Thinking about apply to to GSEs - questions

[sshopeful]

I am currently a second-year teacher in the New York City public schools. I graduated college in May 2010 and immediately started a nontraditional program for teaching certification, enrolling in coursework at a local NYC school (unranked). I began teaching at a NYC public school September 2010.

I graduated from a top liberal arts college with a (rather weak) 3.4 GPA . I work and go to school, and I have a 3.8 Masters GPA. I am currently writing my master's thesis on lexical errors of bilingual students in special education settings (and the complicated duality of their identities).

I hope to apply to GSEs for fall 2013, but I don't know how competitive I would be (if at all). I have done research on higher education/achievement gap for a think tank organization (acknowledged in but not co-author of a book), an independent project (on racist policy against English language learners in Massachusetts) at the undergraduate level, was part of a research team studying parental involvement and college access for Latino students (for a year, funded under a NSF grant), and interned as an ESOL teacher in a foreign country.

I, ideally, would like to study the intersection of culture and education - particularly with bilingual populations, and even more specifically studying the overwhelming placement of Spanish L1 students /ESL and bilingual students into special education settings, looking specifically at the achievement gap between ESL and Non-ESL students. I don't know if there is anything out there that would cater to me, or if any program would realistically take me as a doctoral student given my poor background.

GRE not yet taken either... so that's another one. Any advice ?

[criticalontology]

I hope to apply to GSEs for fall 2013, but I don't know how competitive I would be (if at all). I have done research on higher education/achievement gap for a think tank organization (acknowledged in but not co-author of a book), an independent project (on racist policy against English language learners in Massachusetts) at the undergraduate level, was part of a research team studying parental involvement and college access for Latino students (for a year, funded under a NSF grant), and interned as an ESOL teacher in a foreign country.

I, ideally, would like to study the intersection of culture and education - particularly with bilingual populations, and even more specifically studying the overwhelming placement of Spanish L1 students /ESL and bilingual students into special education settings, looking specifically at the achievement gap between ESL and Non-ESL students. I don't know if there is anything out there that would cater to me, or if any program would realistically take me as a doctoral student given my poor background.

GRE not yet taken either... so that's another one. Any advice ?

sshopeful,

You may be interested in checking out the Education, Equity, and Cultural Diversity (EECD) program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

http://www.colorado.edu/education/prospective/eecdphd.html

I am a student in another department there, and don't know a ton about the EECD department, but as far as I have gathered it is a well-regarded

program, and moreover, it sounds like your research would fit in very well there. However, it is a small school of ed. and a very small department,

so they don't take many students. As for your competitiveness as an application, I obviously cannot speak for the department, but I would imagine

that your experience and the projects you've worked on (and your thesis) would balance concerns about your GPA (although neither GPA you mentioned

is going to keep you out of many programs...). It seems like you have more reason to be confident than you may realize.

Good luck.

c.o.

[emilyrobot]

sshopeful, IMO, your background is far from poor. You've got both practice and research experience and your GPA isn't a disaster. I Imagine there are a lot of departments that would be good fits for your interests (here's one, for one example off the top of my head, at Vanderbilt http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/teaching_and_learning/graduate_programs/doctoral_programs/language_literacy_and_culture_specialization.xml ). My guess is that you'd be most likely to find people doing work that interests you either in literacy program or in special ed programs.

Here are the questions I think you'll need to be able to answer in order to find the best program for you: What do you want to do with your degree? Do you want to teach at a university? do research? do you want to specialize in qualitative or quantitative research, or mixed methods? Or, would you rather work in policy? be an administrator? Are you interested more in the achievement gap in terms of K-12 education, or in higher ed? Look for schools that will train you for the career you want.

I started my search for the right grad school by reading current research. Anything that I read that made me excited, I'd look up the author and see where they taught, and then looked into what that program was like. That's the path I'd recommend to anyone. A lot of schools will have somewhere on their website the average profile of students they've admitted, in terms of GRE scores, GPA and (sometimes) years of classroom experience, and that should give you a sense of whether a given program is a reach for you or not.

I wonder if your self-assessment of your academic record is so (overly, IMO) harsh because you're comparing yourself to other posters here, or grad school applicants in other disciplines. Keep in mind that the academic job market in the humanities is really, really dire, so there's a lot of pressure on English, History etc applicants to be perfect. There's a lot more money and a lot more jobs in Education, so having a 4.0 in everything is less important. Don't count yourself out!

[sshopeful]

Thank you both for your responses! criticalontology, I overlooked that program and it seems to match my interests very well. Thank you! emilyrobot, I also liked the program at Peabody and I definitely want to be a university professor (who also engages in research). I would, ideally, be doing research using mixed methods - and I don't really have much interest in working in either policy or administration. Also, I am interested in studying the K-12 achievement gap.

My undergraduate background was not in education - it was in sociology - and I know admission to programs in that particular field is a bit more complicated. I initially was considering applying to phd programs in sociology, but realized education better fit my interests.

Another thing that worries me is that I am very young: I will be 24 when I enroll in my phd/EdD program. I still have all that experience, but I worry that because I know most programs have average ages hovering around 28-32. Would this be a disadvantage at all? What would a "good" GRE score look like? I did actually take it once but I scored 90% V, 96% AW (5.5) and 32% Math, which I realize isn't going to cut it... (probably why I'm so harsh on myself).

I'm still trying to learn, so I'm sorry if I'm being annoying. Thank you!

Edited January 20, 2012 by sshopeful

[emilyrobot]

sshopeful, you're not being annoying! Everybody has to start somewhere, and this process is confusing and intimidating. It's good that you're asking questions and starting your research for a good fit this early

About your youth: I don't think it'll be a problem. Education grad schools kind of have a weird make-up, because a lot of people pursuing higher degrees in Education (especially, but not only, EdDs) are doing so in order to become administrators in schools. Those folks pull up the average age in grad school, because no matter how fancy your degree is, you're not going to be a good candidate for principal and superintendent jobs with only a few years of classroom experience, so they wait 'til they're older and more experienced to start. But, since that's not your career path, you shouldn't compare yourself to that cohort of students (and I don't think admissions committees will compare you to them either). Does that make sense? People more interested in academic careers than administrative ones probably start their PhD/EdD programs earlier, but there are fewer of them, so the average age still stays high.

The general advice for anyone pursuing a career in academia is go to the best school that your can get into, and try not to pay any money (even borrowed money) for your degree. Job prospects are better in Ed, generally (depending on your sub-field) than they are in many other disciplines, but getting a professorship at a research university is always going to be tough. Don't be afraid to ask potential programs about how folks fare on the market after getting their degrees. Also, ask what those programs will do for you to make sure you're competitive when it's time to go on the market, and take a hard look into what sub-fields are super-competitive. I don't say any of that to be discouraging, so please don't take it as such--just food for thought as you continue your research.

Pulling up your quant score on the GRE (the others look really strong to me!) will be helpful both in terms of getting you into good programs and in terms of securing you funding at those programs. Buy a book and study, or take a class, or find a nice math teacher at your school who'd be willing to tutor you. There's some good advice on these forums in the GRE section for good study materials and programs. Then, take a look at the average (or minimum, if they publish that) scores for the programs that you're interested in and compare 'em to your performance on practice tests, and see where you are. Again, don't count yourself out if you can't get your score to perfect--even if you're below the average/minimum for the programs you love, your research and classroom experience might help you over that weak spot. Either way, it costs you nothing but the application fee to find out if they'll admit you. If I remember right, Vandy's cut off, at least in the dep't I'm applying to was 1300 combined (on the old scale), and you're only 130 points off from that.

Here's another couple programs that might be good fits for you, at U of Wisconsin Madison http://www.education.wisc.edu/ci/esl/ and at Michigan State http://www.reg.msu.edu/academicprograms/ProgramDetail.asp?Program=6740 which are both in really highly ranked Curriculum and Instruction departments. Take a look, see what the faculty are writing and if anyone in particular rings your bell.

[wildviolet]

I started my search for the right grad school by reading current research. Anything that I read that made me excited, I'd look up the author and see where they taught, and then looked into what that program was like. That's the path I'd recommend to anyone.

This. Read the top journals in your field and see what's "hot" and interesting to you. Because you'll be working closely with a professor, it's important that you consider research fit as well as the quality of the school and program. That's how I narrowed down my list to four schools.

OP, I had a similar undergrad GPA (3.2, science degree, Top 20 university with no grade inflation) and a 4.0 grad GPA in my MS program at a local state university. I think your experience is very good. In my particular specialty within Education, the schools I looked at wanted: a science undergrad degree, a Master's degree, real K-12 classroom teaching experience (not substituting, not tutoring), and fairly competitive (but not perfect) GRE scores. The professors in your Master's program will be able to write you great LORs.

Feel free to PM me if you want more information... I've posted some in the GRE forum.