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How does one get a 4.0 GPA?

How can one get into grad school with 2.1 GPA? Any advice?

  • Hi everyone. I’m at my lowest right now. I need someone to shed some lights for me, if possible. How should I go about in applying for grad school with a 2.1 gpa? Right now I am currently attending a University in the States. I’m a fifth year majoring in Language and literature but last semester I failed one of my upper div major requirement class, which offers only once a year and which means that I will have to repeat it and stay one more year. My GPA is 2.1 right now and I feel terrible because it has always been like that since I entered college. Now that I’m almost done, I realize that I want to continue my education. I keep wishing that there is a possible way for me to get into graduate school but at this rate, I haven’t been improving anything. I also recently heard about a program called the JET Program where you can go to Japan and teach English or translate (with other activities). This job was almost exactly what I wanted to do. I have been researching on qualifications and everything but my problem is my terrible transcript. I just drove myself to a dark corner and I don’t know what to do anymore. I wish to hopefully get into this program, work there for a year, come back and get into graduate school. The problem is my transcript was the only ticket to those two. I can’t find any way to get a hold of these without that transcript, which will haunt me down for the rest of my remaining life time. What can I do? What should I do? Where do I start? How should I handle things from now on? Is there hope for me? I can’t see any hope because I’m not even close to good at the languages I’m studying (I can’t communicate or respond) and I don’t have any outside experiences. If you’re wondering how I let myself get this low, I don’t know either. I have always felt like I’m not cut out for school and its activities or more that I don’t know how to do them. I didn’t hate school, I just didn’t know how to manage my time properly because I was too busy worrying about the things that’s going on in my life that time. I am not the average person who didn’t do well because of partying and drug or whatever. I stay home all day just sleep and wasting time. I had worked various jobs at the same time due to low income family situation. Always changing plans because of family problems. I was always worried and doing my best for my family but I didn’t realize that it would get this bad. At the time, my life motto was “Worry about the present” so most of the time was family and financial problems. I got myself a couple of jobs because I needed money. My grades weren’t really in the picture at the time as long as I did my homework. The jobs that I took have nothing to do with my major and I never got involve in school for any activities. When I get to my lowest, I had attempted suicide many many times everywhere but I keep living. In the end I gave up suicide, if I can’t run away from life, then I’ll have to play the game. I didn’t seek help either. Until last semester, I realize that I need to do something about my life. I need to support my family. So that was the story of my life. I’m not looking for pity, I’m justifying myself-ish. I want to make it clear so that I can get advises that I’m seeking for. I need help t to get into graduate school. Also, I’m wondering if I should make up all my failing grades in the past for the rest of next year. Will it look bad or what should I do about the dirty grades? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you guys!

  • Answer:

    I am so sorry, reading this I feel bad about how things have turned out. To be honest, there is no way you are going to be getting into graduate school with a 2.1 GPA. It sounds like you had a lot issues throughout college and I applaud you for trying to work through them, but you are backed into a corner now. Your goal of going to Japan to teach English is admirable, but it is unattainable if you are not a strong student and fluent with Japanese. You need to re-evaluate your options and are probably going to have to start at square one again. My concern for you is, are you walking out of your undergraduate degree with a lot of student debt? If so, you really need to start paying that back. If worse came to worse and you filed bankruptcy, student debt survives that. I am not trying to be cruel here, I feel really bad about your situation, but you are stuck. Best case scenario, reinvent yourself.

Angel at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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Find out if the JET program even needs your actual transcripts. Do they care what your GPA was, or do you simply need to have had a degree? If they need a certain GPA, then start looking at other "Teach English Abroad" opportunities. There are a ton of them, especially in S. Korea. Find those that don't care what your GPA was, and apply to them specifically. It may be that grad school will not happen for you. It certainly won't happen right now, because your GPA is quite low. However, it is possible that, if you were to establish a solid work history, and if you were to take several upper division classes in a subject related to what you want a grad degree in (and ace them), you may stand a shot at some grad schools in some subjects. But first, you want to start working - and if teaching English abroad is something that interests you, fabulous. Look for the right opportunities, and go and do well there. As for this final year: if you'd gotten Ds or Fs in any classes along the way, this is your chance to retake those classes. But only do this if you're sure you can ace them. If you know you will not, then don't retake. BTW, I see no reason for suicidal thoughts. Most employers don't care what you majored in, or what your GPA was. They're interested in the fact that you got a degree. They'd also like you to have some related work experience, so an idea for this final year is to do an internship in a field that interests you - do it this summer, to gain some related work experience. If you have a specific field in mind, you could use this extra time you have in school (due to the retake) to take some classes in that field. For example, if you think maybe you'd like marketing, you'd take a couple of marketing classes (maybe even enough for a minor), and do some marketing work for clubs on campus to build a resume, then apply for a marketing internship... You see how this works.

RoaringMice

You should never have gone to college. You wasted your time and probably public resources. Right now, you're close to unemployable except perhaps a job cleaning toilets at Taco Bell if one of your languages is Spanish. The best strategy right now is to have an uncle who can pull strings to get you into an apprenticeship in some decent trade. Failing that, there is the military, or maybe you can marry well and be a decent homemaker.

Doc Martin

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