How Competitive is it?

[jaaaayciee]

After floating around on the forums, I see many different posts about students being accepted into programs, but students also being rejected across the board. However, not many of these people I've found are applying to Education programs. 

I'm extremely concerned about my chances even getting into graduate school -- when I first started out at community college, my GPA was absolutely awful (I was 15 and adjusting to college life), but once I switched to university, I immediately got on the Dean's List all the time I've been here and I maintain a 3.6 (A-B range). I don't have any internships, but I have volunteered at schools here and there (can't really volunteer at high schools due to security measures). 

I plan on doing a lot more volunteering and hope to have stellar letters of recommendation, but I'm still afraid that it isn't enough. I know that programs like psychology are extremely competitive, but how competitive is the education program?

[Neist]

6 minutes ago, jaaaayciee said:

After floating around on the forums, I see many different posts about students being accepted into programs, but students also being rejected across the board. However, not many of these people I've found are applying to Education programs. 

I'm extremely concerned about my chances even getting into graduate school -- when I first started out at community college, my GPA was absolutely awful (I was 15 and adjusting to college life), but once I switched to university, I immediately got on the Dean's List all the time I've been here and I maintain a 3.6 (A-B range). I don't have any internships, but I have volunteered at schools here and there (can't really volunteer at high schools due to security measures). 

I plan on doing a lot more volunteering and hope to have stellar letters of recommendation, but I'm still afraid that it isn't enough. I know that programs like psychology are extremely competitive, but how competitive is the education program?

I'd like to qualify my response with the statement that I'm not an education major, nor am I overly familiar with education graduate programs in general.

I get the impression that standardized metrics for entering applicants in education graduate programs is softer than many other disciplines (like psychology or anthropology), although I could certainly be wrong, and I hope that someone visits my post afterwards and corrects. I've formed this impression via multiple articles/reports by various sources, most of which focus on average GRE scores. It probably isn't incredibly wise to exclusively rely on GRE metrics for assumptions; I certainly do not. Even so, they are the only metric I can find. Here's a few links I found interesting on the subject.

http://www.kaptest.com/blog/grad-school-insider/2014/11/24/average-gre-scores-top-grad-school-programs/

https://benchprep.com/gre/test/what-is-a-good-gre-score

https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table4.pdf

http://magoosh.com/gre/2013/gre-scores-for-education-programs/

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/doctorate/life/who-studies

I'm unsure how non-curricular considerations weigh in education programs decisions. As such, I'll leave commenting on that to other posters.  

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful!

[mbfox125]

It depends on the program and what you want. PhD vs Masters and the sub-field. The program I am going to had a 18% acceptance rate, but there are others with over 60%.

Would need more information about what you want to do. Also education tends to be a field where professional experience is highly valued, in some cases more the GREs scores. 

[ersmith073]

Yes, I agree.  I've been accepted into a ph.d program with a 15% acceptance rate, whereas masters programs in the same program is much higher (closer to 50%) and that's true throughout the entire school. It would depend on your school, concentration and doctorate vs. masters!

8 minutes ago, mbfox125 said:

It depends on the program and what you want. PhD vs Masters and the sub-field. The program I am going to had a 18% acceptance rate, but there are others with over 60%.

Would need more information about what you want to do. Also education tends to be a field where professional experience is highly valued, in some cases more the GREs scores. 

 

[Vulpix]

I'd say it's less competitive, in particular for teaching, which is the largest chunk of education degrees (as opposed to other areas of education like policy, human development, etc.), if only because 1. GRE's are often not required and 2. I just looked it up, and 33/50 states in the US require teachers to hold masters degrees, which makes them both extraordinarily common, and also demands that literally anyone with a BA in education be able to access the degree.  Many schools will provide teachers with stipends to get their masters, because the teacher will not be able to continue teaching if they do not complete the degree within a certain amount of years.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Heather1011

[mbfox125]

Thanks Heather101 that is all very true a number of MAs in Education are simply done so people can keep their jobs are make to the next pay bump. There are still very good programs you just need to be aware. If you just want a MA in education you can get one, but if you want it for more then just the paper that will be more competitive. 

[Songbird222]

Yeah, I will echo what the others are saying. It varies wildly between programs. I would not recommend that you focus so much on how competitive the field of education is, but instead just focus on what your career goals are, based on what you know about yourself and your interests. After that, find some programs that seem to prepare their graduate students for those career paths you're interested in. If you connect with faculty members you would like to do work or collaborate on research with, your conversations with them will clue you in on how likely you are to be admitted and/or succeed there.

It's very powerful to be submitting graduate school applications after having already established communication with those faculty members you've listed as your top choices. It doesn't guarantee you admission, but it does greatly strengthen your odds. This worked in my favor, and for lots of other people I know in multiple fields.

[Denominator]

As referenced above, if you're not looking for a degree from a top flight institution, you will have no problem getting a masters.  There are tons of discounted tuition programs available to in-service teachers, both in person and online (mostly for counseling and administration, a few are for content areas). My district sends out emails multiple times a week for various programs. They typically view the GRE as a formality and are not particularly stringent on gpa's.

If you want a degree from a top tier research institution, here is some advice: 

Pretty much any graduate program in education will want you to have 3 years teaching experience. It's usually not an immediate denial of admission if you don't, but it definitely carries significant weight.  

Have clearly defined research interests.  It took me almost a decade of teaching to really figure out what I wanted to research.  I does NOT take everyone that long.  I actually applied around year 5 and was rejected across the board.  I was passionate, but not really about anything in particular. 3 or 4 years of refining my research interests, definitely made my statement of purpose much more powerful.

Graduate work begets graduate work.  I jumped on one of those emails my district sent out even though it was NOT my end goal.  I started taking courses, one a semester.  You can finish a degree there (if that is your end goal) or use it as a stepping stone to a more prestigious MA or a PHD.  It bolsters your application if they know you've already shown initiative and been successful. If you want a phd it's not bad to finish a masters first and then apply for a phd.

I've definitely taken the long road, but i'll start a phd program this fall at one of the top C&I programs in the country.

[mbfox125]

3 hours ago, Denominator said:

Pretty much any graduate program in education will want you to have 3 years teaching experience. It's usually not an immediate denial of admission if you don't, but it definitely carries significant weight.  

I would make  slight adjustment to this, relevant experience is often necessary but that doesn't have to be in teaching. When looking at my potential cohort at my programs open house several admitted students had no teaching experience including myself. But most had relevant experience to what they wanted research in education. In fact I'd go as far as to say the faculty were excited to have some many different types of involvement in education from their cohort. 

 

[Denominator]

19 hours ago, mbfox125 said:

I would make  slight adjustment to this, relevant experience is often necessary but that doesn't have to be in teaching. When looking at my potential cohort at my programs open house several admitted students had no teaching experience including myself. But most had relevant experience to what they wanted research in education. In fact I'd go as far as to say the faculty were excited to have some many different types of involvement in education from their cohort. 

 

I agree with you, sort of.  I have great confidence in saying that if you want to pursue a masters in educational leadership/principal certification they flatly require 3 years teaching experience.  I'm fairly certain it's the same for a masters in counseling.  But I'm equally certain that you are correct in many other fields.  I've met several phd students in math education who do not have 3 years teaching experience but who do have relevant experience.

[mbfox125]

For school leadership I think that is correct, but for counseling I am not as sure, I know folks who have gone into school counselling from social work. But in every case I would encourage people to inquire with the department you are interested in, because for many subfields it varies.

[Songbird222]

23 hours ago, mbfox125 said:

I would make  slight adjustment to this, relevant experience is often necessary but that doesn't have to be in teaching. When looking at my potential cohort at my programs open house several admitted students had no teaching experience including myself. But most had relevant experience to what they wanted research in education. In fact I'd go as far as to say the faculty were excited to have some many different types of involvement in education from their cohort. 

 

I agree. Based on the goals of that particular program, not having teaching experience can make you ineligible. However, IT DEPENDS ON THE PROGRAM. If you aren't sure if a lack of teaching experience will be a disadvantage, the admissions office or administrator can tell you exactly what the program is looking for. I have also had the experience of a potential faculty adviser telling me what experience they are looking for in an applicant, which helped me prioritize which grad programs in education to apply for. 

I'm going into an education research PhD program, and I have zero classroom teaching experience, but I've worked extensively with education programs . . . and this is exactly what I'll be conducting my research on (at least in the beginning). So for me, the teaching experience is a non-issue.