• Volunteer or intern in the field
If you are able to volunteer or intern in your field, this will be ideal to mention in a grad school application.
• Find a bridge
This is essentially to find a bridge from your old occupation to your new path and highlight it in your grad school application. Such connection could be that both careers require similar skills: researching, detailed work, effectively managing a budget or staff, salesmanship, working with new technology, or creative output. Still wide skills such as dealing with and overcoming obstacles, multi-tasking, presenting written material, and giving polished oral presentations are transferable between different occupations. Otherwise, think about how it is that many fields intersect, focus on how your old field intersects with your new, and highlight this area of your experience.
For example, it would be a copywriter applying to journalism school. Like a journalist, this copywriter, would have to research and impart information in a way that holds a reader's attention, so a copywriter would bridge copywriting to journalism through this type of similarity. A personal statement balances a discussion of your past experience with an explanation of your goals, plans, and aspirations. Do not try to write an essay totally about what you plan to do, but don't ignore your plans either. Probably, you may show the continuity between your past experience and future plans.
Letters of Recommendation
In your grad application letters of recommendation should come from people who currently know you-and know you well. Nearly all committees require three. These letters should provide admissions committees with information that isn't found elsewhere in your application; they're detailed discussions of your accomplishments, personal qualities, and experiences. Professors’ letters will be more difficult for adult learners to come by if they've been out of school for more than five years, if it's been less than five years, your professors will no doubt remember you. To avoid this, adult learners should consider enrolling as a non-matriculated or non-degree seeking student in the field of choice, perform well, and then request a letter of recommendation from the professor.
Letters of recommendation should come from employers, internship/co-operative education supervisors, administrators, clients, and anyone who knows you well professionally. Writers of your letters must know you long enough to write with authority, must be able write a well-crafted letter and describe your work positively, and should state a high opinion of you. It's unlikely that one person will be able to satisfy all of these criteria, so aim for a set of letter that cover the range of your pertinent skills.
Letters are supposed to cover your academic/scholastic skills, research abilities, and applied experiences (internships, work related experience). Provide your letter-writer with at least a month to write the letter, and make an appointment to speak with them about it. Since adult learners need to highlight unique experiences and make connections from past work experience to future pursuit, give your letter-writers a file with all of your background information and with any salient points you need to make. Don’t forget to include: resume/CV, courses you've taken and previous transcript, research experience, seminars, awards, professional goals, internships/volunteer work, application due date, and a copy of the recommendation forms.
Graduate school admissions staff, the average graduate student in masters and doctoral programs is now between twenty-seven and thirty-three years old. In all fields mature students are creating a new-career trend, so although you might have special concerns as a mid-career applicant to graduate school, you're far from being alone!
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