What are my chances? Untraditional undergrad experience/low GPA.

[adventure]

Hi everyone. So, let me preface this by saying I'm a first generation college student... I've had to figure out all this stuff pretty much by myself. I'm getting close to being finished with my BA in Psychology. I started college with basically no direction and I screwed around a bit my first year or so, taking kind of random things and not doing that well. I really hated my college and without any direction I had to follow my heart. I married my husband (military) and we moved. When we got here, I transferred to community college for a year and then transferred again to my current school (University of Maryland, College Park).

 

My transcript is marked with 2 D's and a couple of C's in math and science (biology/anatomy). Unfortunately, one D was in statistical methods in psychology and it really brought down my psyc GPA... it was online and accelerated (summer), plus I'm obviously not very strong in math (there's a very clear pattern that I basically only do poorly in math). I took it again and got a disappointing C. All of my other psych courses have been B's at the very least. My school doesn't allow you to replace one grade with another, so both count toward my GPA.

 

Long story short, I recently decided I want to go to grad school (some day) for School Psychology (MA) or something similar. If I do really well for my last couple of semesters, I can get a 3.3 GPA (I have a 3.18 right now). I just started doing research in a lab on campus and I'll have worked in there for six months when I graduate. I plan to work teaching English/being a substitute teacher/educational aid or something similiar in Korea for six months after I graduate (we are being stationed there next). Then, I plan to find a job in the field when we get back in the states for at least six months before I apply to grad school.

 

What do you all think of my ability to get into a master's program with this information? Of course, this is all assuming I can pull off the 3.3/great LORs/great GRE score.I think that I could have a solid personal statement explaining my situation. My grades have also been on an upward trend throughout my time in college, except for my recent D.

 

What do you all think of my chances? What can I do to improve them? Thanks so much.

[mb712]

I would suggest more research. Quality, not quantity.

 

I had a weird undergraduate path as well, including a multiyear gap between dropping out after a bunch of bad grades my freshman year and resuming my bachelor's well into my 20s. My saving grace is probably that I have four years of great research experience, and I've had several faculty members tell me this. 

 

If it helps your mindset, an impressive faculty member told me that in their mind, "nontraditional" students are much more focused (and sometimes more desirable) especially if they had to put some serious effort into coming back to school. I know the lower GPA and the messy transcript look scary to you (they do to me too) but you never know who you're going to impress by showing resilience and a little educational determination. Some people like the polished shiny 22 year old 4th generation college students with 3.9 GPAs, some people like students who had to get through some uncontrollable life obstacles in order to get to where they are. You can't go back and change anything, so just make sure everything you do from now on shows potential programs how much you deserve to be there.