Intl Ed Policy Doctoral Programs - Number of Applications, General Advice?

[trekhgornyval]

I've been preparing to apply to Ph.D. and Ed.D programs this fall for Fall 2019 admissions, focusing on International Education Policy and related programs. 

I have a pretty basic question first - how many applications are you completing for doctoral programs? I've found 3-4 programs I would be 100% interested in, and would expand that to about 7-8 programs that I would be happy with if accepted. Is that a low/high number, based on your experiences? I've heard of applicants in other fields putting out 15 applications, and others say they applied to only 1 or 2. The fees are not a major issue, but obviously I don't want to waste money unnecessarily, and I don't want to waste my time or the time of my recommendation writers as well.

As for my personal background, my GRE scores were 163V/160Q/5.0 (might retake), I have a M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction (4.0 GPA), and BAs in History and Art History (2.9 GPA, but I hope my overall strength of application can outweigh this.) In addition to ~5 years teaching experience in the US, I have been teaching/working internationally for 7 years, have been promoted to leadership positions, and have specific topics of interest based on my international experience, so I think I can write a strong letter supporting my application. My LOR professors (from my masters program) are highly supportive and I anticipate strong recommendations.

Any thoughts on the strength of my overall application are welcome as well; I know my low undergraduate GPA is a weak point, but I hope my more recent masters program grades can help cover for that, as well my GRE scores and overall application (so I hope, anyway!) Also, I finished my undergrad about 12 years ago, and my masters more recently, so I hope the fact that I can show I've grown up and changed since then carries some weight...

Anyway, I'm general not sure where I really stand as an applicant, and any input would be welcome, thank you!

[ZeChocMoose]

I am not in your field - but I would apply to any program where there were at least 2 faculty members that I was interested in working with, had full funding for at least 4+ years, had a good to great placement in the type of jobs that I wanted after graduation,  and was located in an area that I wanted to live or at least was neutral about living.  I also talked to faculty and students before I applied to get a better sense of the program because I found that program websites can be really outdated and those conversations also helped me to narrow down my list of programs.

I think I started with 8-9 programs that I was initially interested in and ended up applying to 3 programs.  I received two great offers and I chose between them.

On 9/2/2018 at 6:11 AM, trekhgornyval said:

Anyway, I'm general not sure where I really stand as an applicant, and any input would be welcome, thank you!

Noone is really going to be able to answer this because it depends on the overall pool of applicants and which professors are taking advisees.  None of those things that we know.  And having sat on two admissions committees - sometimes admission decisions are more random than we would like to think especially when you have more qualified people than slots. 

I will say that in Education PhD admissions, professional/research experience, SOP, program fit, and letters of recommendations tended to be way more important than the GRE or GPA though - at least at the two schools where I was part of the admissions committee.