I am currently working in the finance field in NYC and have been out of college for about 2 years. I've found that I really don't like what I'm doing and really wish I could have a re-do of my undergrad years - go with my heart instead of my head. I've always been a huge art/art history fanatic and the more I work in finance, the more I know it's not for me.
I'm seriously considering going back to school for Art History to focus on my passions. Ideally, I would love to be able to go directly into a art history ph.d program but seeing as I have very little background in art history, that would be close to impossible. So my next option is to start with a masters in art history and eventually progress to a ph.d.
My background: I went to a state school with a degree from the business school with a minor in Art History. My GPA is not the best - I don't want to be too specific, but it's < 3.5. I was never that enthusiastic about my actual major so I didn't really try as hard as I should have in classes. My art history minor gpa was almost a 4.0 though...although I highly doubt schools will actually look too much into a minor gpa. I haven't taken the GRE yet, but I think I will do fairly well on it (I'm decent at standardized testing - my SAT score was 1500 back when it was out of 1600).
My question is - how difficult will it be to get into a good art history MA program with my background? Since I haven't taken that many art history classes, I don't have close connections with the art history professors and I also don't have any lengthy writing samples. I know these 2 elements are a major deciding factor for graduate school acceptance.
Do I even have a chance of making it into a good MA program? Is there anything I could do in the meantime to help increase my chances? The area I'm most interested in is Italian Renaissance art.
Any help is appreciated! Sorry for the lengthy read and thanks if you were able to get through all of it.
