Poor undergrad GPA, offer with no funding, is this the best I will get?

[saw]

Hi, it's my first post, I hope everyone will be gentle.

So I had a terrible undergrad with a 2.5GPA. I reformed my ways and came back to school after working for a year or two, yielding a last 60-credit GPA average of 3.0. GRE was above average. Published work by alma mater, but not publication per se.

Applied to three schools (two out-of-state, one in-state), all masters (as I'm told I'm in no shape for a PhD), got into one but with no funding of any sort at all. I'm facing out-of-state tutition, on-campus accomodation, and such costs that would completely obliterate the $90,000 I hold in savings in 2 years.

Is this the best I can do, or should I reapply to more places this year? This time around I could have the article actually published, GRE improved, and be certified proficient in a langauge skill I hope to use in future research.

If I must self-fund, I would prefer masters in-state, and finally out-of-state for PhD. Grades expectation is nothing but A's going forward from since I came back. Area is city planning.

[StephanieM]

I don't even know why you're considering grad school if you managed to work enough to save up $90,000. That means you're doing pretty well usually.

[kbui]

What is your end goal? Are you trying to look for a better job? Or are you trying to get a Masters in something you're really passionate about?

Either way, with that amount of money saved up you have much better opportunities doing something else. If you want to acquire another language use that money to go study abroad (programs for the academic year are usually around 25-30K, including airfare, tuition, room and board). If you want to get a better job, I don't know if an M.A. is really going to help, especially with jobs relying more and more on connections vs. credentials.

I would rethink what you really want with this Masters, then assess if you can achieve the same goals some other way.

[saw]

The reason why I'm applying to grad school has nothing to do with money or job prospects though. My end goal is to become an academic someday, if given the chance. To do so means a PhD first, which this MA is suppose to be a setpping stone for.

[looking_for_the_rainbow]

If you want a PhD, go for it. If your GRE scores are high enough they will not care much about your undergrad GPA, especially if undergrad was a long time ago. If you apply for a PhD you are more likely to get an offer for funding. Masters students get nothing.

[ghanada]

If you want a PhD, go for it. If your GRE scores are high enough they will not care much about your undergrad GPA, especially if undergrad was a long time ago. If you apply for a PhD you are more likely to get an offer for funding. Masters students get nothing.

I just want to warn that this is not always the case. It might be true for certain programs or schools but I had a completely opposite experience. My undergrad GPA was 2.6 so I worked for 3 years in a research lab at a top 5 hospital, got 2 first author publications, was a secondary author on over 10 other publications, then I re-took a whole bunch of math/physics/science undergrad courses with a 3.6 GPA, then I got an unfunded Masters with a 3.8 GPA, gained 3 more first author papers, and my GRE scores are about 95% for all sections. I got flat out rejected from 15 of 18 PhD programs that I applied for. I was told by admission committees that my app was very strong except for my undergrad GPA and therefore could not gain acceptance. They told me that as strong as my app was, there were other people that had all the same credentials as me PLUS a better undergrad GPA.

So to be honest, I personally believe it isn't true that you can completely overcome a bad undergrad GPA. This application process was very disappointing and I really thought I did everything I could do to make up for my undergrad GPA (which was 6 years ago), but when it comes down to it there are just a lot of other people that worked just as hard as you and never messed up.

With that said, I did only apply to top 20 schools for an engineering PhD, and in the end I got 3 acceptances with full funding for top 15 schools. But at the same time, it was not easy and I had a lot of faculty and help fighting for me to get accepted. I consider myself extremely lucky and could not have even gotten these 3 acceptances with an extraordinary amount out outside help.

To the OP, I don't know how competitive your field is or how highly ranked the schools you want to attend are, but if it is really competitive doing an unfunded Masters might be your best bet and the best option you will have at this point. Do really well in that and you should have some good opportunities after for a PhD. But be sure to apply to lots of places and find potential advisers to support you.

[victor.s.andrei]

So to be honest, I personally believe it isn't true that you can completely overcome a bad undergrad GPA.

One of my classmates from undergraduate had a 2.8 GPA, just above my 2.7 GPA, in computer science and got into a ranked computer science PhD program, fully funded. Of course, his lead recommender was a professor at the school that accepted him and basically went to bat for him. It didn't hurt that he did a REU with that same professor who recommended him.

Middling GPAs can be mostly overcome, but only if you have someone on the inside willing to fight on your behalf.

[ghanada]

One of my classmates from undergraduate had a 2.8 GPA, just above my 2.7 GPA, in computer science and got into a ranked computer science PhD program, fully funded. Of course, his lead recommender was a professor at the school that accepted him and basically went to bat for him. It didn't hurt that he did a REU with that same professor who recommended him.

Middling GPAs can be mostly overcome, but only if you have someone on the inside willing to fight on your behalf.

That is exactly the point I was making. I had a 2.6 undergrad GPA but will be attending a top 10 school for my PhD. However, I basically only got into schools that I knew the PI and they fought to get me in. So you can get AROUND a bad GPA, but you can never fully escape it.

[emmm]

It is a shame that a poor GPA from when you were young and clueless can follow you around forever (or at least much longer than it has any right to). At some point, provided you have more recent coursework demonstrating your academic abilities, it really should be disregarded. However, I don't get to make the rules.