I have a bachelors in business and want to go to grad school. The problem is that I am really really not sure about which grad schools to consider. I was thinking about an MBA, Law School, and even physical therapy.
Problem is that my GPA is only slightly above 3.0 and have not been able to get a lot of good work experience over the past 2 years due to the economy. I am sure that I would want to go to grad school though. I find the employment market for people holding just a bachelors and little experience just too tough.
Could somebody please provide me with some advice into which grad schools I should look with more detail?
Thanks
#1 by backandf on January 12, 2010 - 9:24 am
It’s tough to give you advice about specific graduate schools since you’re still so undecided about what you want to do, and what your expectations are of a graduate program.
There are tons of MBA programs, but if you want to get a good job at the end, you want to go to a school with a good reputation. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the quality of education is better, but you’ll be able to network and tack that school on your CV. Check out usnews.com (link below) for highly ranked schools. Note that a lot of people, myself included, dispute the ranking system, but what’s true is that the schools with the best reputation (and never mind if it is earned) are high up on the list. Browse that website.
For Law School, you want to do outrageously well on the LSAT, have a stellar statement of purpose, and amazing letters of recommendation from top-notch tenured professors. These will hopefully compensate for your lower GPA. Again, the better ranked the school, the easier it will be for you to network and get a job once you graduate.
I don’t know much about physical therapy, except that (according to my friend who is getting his degree in physical therapy and kinesiology) there are programs everywhere, and it’s not as important that the school you go to is highly ranked.
Expect to take a couple of weeks to look at all the different graduate programs out there to find the one that’s the best fit. Knock out all the ones with minimum GPA cutoffs that you don’t meet, and the ones in places where you would not want to live no matter what, and then keep whittling down the list based on the cost of attendance, courses offered, department size (you may prefer large or small), reputation, particular faculty, and so on. Contact the schools you’re interested in and they will send you an application packet with all the info you might need about the school.