Considering 2 Routes, Which is more viable?

juillet
Sat, 28 Apr 2018 18:24:25 +0000

Oh, somehow I managed to miss the GPA! Yes, your overall and major GPA will be problems both. A 3.29 GPA is low for a PhD program, but it could be forgivable if you had a higher major GPA. But your major GPA is far too low for a PhD program. You’d want at least a 3.5 especially if your cumulative GPA is lowish.

Also, independent research projects without professor assistance/oversight are not well-regarded in PhD admissions. The general tack is that you need someone to teach and guide you how to do research in your field correctly, someone with years of experience and the grounding in the field to do so.

I think I misread your original post and didn’t realize that you were deciding between the MAT and the PhD route. I thought you were thinking of the MAT as a stepping stone to the PhD.

I think your decision should be based on what you really want to do for your career, and what you’re passionate about. Do you want to be a researcher, or do you want to teach K-12? They are very different career paths (even though researchers do often teach college classes).

The MAT is likely the path of least resistance. If you wanted to go the PhD route, there’d be a lot of prep you’d have to do - getting an MA in the correct field to show higher grades and get research experience. You could probably gain admission to an MAT program now, or maybe in a year or so.