Re: Scholarship Application and University Grades
Hi BKW,
Although your situation sounds bleak on the outset… it may not be all that desolate. Stuff like this happens quite often… many of us tend to be short sighted in undergraduate studies and don’t even get thinking about graduate studies until our junior or senior years. Sometimes, it’s an afterthought post graduation.
So what can you do if this happens…
In many cases, candidates utilize their extra curricular activities to make up for their deficiencies in grades. I’m hoping that there are things like lab work, projects, internships, volunteer work or personally motivated initiatives that can somehow strengthen your portfolio.
Do you have any relevant work experience that can be highlighted? Any industry endorsed training or certification?
Also remember that if the Universities that you plan to apply to require standardized testing like GRE etc. – these scores can matter in the overall decision making process as well.
You can tailor your application package to highlight the stronger aspects of your portfolio. Admissions Committees have a mandate to ensure that they recruit well rounded individuals… in many cases this means that the candidate brings in more than his/her GPA.
If you think that your overall portfolio is weak, then it may be in your best interest to take one or two gap years… and get some work experience under your belt before applying to graduate school. Most schools would look at this favorably.
Also, sometimes if you can’t get into the program of your choice directly, you can try to enroll in a lesser demanding program and consider it as a stepping stone to your ultimate goal. You just need to make sure that your grades are significantly better in that interim program. Also, it would help if you complement the academic experience in class with some practical or research experience.
All in all, there are various routes available to you… in the end you need to make a choice and persist with it.