Chances of acceptance to Ed. Leadership PhD program?

[say1232]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for a little bit of advice.  I'm in the preliminary process of deciding what path I want to take for my doctorate.  This is something I have thought about for a few years now, but am finally ready to go for it.  Do I have any chance of getting into a decent Educational Leadership PhD program?  A little bit of my background:

• Bachelors in Business Admin (Accounting) and Masters in Taxation from state school in Florida and a Certified Public Accountant (Did not like working in accounting, but I keep my license current)
• Middle and high school teacher/coach  
• Working on my masters in Curriculum and Instruction and Organizational Leadership at a small Christian college (2 different programs that share the same core classes)
• Took the GRE about 2 years ago.  Verbal = 161, Quant = 159, Writing = 3.5.  I did not take the writing seriously and am concerned that I need to retake the GRE.

I am interested in education finance, organizational leadership in Christian education, and the development of student leaders.

I had already been considering relocating to Nashville, but the only program I have found there for what I want is Vanderbilt's K-12 Ed. Leadership and Policy.  I just think that Vanderbilt would be a really long shot, so I know I definitely need to look at other options. 

Sorry this was so long.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Edited July 23, 2017 by say1232

[COGSCI]

Your educational background and work experience would definitely be great for your applications. One thing that you might want to do to perfect your application would be gaining some research or policy related experience. Though since you've been in the industry for a long time, this might not be necessary but remember that PhD is a research based program. You might also need to take GRE again. Writing should be at least above 4.0