Purpose Statement & GRE Advice
I am very interested in going to graduate school for an MPA. I have worked in state government for the past 6 years and have worked my way up to a lower level leadership role.
I wanted to take a break between undergrad and grad school to figure out my career goals, but now I’m confident I would like to remain in state or local government.
I’m looking for some advice on my statement of purpose. My overall undergraduate GPA isn’t too bad (3.44); however, it is somewhat skewed. I had a very high GPA for most of undergrad then, after going through some personal struggles, had two semesters of very low grades (Ds and Fs). I was able to address my personal issues and save my GPA in the last semester by retaking the classes I received Fs in and finishing strong. Those Fs don’t factor into my GPA but are still on my transcript.
My question is how closely do schools look at the transcript vs just the GPA itself? If my GPA was below 3.0 I would definitely address it in the purpose statement, but since the overall number is decent should I bring it up or leave it alone?
Also, the programs I am looking at offer a GRE waiver for 5+ years of experience. I took the GRE two years ago on a whim and got a mediocre score (161 verbal, 150 quantitative, 4 writing). Would it help or hurt my application to include these scores? Would it be better to just ask for a waiver?
Any advice or input is so appreciated!