advice for graduate degree in journalism

mm86
Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:55:35 +0000

i just graduated from a prestigious liberal arts school with a b.a. in international affairs and a 3.44 gpa. i am/was planning on applying to graduate school to pursue a master’s in journalism, but i recently took the gre and was pretty unhappy with my scores. i also have limited experience in journalism (it was all i did in high school, but in college all i did was intern for my school’s newspaper for one semester my freshman year before deciding to change my major from communication to international studies).

i’ve seen other threads that mention the top tier schools for journalism (berkeley, columbia, missouri, northwestern, etc.), but based on my (lack of) experience, i’ve pretty much ruled these out. my question is, for anyone who went to graduate school for journalism, what is the most important factor for schools when making admissions decisions? experience? gre scores? overall academic achievement? i realize it’s some combination of the three, but what should i focus on improving the most? i’d rather not waste time and money applying to schools like american and u. of md. if i have no chance in getting accepted.

any suggestions or advice would be extremely helpful.