put you in a lot of debt, and even with a master's I can't guarantee that a PhD program would overlook your undergraduate GPA, so you really need to think long and hard about whether going down this path is right for you.