Program Applied To: MPP
Schools Applied To: UChicago (Harris), Georgetown (McCourt), UVA (Batten), University of Maryland
Schools Admitted To: All
Schools Rejected From: N/A
Still Waiting: N/A
Undergraduate institution: UNC - Chapel Hill
Undergraduate GPA: 3.52
Undergraduate Major: History, Political Science, Religious Studies minor
GRE Quantitative Score: 155
GRE Verbal Score: 169
GRE AW Score: 4.5
Years Out of Undergrad (if applicable): 8
Years of Work Experience: 7 - I have a Master's in Teaching from UNC, too which accounts for the missing year.
Describe Relevant Work Experience: I have been a high school social studies teacher for the last seven years. I am currently teaching AP psychology and AP US History.
Strength of SOP (be honest, describe the process, etc): Each school seemed to have a slightly different SOP so I just tweaked a basic one to meet the requirements for each. I'm not a person that likes to have other people read my writing, so I pretty much did a lot of reading aloud to see if it sounded decent. One thing I really did was to be specific in the details I talked about. I treated it like a cover letter in which I needed to provide examples that proved why I would be a good candidate for admission.
Strength of LOR's (be honest, describe the process, etc): I've been out of school for a while, but I emailed a former grad student that taught three religious studies classes I took. A majority of my undergrad classes were very large, so I tried to pick someone that actually knew my name, haha. I had a good relationship with him though, so I'm sure that helped. Plus he had already written one for me when I applied to the MAT program, so I'm pretty sure he just used that same one. My principal wrote another one and my mentor teacher wrote the third one. While my mentor teacher is not actually a higher position than me, he was able to speak to my professional growth over the last seven years. I'm assuming his was probably the best LOR.
Other: Take a chance when applying to schools. I heard back from Chicago first and I was VERY surprised and delighted to get in. I thought that my work experience would be a hindrance since I was "just a teacher," but I think it was probably a large part of the reason that I was able to get into all four schools. I focused my SOP and other essays on my experiences as a teacher, my interest in education policy, and specifically my interest in teacher retention and teacher prep programs. Good luck!