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Will that higher degree earn you more money in the long term than it will cost you for the loans plus interest? If yes, then do it. If no, then don't. The Library Schools are always happy to take your money and may not help you beyond that, so it's up to you to decide if you are getting that extra degree just out of interest or if it is a calculated career move that will pay for itself in the next 10 years. Also, do you want the responsibility of an administrative job in archives/library work that will come with the job you get with those fancier credentials?

Folks, you should be showing your statements of intent to faculty to get their opinions. To create a draft you are proud to show off, it should be: - for the MA - maximum one page - for the PhD - maximum two pages Then discuss in this order: - your research topic and methodology - why you are interested in this and why it matters - your preparation for this to this point - what faculty you would work with in the department and your ultimate career goal That's it. No bravado, no flattery, no ruminations on your theory of whatever, no long-windedness or jargon. Direct and concise. Profs have dozens of these things to read and will get frustrated if you are not direct and down to earth. AND the main thing: write your statement to convey what you would bring to that graduate program, that you are showing signs of intellectual independence, and that you are the one to get that research done and make that department look really smart for having taken the risk of admitting you to their program with tons of funding.

Howdy, You should apply to top schools and that means spending the summer on both the GRE and your statement of intent. Your GPA is awesome, so professors looking at your application will want to see that the rest of your application package delivers the same message about you. A low GPA or badly written statement of intent is the anomaly that sets off alarm bells for admissions committees. So, this summer: 1. scrape the money together to take the GRE test prep. course from Kaplan or someone, and they'll give you a timed exam to try and also give you strategic tricks that help you figure out/guess the right answer on questions (I did this myself and it's amazing how well you can do on the exam even with limited vocabulary). Since you are in the sciences, your verbal score need not be in the top 5% (as for Humanities grads), but it needs to be in the top 15% if you expect to compete for a spot at places like MIT and get money from them to help pay for your degree. 2. persuade or hire someone to help you write your statement of intent and then show it to a couple of profs you know and trust and tell them you want their HONEST opinion of whether it is enough to really compete at the big schools you are interested in. Summer is a great time to do these things, don't make the mistake of waiting till fall - you'll be too busy then!

Hi Rondale, My dad served in the US Air Force when he was at grad school at UCDavis, worked the night shift at McClellan Air Force Base, so I know from experience that you have a giant work ethic, so you can get into grad school if you take the right approach to things. Working the night shift does have its dangers, though, so start thinking now about how you can reduce the amount of time you spend working and make sure you get more sleep and better grades. Ands! is right - you should focus on getting the best MA in African History that you can. Once you've done that, you'll have a much better choice of schools to go to for the PhD. A great MA makes you seem much less risky to PhD admissions committees, the members of which want to see in a PhD candidate evidence of real intellectual independence and can-do. Admitting PhD students makes us profs nervous -- it's a big risk since those students and their supervisors will invest a lot of time and energy and we know that many, many PhD students don't finish their degrees. Ok, so here's what to do: In your last year of undergrad, - keep up those good relationships with your letter writers - scrape up the money this fall to take a GRE test prep course like Kaplan's at which they'll tell you how to improve your score and make sure the instructor tells you the tricks they know for guessing the right answer on GRE questions - focus your coursework on courses that pertain to your specific area of research -- ie. History, especially African, but also any course that addresses the historical questions you want to study in the African case - make a vow that you will get a 4.0 in those last two semesters -- or, if necessary since you work, stretch those last 10 courses across 3 semesters. It is WAY easier to get those top grades if you take fewer courses at a time (I did this myself as an undergrad), and when people see the grades you got, they won't care if you were only taking 3 classes instead of 5. Hire a grad student in History as a tutor at the beginning of each semester and make sure you get those top marks. Don't give away any grades by skipping discussion groups or other things that count toward your final marks. - find about four or five universities that offer a terminal Master's Degree in African History, apply to those five and work your butt off! - get that degree done FAST (two years MAX), and while you're finishing up you can apply to top PhD programs. Also, why do you want the PhD? If you would like to teach at a community college you won't make much money, but you get to teach people about something you care about and there's a huge range of schools you can get a PhD from and be hireable at a community college. Do you want to be a university professor? Then there's only a handful of top schools you can go to and get a job thereafter, so you'll need to be very strategic about this. Drop me a line if you need more help and, by all means, don't be deterred.

Right! I stand corrected - I spaced it that this was a post about Psychology. In many disciplines at most Canadian universities, applicants do not have to supply a GRE score - and Psychology is one of the exceptions. I took the GRE myself and it was a pain, so I'm always trying to help others avoid it when I can - got a bit overzealous there for a minute...

Lots of students overcome this by cultivating new letter writers, and this is what you are doing. So, the new people you've got at the community college - make an effort - don't be fake! - but make an effort to get to know them and help them get to know you. Visit their office hours to ask them about their own research or training or about some topic they talked about in the course that is relevant to something you are interested in. While you are doing this, find a way to tell your own story and convey a sense of who you worked with in the past and what your plans are. AFTER you have established that they know your name and have enjoyed talking to you, THEN near the end or after you've finished a course with them, approach them for letters. Start by saying how much you enjoyed the course you took with them and then saying "Actually, I'm in a bit of a bind. Could you help me out? I took a break from school to help out with the family business but now I want to break out on my own and I need letters of recommendation for grad program XYZ. Would you be able to write me a strong letter?" - Students have used that tactic and script on me, and it works every time because I do know them and find them interesting. Also, the "I'm in a bind - can you help me out?" line is hard to say no to. Also, get GREAT grades in those particular classes so they will want to help you out...

STMphilosophy is right, undergrad journals are not a productive use of your time. Giving a paper at a conference would be better since it would give you practice in verbally explaining your research - and that will help you write a better statement of intent and help you impress people when you get into that grad program and need to find a supervisor. Once you're in grad school, take that undergrad paper, polish it up with the good skills and thinking you're developing and submit it to a proper academic journal for publication. If you pull that off, THAT will make you look like a serious player.

I need my TA's to be organized and assertive with students (because part of the job is wrangling undergrads so that they don't inundate the head prof. of the course with email and complaining). Also, you'll need to know how to do constructive critiques of work and to show students how to improve. This can be learned on the fly that first semester. So, in your interview just say that you are looking forward to helping students do the best work they can, and that you know how to manage your time so that the TA-ship will not derail your own graduate work. The best TA's are very autonomous and learn fast and help reduce the Prof.'s workload. Try to exude that in your interview and they'll think "This kid's great! He won't give us any trouble - hire him!" Feel free to send me an email if you need more help with the interview process...

I've done this as a supervisor. You just need to find a prof. that is willing to do Skype or talk on the phone with you. That person might be more helpful than someone right down the hall in your department! An academic who is a good supervisor in person can also be a great collaborator by long distance too. When you contact him or her, make sure to phrase your message by emphasizing what a great opportunity it is for him/her to work with you (try to do this subtly) so that he/she sees the whole thing as an opportunity to enrich his/her own work. That's how I choose grad students.

Hi Linda124, There are online services - I run one myself and I'd be happy to help you out with this. In general, as a supervisor and someone who has accepted and rejected graduate applications I can tell you that the main thing I look for is for candidates that show signs of intellectual maturity. That means that you know what you are interested in researching and how you will do it, and in your application you are really offering that to the department. You are offering to make the program a smarter and more interesting place. I get the feeling you aren't quite there yet and until you are, I wouldn't reveal myself to potential grad advisors yet. Now I have known PhD students who got their thesis topic from their supervisor - often since he/she had some big research project ongoing and the grad student was invited to do some part of the research and get published as a second or third author on the resulting article. This can be a very dangerous thing to do if: your supervisor is anyone but a super, super famous academic whose students get jobs just because of him/her OR you are still working out what your own scholarly vision is -- if so, you need some independence to figure out your own talents and insight. Being bogged down in someone else's research can squelch your own voice and then get you into trouble later in your career when you need to have a scholarly brand and attract collaborators of your own with it. P.S. As an academic, I study the history of communication and business -- which obviously includes lots of marketing history -- so I am fascinated by what you folks do! Do drop me a line and there's lots of free stuff on my website.

antanon82: In my department we always like students to approach prospective faculty advisors BEFORE applying to make sure that there would be appropriate faculty interest and availability to successfully supervise a student and thus reduce the number of applications we get that we can't seriously look at because we can't help those students. On the other hands, I know that the culture in many other programs is the opposite, and I've heard from many of the students I've helped that they got crabby or indignant replies to initial contact emails stating that "no one will talk to you about anything until you are admitted to the program," and this kind of really arrogant stuff. Don't let that turn you off. I think you are on the right track. True you should be trying to put together funding this summer, but you should also be trolling departmental websites (as it sounds like you have) to find potential advisors. When you try to contact them, you'll need a very direct and unembarrassed email containing: One sentence saying exactly what research you want to do. A line asking if that prof is currently taking grad students and would be interested in the research. And an offer to PHONE to talk about this (as these things can be easier to talk about by voice than by emailing). Do NOT end your email with some line about how you know the prof is busy, or that you understand if he doesn't have time, or any other thing that gives him/her permission to blow you off. You will be making a big personal investment in this grad program -- money, time, your mental energy, your reputation -- so you have a right to ask what you will get from the program. Any prof who doesn't get that will probably not serve you well as an advisor. If that doesn't work, then visit, phone or email the faculty member in the department who is in charge of graduate admissions, and tell and ask all the same things to and of him/her -- they tend to be quite helpful and will have a broader view of the program than many of their colleagues in the department. In the meantime, don't be deterred. Keep at it and feel free to send me an email if you need more help...

Surefire give awesome advice! As a prof writing letters, I love it when I get to write for such organized and considerate students. Also, that level of professionalism and just having your act together is the sign of a student that will do very well in grad student - so it tends to make me write a stronger letter of recommendation. Rest assured, if you want a good letter from someone, don't bungle asking for it and supplying your info - that is a performance too and it does inform the letter that is ultimately produced.

maliku: I agree that should make your health priority #1. However, I do see a way for you to salvage this: do an extra semester - not a full load - say 60% course load, even if you don't need those extra courses to finish your degree. Take courses that apply to your particular area of graduate work, and get the best grades you can. Do that twice if you really need the extra boost to your transcript. I know this sounds like a hassle, but rebuilding a transcript is like rebuilding your credit rating - it can be done but it takes some determination and some time. If you invest an extra year, your grades will go up and you'll be in a much, much more powerful position to apply to grad school. Then - go to grad school part time. There are many grad programs that allow or even encourage this because they want people with professional skills and/or ongoing careers in their programs. The MBA is the classic example, but I would guess architecture is similar. So, you could preserve your health and still get your degree done. Also, when applying, try to cultivate some faculty referees (or one at least) who know what you've been coping with and could explain that in his/her letter of reference for you. That plus solid performance at the end of your undergrad career will go a long way to dispelling any concerns a grad admissions committee may have about you.

featherlight53: My experience as a prof and student has shown me that the graduate admissions process is a little mysterious and can be quite subjective - even at Yale the profs might not be able to quite sum up how the decisions get made (beyond obvious stuff like a bare minimum g.p.a., etc.). But generally, at a school of that calibre they want to see that you know yourself as an artist and show signs of intellectual maturity and independence. They want to see that you'll get in there and make the department a more interesting place, and that you'll finish on time without becoming a burden to the department (you need to be driven and a self-starter). You can convey all of that with a very direct and specific statement of intent that names the big concepts that fascinate you (not just interest you, but fascinate you), specifically how you plan to explore them in the Yale program, what faculty you've talked to there who are willing to work with you and what longer term goal that serves for you as an artist and thinker. You'll want to edit your portfolio so that it conveys a certain amount of versatility that shows your skills, but mostly presents a single style or vision that conveys your personality and uniqueness as an artist. You want to spell out for the admissions committee what you have to offer them as much as what you will learn there -- like a job application, really. As for specifics like gpa's, GRE scores and that kind of junk: the quickest way to an answer is to visit, phone or email the faculty member in that program who is the director/coordinator/manager of the graduate program. Don't beat around the bush, tell him/her you are very interested in his/her impressive graduate program and that you'd like to know, on average, what kind of credentials (gpa, GRE, professional experience) successful admissions have so that your application will answer the questions they need answered. Put the whole thing in terms of you doing them a favour! Also, you are well within your rights to ask about this. If you go to school there, you'll be making a big personal investment in Yale's graduate program so you should know as much about it as possible to make sure it's the right place for you. If he/she won't tell you what you want to know, send me an email and I'll see if we can't come up with a way to the information. P.S. Don't be too dazzled by Ivy League reputations - they will cost you lots of money and (no offence to the Ivy League schools) many of them are great 90% of the time but they still have weak spots, programs, faculty - so do your research to make sure you are getting the best of that school...

Hi Christina, You are not unacceptable, this prof is just being difficult and unimaginitive. As others have said here, you do have some work to do to make sure you boost your grades in courses related to your specific area of graduate research. Also find more supportive profs. who will help you and write you a strong letter (which sometimes can include an explanation of an imperfect academic transcript. I had a VERY imperfect one and now when I write letters for students who also have an imperfect one -- which is the norm, by the way -- I will say things like "so and so is extremely talented in her area of specific research, a fact that is not expressed in her gpa or early academic history... etc." Hang in there and make sure you do what YOU want to do. Also, I did an MA at a more middling school so that I could get into the PhD at the top tier program - so this strategy is a very good one! I have a post about this on my website that might help you put things in perspective: http://www.mygradschoolcoach.com/C/fix_your_imperfect_academic_transcript.html