CaliEdSchoolNerd

Lol I'm 30, so I'm not particularly worried that I can't hack it (and as you said, education in particular has a tendency to attract second career academics), but thanks for the encouragement ?

I am currently applying to programs in urban education. I feel like I'm a little late to the party, since working two jobs and dealing with various life issues has delayed some of my progress on applications, but now I feel like I'm back on track with just a couple weeks to go before due dates. I have one quick question: do admissions committees expect that all LoR come from PhD's? One of my recommenders is from my last teaching position, and does not have a terminal degree. I asked him to focus his letter on my research and development of a new curriculum sequence for our school, so it should still have a research focus. Some schools indicated that a professional reference was preferred over just academic ones, while one of my schools seems to require that recommenders have doctorates. Should I reach out to a backup recommender with a PhD just in case? Thanks, and good luck everyone!

I'm currently applying to PhD programs in education, all in the LA area (UCLA, USC, and Loyola). I was wondering if it makes sense to highlight in my SoP for the section on personal history/diversity my sexuality (I'm gay) and the fact that I am a candidate for ministry in the Presbyterian Church. I am a little wary of putting too much personal information in the application, since I'd rather have my experience and research interests speak for themselves, but considering these are both pretty important aspects of my personality, I can't really leave them out. Do you think admissions committees would look at this as diversity? I'm a little worried that the religious dimension will seem strange to secular academics (although I should note that my MDiv is from a very well-respected research university, not a bible college). I'm a white man, by the way.