ArchieJones

My first semester at college was a big adjustment and I had a pretty low GPA the first year. I got a 2.9 the first semester and a 3.15 the second. I continued to have a steady increase in GPA, ewith 3.9's my last three semesters (taking upper level courses and writing a senior thesis), ending in at total GPA of 3.49 (bouncing back from those first few semesters was unbelieably hard!). Does anyone have experience with this? Will admissions see the strong finish and forgive the rough start? Or should I lower my expectations for what kind of PhD program I should apply to?

What are you looking for in a program? I would not advise the City College (CCNY) MA in psychology program to anyone who wants a quality. Before it started, I was really excited about being in the program but after just a few classes I quickly realized what a mistake it was - I wasn't learning anything. The classes are easier than many first year undergraduate courses, so you're not going to be challenged or prepared for real graduate level work. The professors are mostly undergrad professor who just happen to be teaching a class or two in the graduate program. This often means that they are not trained, adequate grad school professors, and they often treat grad students like undergrad (like having a large chuck of class time dedicated to talking about how wikipedia isn't a reliable source for a research article - d'oh!). Student's quickly pick up that the professors aren't committed so they aren't committed either. Few people do the readings and homework before class, so instead of having class discussions that build or do anything of substance, it's basically just reading the assigned work aloud with the class. If you're just looking to bolster your GPA (very easy to get straight A's) and don't actually care about learning more, then it's probably a good fit. Otherwise, I would seriously consider somewhere else.

Heard from UIC a little under a week ago! guess they’re more on the ball this year.

Hi, I'm about to finish my last year of undergrad and it's looking like I'm going to be a full time student in NYU's MSW program next year. I have no financial support from family and while I've heard that you can take out student loans for living expenses (does anyone actually know how that works?), I'm hoping to not. So, I've been thinking that in order to house and feed myself, especially in NYC, I'm going need to get a full time job. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this? Tips? Thoughts?

Hi! I’ve applied to UIC, UChicago, Hunter, NYU, Columbia, UWashington, UPenn, UVM & Simmons. So far I’ve heard from NYU & UPenn. I have to get back to both of them by mid January but I’m still waiting on all those other ones. Does anyone know about release dates for any of these other schools? I submitted all of my applications the last week of November.