Should I Apply This Upcoming Fall Or The Fall After?

[dbo259]

Hey guys,

 

Just wanting to get your opinion on something. So my current situation is not so good. I'm an up and coming junior this year and I've definitely been looking forward towards graduate school. My interest is in forensic science, specifically in chemistry/toxicology. Statistical speaking, I don't think I'll be strong enough to apply to graduate school by the fall of my senior year. I have an overall GPA of 3.18, and my major GPA is around 2.8. During my Freshman/Sophomore years, Calculus killed me. I got 2 C's in Calc I and II, and a C- in Calc III. I have done well in my Chemistry classes though with only 1 C in Organic Chemistry II. This is what brought my major GPA down so much.

 

I am nervous about trying to get everything else this year accomplished with LoR/S.O.P/GRE/Research/Extracurriculars/GPA. It just seems like too much at once to me and I'd feel like I'd be rushing myself if I did. I don't think my overall GPA will increase much within the year, probably up to a 3.3 or so. If I wait to apply until after my senior year, that'll give me more time to develop my skills within research, develop my relationships with my professors more, give me more time study adequately for the GRE, and give me more time to increase my GPA (especially my major) as needed. I just didn't know how common this was. So I'd like to know if I should try to go for it this year, or wait to apply the fall after my senior year.

 

As far as graduate schools for forensic science go, they are all master's programs and there is only about 30 or so that are accredited by the FEPAC, which is absolutely necessary for a forensic science program to have. Most reqs include, min GPA of 3.0, but ask for around 3.2-3.5, GRE with a score of about 1000-1100, 2-3 LoR, a S.O.P, and to have app. turned in by the deadline (which is around Jan 15th-March 1st. for the schools that I want to go to).

 

What do you think? Comments, concerns, questions, advice? Thanks. 

[victorydance]

Take the gap year man. Focus on your senior year and building relationships with professors. There is no rule you need to apply straight from undergrad.

[GeoDUDE!]

Why not use this year to do that? Why should you wait a year? I'm not sure that makes any sense at all; you are potentially missing out on opportunities that way. Get straight As this year. Talk to professors, ect. A lot of can happen in a year. for the sake of argument:

 

3.18*(2/3) + 4.0*(1/3) = 3.45 gpa. If you get straight As this year, you totally have the profile. Step it up!

[juilletmercredi]

Getting straight As is more difficult then just deciding to do it, especially with junior year major classes.  

 

There's nothing wrong with waiting a year (or a little more) after college to apply to grad school, and in fact, I encourage it.  This is especially true, OP, if you haven't begun to get research experience yet and/or you don't really have a solid research area identified (not necessarily something too specific, just something in general).

 

You sound like you really want to wait an extra year and you just need validation, so I'm going to tell you - it's totally okay and very common.

[bsharpe269]

I completely recommend taking a year off. It looks like your grades are fine but not as great as they could be. My undergrad grades were similar and working full time for a bit before starting grad school changed my work ethic. I also had the chance to really miss school adn reserach which made me put so much more effort into it once I came back.

 

If you want some time off then take it! Taking time off can do absolutely no harm and it can do a lot of good. If you can find a job related to grad schools goals then it will help your application as well!

[victorydance]

Why not use this year to do that? Why should you wait a year? I'm not sure that makes any sense at all; you are potentially missing out on opportunities that way. 

 

What opportunities would someone miss out on exactly by waiting a year after their undergrad? That doesn't make sense at all.

[dbo259]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've never thought about taking a gap year up until now. It really does seem like a great idea. If I can get everything in order by then, I'll have 2 solid years (plus summers) of research experience, fairly solid relationships with my professors, and I know for a fact my GPA will be much higher than it is now. I would love to spend a summer interning at a forensics lab for a criminal justice department during that period as well. 

 

Sorry for not saying so earlier, but this will be my first year of research. My PI emailed me not too long ago and said he'd love to have me on the team. I was shocked to be honest given my grades, I guessed I must've wowed him with the interview. So I really happy about that. I'll also be tutoring in the Spring semester and throughout the summer, and hopefully by my senior year I'll be a full fledged TA for the introductory chemistry courses. Hopefully all goes well! 

 

As for my classes, I'll be in my school's only Forensic Science class, Physics: Mechanics, Intro. Biochemistry, and Statistics. So not the worst by any means, I would save that for last semester when I took Calc III, Organic Chemistry II, 4th level Spanish class, and I was also pledging the Chemistry Fraternity too. That was one rough semester, but I did get through it somehow. I think I'll do very well this semester. No lower than a 3.5 for sure. 

[aojfifjoaisjaiosdj]

If you get straight As this year, you totally have the profile.

 

Don't listen to this guy. If you apply this fall, you won't even know your grades till after you apply. So it'll be pointless if you don't get straight As.

 

Just wait a year, maybe get an internship or something. Your GPA is horrific to be honest.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Chiki

[GeoDUDE!]

Don't listen to this guy. If you apply this fall, you won't even know your grades till after you apply. So it'll be pointless if you don't get straight As.

 

Just wait a year, maybe get an internship or something. Your GPA is horrific to be honest.

 

The OP would be applying either next year or the year after that, not this upcoming application cycle (Notice that the OP isn't a senior, but a junior). So you are correct, if the OP applys this fall it will be pointless, because the OP wouldn't graduate in time!

 

 

What opportunities would someone miss out on exactly by waiting a year after their undergrad? That doesn't make sense at all.

 

The opportunity to get into graduate school. Perhaps the OP could get in if he/she committed themselves to getting the grades and a years worth of research experience. But we will never know, and the risk is pushing it down further and further. If the OP doesnt get in, the plan stays the same right? No harm no foul expect now you have an entire application season of experience!

 

You cant really know what positions are open when, so not applying means you miss out on potential graduate school spots! Those same spots may not be open the next. 

 

 

 

Getting straight As is more difficult then just deciding to do it, especially with junior year major classes.  

 

There's nothing wrong with waiting a year (or a little more) after college to apply to grad school, and in fact, I encourage it.  This is especially true, OP, if you haven't begun to get research experience yet and/or you don't really have a solid research area identified (not necessarily something too specific, just something in general).

 

You sound like you really want to wait an extra year and you just need validation, so I'm going to tell you - it's totally okay and very common.

 

Really? I disagree, I have found that grades are mostly a choice. I think its very unwise to suggest someone should not apply just because of GPA. Especially if someone can have a strong year and really elevate their profile.  If you can't get the grades, then there is something to fall back on, waiting a year. But why limit yourself? Why go in with the mindset that you arent going to get straight A's (and you could probably get a 3.7 (A- average) and still do very well)? It's totally restrictive and unproductive.  Furthermore, as you mentioned, JR and SR level classes are the most important, and should be treated with care when you want to apply to graduate school anyway! 

 

This person is applying to masters programs, which often for people, are specialization discovery programs. This isn't PhD, and even then I would still encourage the OP to apply to maximize their opportunities. If money is a concern, that is a different story. But we have no mention of that.

[aojfifjoaisjaiosdj]

Nevermind, ignore this post, I misread.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Chiki

[victorydance]

The opportunity to get into graduate school. Perhaps the OP could get in if he/she committed themselves to getting the grades and a years worth of research experience. But we will never know, and the risk is pushing it down further and further. If the OP doesnt get in, the plan stays the same right? No harm no foul expect now you have an entire application season of experience!

 

You cant really know what positions are open when, so not applying means you miss out on potential graduate school spots! Those same spots may not be open the next. 

 

There really is no "opportunity loss" to foregoing an application cycle. There are always the same positions that are open every single year. All things remaining equal, the incoming cohort is 40 next year it will be 40 the year after. Furthermore, there is no "risk of pushing it down further and further."

 

In fact, the only opportunity cost I can see in the equation is spending valuable time and resources working on applications during your senior year when you could have devoted that you doing better in your classes and gaining research experience and you feel your package isn't quite good enough at that juncture anyways.

 

A gap year can be an extremely worthwhile endeavour, not just academically but personally as well. Personally, I think the OP wants to do a gap year and I see no reasonable argument to convince him otherwise.

Edited August 21, 2014 by victorydance

[themmases]

OP, you should talk to an advisor at U of I about your situation. Freshman calculus there is notoriously hard-- I know people who lost scholarships or honors over it and I remember being told during orientation not to take it first semester unless my major absolutely required it. There will definitely be other people in your program who are in a similar situation because of those courses specifically. Someone in your department should be able to tell you how grad schools viewed others in your program who had the same experience and what, if anything, they did to successfully improve their applications.

 

An A- at U of I is worth 3.67.

[dbo259]

OP, you should talk to an advisor at U of I about your situation. Freshman calculus there is notoriously hard-- I know people who lost scholarships or honors over it and I remember being told during orientation not to take it first semester unless my major absolutely required it. There will definitely be other people in your program who are in a similar situation because of those courses specifically. Someone in your department should be able to tell you how grad schools viewed others in your program who had the same experience and what, if anything, they did to successfully improve their applications.

 

An A- at U of I is worth 3.67.

 

I will definitely look into that themmases. Thank you. I guess I'm just kind of bothered by the fact that the sheer importance of a high GPA is so looked upon nowadays that really nothing else doesn't or couldn't seem to matter as much, or bare as much weight. I think sometimes people forget to realize that GPA is just a number. My friend once told me that GPA is more or less a measure of how one regurgitates information back out accurately. You could still theoretically have a high GPA but never really retain anything that you've learned. Likewise, it seems like parents, friends, professors or admissions boards never take into account the many different variables of how grades might be affected otherwise, and when trying to explain why to someone, you just come off as another student making excuses, trying to rationalize why you couldn't obtain better grades. There is an infinite number of reasons. Family deaths, relationship problems, financial distress, mental health problems, professor accents, professors' methodology, exam format, etc. We've all been there. Why do you think such a great importance is put on GPA the way it is? 

 

For example, my Calc III class was downright horrible. The math department, the semester before I took the class, reassigned 3 of the best Calc III professors for whatever reason and replaced them with 2 new ones. One was a 23 year old with a phD from UChicago. and the other was a visiting Professor from Germany. I had the latter. I heard both were awful for their own particular reasons. With my case, my professor had fairly thick german accent, which was hard to understand. He held office hours once a week for one hour at a time when I had another class. Also, instead of using the 5 blackboard behind him to teach, and render examples for, he used Microsoft Powerpoint slides copied directly from the book. He said for us not to take any notes because the slides were in the book. And the only things we ever did right down were examples he put up in class. And Calc III is NOT an easy class for most people, especially with a professor like mine. He also made all of his exams multiple choice, which in math courses is about the worst thing they could do for their students because the exam does not warrant any partial credit. You could be doing a triple integral in spherical coordinates, make one mistake and you've got yourself 0 points for that problem. Horrible. My final exam was a 50Q M.C. nightmare. I had a hard time coping with Stokes' and Divergence Theorem, as well as Change of Variables. Needless to say I didn't do so well on my final. And that is why I ended up with the grade I did, and not solely because I didn't put the time and effort into it like many people would assume. 

 

Sorry to have gone on the long rant there, I just wanted to give an example. 

 

Also themmases, the last part about what you said. I would, but I doubt our school would have much of a record of any Chemistry/Biology/Anthropology students going off to any of the 30 or so F.S. schools like I've mentioned, but I guess it never hurts to check huh? It would just be a very small number of people I would assume, since their average class size is about 20-30/year. 

 

There really is no "opportunity loss" to foregoing an application cycle. There are always the same positions that are open every single year. All things remaining equal, the incoming cohort is 40 next year it will be 40 the year after. Furthermore, there is no "risk of pushing it down further and further."

 

In fact, the only opportunity cost I can see in the equation is spending valuable time and resources working on applications during your senior year when you could have devoted that you doing better in your classes and gaining research experience and you feel your package isn't quite good enough at that juncture anyways.

 

A gap year can be an extremely worthwhile endeavour, not just academically but personally as well. Personally, I think the OP wants to do a gap year and I see no reasonable argument to convince him otherwise.

 

I think it would be most beneficial for me to pursue a gap year. I could also use that time to make a few extra bucks on the side, to save up for those first year expenses too. Thanks again. 

[GeoDUDE!]

There really is no "opportunity loss" to foregoing an application cycle. There are always the same positions that are open every single year. All things remaining equal, the incoming cohort is 40 next year it will be 40 the year after. Furthermore, there is no "risk of pushing it down further and further."

 

In fact, the only opportunity cost I can see in the equation is spending valuable time and resources working on applications during your senior year when you could have devoted that you doing better in your classes and gaining research experience and you feel your package isn't quite good enough at that juncture anyways.

 

A gap year can be an extremely worthwhile endeavour, not just academically but personally as well. Personally, I think the OP wants to do a gap year and I see no reasonable argument to convince him otherwise.

 

If # of applications and # of acceptances were the only factors of admissions your answer would still be wrong. Lets brake this down in to variables:

 

if the goal is B and to get B you must do A, then every time you do not do A you are missing out on the opportunity to get B. There might be side consequences, C and D, but the pathway to B is always A.

 

IE, to get into graduate school, you must apply. Not applying guarantees that you will not get accepted, and if what you want is to get accepted into a graduate school, then not applying forces you to miss out on that acceptance. 

 

That isn't even taking into account what spots are open with each advisor. Perhaps his potential POIs are looking for students next year, but not the year after. 

 

There is so much to consider. The downside to applying is learning more about the application process and spending a lot of money. The upside is achieving your goals. 

 

There might be reasons to have a gap year, and "wanting one" is a good reason. But make no mistake, the obvious career choice is to try and step it up your junior year no matter what you decide. If you are highly successful, it would be a waste of one's time to wait a year when you could easily fit the standards of what you said an "ideal" applicant. But there are other factors than just getting into graduate school, obviously. If you have burnout, ect. But make no mistake, next year the strength of the applications could be weaker or stronger than normal. We cannot predict the averages perfectly. 

[victorydance]

If # of applications and # of acceptances were the only factors of admissions your answer would still be wrong. Lets brake this down in to variables:

 

if the goal is B and to get B you must do A, then every time you do not do A you are missing out on the opportunity to get B. There might be side consequences, C and D, but the pathway to B is always A.

 

IE, to get into graduate school, you must apply. Not applying guarantees that you will not get accepted, and if what you want is to get accepted into a graduate school, then not applying forces you to miss out on that acceptance.  

 

Your equation would make sense if there was a limited number of cycles one could apply for, but there isn't. There is nothing stopping an applicant from applying the subsequent cycle if one is not successful. Ergo, the opportunity isn't lost, it's just transferred to the next cycle.

 

The equation actually goes more like this A(n) = B. Adding another n when that n could be almost limitless doesn't really affect the equation at all. 

 

 

That isn't even taking into account what spots are open with each advisor. Perhaps his potential POIs are looking for students next year, but not the year after.

 

And perhaps they are not. It doesn't matter. Secondly, he is applying for masters programs, which aren't as tied towards advisers as Ph.D. programs.

 

 

 

There might be reasons to have a gap year, and "wanting one" is a good reason. But make no mistake, the obvious career choice is to try and step it up your junior year no matter what you decide. If you are highly successful, it would be a waste of one's time to wait a year when you could easily fit the standards of what you said an "ideal" applicant. But there are other factors than just getting into graduate school, obviously. If you have burnout, ect. But make no mistake, next year the strength of the applications could be weaker or stronger than normal. We cannot predict the averages perfectly.

 

The obvious career choice? What on earth.

 

The obvious career choice is to become the best possible applicant as possible. Applying to grad schools takes time and resources away from becoming a better applicant. Researching schools takes time, drafting statements takes time, preparing writing samples takes time, taking required tests takes time. This time could be put to getting better grades, getting additional research experience, and developing better relationships for letters. Some people can manage both, some can't; there is no "obvious choice."

 

The extra year could also be put towards saving up money. Preparing applications that are better than if he did them during his senor year. Other variables affecting making your applications better, ect.

 

There seems to be some kind of underlying assumption on this board, as well as other places, that taking a gap year is "wasting time." This couldn't be any further from the truth. You only need to look at attrition rates of graduate programs and high debts of students who move seamlessly from high school to undergrad to graduate school.