I've applied to a wide range of schools. Any insight on the likelihood of acceptance?

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

I'm new on this forum but my best friend said this is the best place to ask all these questions.

 

I'll try to be brief to avoid wasting anyone's time.

 

I'm applying to these schools for my Masters of Education Policy or something very similar depending on the programs offered:

Harvard
Vanderbilt
New York University
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Washington
The University of Pittsburgh
Boston College
University of Vermont
Mills College
Towson University

My stats:

Undergrad -- B.S., Biology, Average State School

GPA -- 2.7

GRE -- 1060 and 5.0 on the writing. I did REALLY shitty on the math but a registration error ruined my last chance to retake.

Other stuff -- I had a research grant in undergrad that I was awarded among a big pool of applicants. I also have hands on teaching experience from a new program at my college called MTeach and an internship doing education research and a couple of volunteer things in education. Oh, I was an intern in the education department at the Aquarium of the Pacific after I graduated.

Odds and Ends -- I'm a very strong writer and my statement of purpose is probably a higher caliber than the norm. It has a quick section about my poor grades and what caused this, but I didn't want to tarry on the negatives. I tried to spin it as a positive because I'm really going into education policy to correct a lot of the things that made school so difficult for me and having the experience of being on the losing side of education might be very beneficial.

At a few schools, I included a second essay (Personal History Statement) better explaining my grades, but it did not make it into the Harvard, Vanderbilt, or Boston College applications.

I chose schools all up and down the rankings because I honestly don't know where I stand. From what I understood from my education professors in college, education is a bit desperate right now and may be a little bit easier to get into as a result.

Of course, I'm deeply passionate about the matter, but I don't know how much that will matter to the schools, and even if it does, I don't know how well I communicated this. I did the best I could with just a short essay.

Harvard is a bit of a crap shoot. I suspect they get far too many applicants with better "on-paper" credentials to look much at me. I'm guessing I have a 5-10% chance with Vandy. They've accepted a lot of people I knew in college  who had pretty similar grades, but most of the people I know are in hard science. I'm hoping that at the worst, one of the state schools will accept me. Pittsburgh doesn't seem terribly discerning. But this is a Master's, not undergrad. So I'm pretty terrified.

 

Thank you to anyone who has any advice. I appreciate your taking the time to read this and try to help.