I’m considering a career change and through friends at IFC and the UN have realized that I absolutely need to go back to school for an MA in IR for what I’d like to do. I graduated from Wake Forest University in 2008 with a 3.2 GPA (after a dismal first year), and have now been working for the past 6.5 year in Istanbul, Turkey.
GRE Score Quant: 158
GRE Verbal: 165
GPA: 3.2 - Art History Major, Philosophy Minor
6 years working as Country Manager for Europe, Turkey, Azerbaijan region for an Australian Education company
Fluent Turkish
I know the program is competitive, but with an intake of 400 a year I’m hoping I’d make the cut.
I would say your G.P.A. seems a bit low for your intended program of study. Your GRE is pretty solid and your credentials are decent. It depends how good your essays are but I say you have a shot but I would apply to back up schools just in case.
Thank you! My GPA is my main concern as well… Planning to start 2017, so will take micro, macro economics and possibly statistics before I would submit my application. If I can do well in those now, do you think it would counter the low GPA from my original undergrad degree?
Johns Hopkins’ SAIS has a class profile [url=<a href=“http://www.sais-jhu.edu/content/admissions#fall-2014-incoming-student-profiles%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://www.sais-jhu.edu/content/admissions#fall-2014-incoming-student-profiles]here[/url]. The middle 50% of accepted students had a GPA between 3.47 and 3.77, so you are a bit low there.
However, you have the kind of experience that might offset that GPA. It’s not a bad one, and you have 6 years of international work experience and speak a critical language fluently. You also say that your GPA is low due to a dismal first year, so if your last 60 credits grades are much better, that plus the fact that you graduated over 7 years ago will make your GPA less important and your work experience and language skills much more important.