What to do after a rejection?

[canaderican]

Hi guys- I'm new to Grad Cafe, but I've been lurking for a couple of weeks, and felt compelled to post.

I've only applied to one grad school this year (and I wasn't even planning on applying until two weeks before the deadline), and I'm fairly certain I will be rejected. I applied to UBC's MSc Speech Pathology program, which has a fairly steep GPA requirement... however, my issue is less with their specific competitive GPA, and more with whether my "last 2 year GPA" will be high enough. So if I'm rejected, I pretty much know why and want to remedy it.

Once the rejection letter comes, I plan to contact a professor in the program about the possibility of taking a grad-level class in the fall. Other than that, I don't really know what else to do, since I'm pretty burned out on undergrad crap right now (it would take a LOT of classes to bring my GPA up as much as I want)...

Any ideas on what else to do GPA-wise? I've got everything else- volunteer exp., research exp., awesome references, I thought my statement of intent was pretty good.

[frankdux]

next year apply to more than 1 school. also, apply to a range of schools. include a few safety schools, a few middle schools, and a few reach schools.

typical response from the unprepared applicant: "But thats the one school i really want to go to! It's a perfect fit for me!"

tough shit. and if they reject you, then obviously they know you're not the perfect fit for them. things dont always work out the way we want them to. that's how life works. you need to give yourself more OPTIONS next time. you need to make yourself open to the possibility of NOT getting in to your dream school, but perhaps being able to get into some other decent school.

[sparkle456]

I sent you a pm.

[canaderican]

Thanks for the tough love. lol I guess I should have added that I don't really have many options on applying to grad school, as my husband and I aren't exactly in a position to move for me to go to grad school, especially when the programs I've looked at don't offer much, if any, funding options other than loans.

I do, however, plan to apply to a couple of other schools next time around. I would imagine any advice regarding improving my application to my "dream school" would make my application to other schools look that much better, so I guess THAT is what I was really asking.