Let's talk about school

I'm still looking at grad schools, and as much as I like MIT's science writing program, I'm not confident enough that I'd get in to apply for next year. I have the science background but not the writing experience; I haven't actually done any formal writing besides classwork since high school. And a work friend who has better experience and a more relevent education was waitlisted, so I'm skeptical about my chances for it.

The other thing is that I think I'm capable of more than a master's degree, but my undergrad degree is not going to do me any favors in an admissions committee. I actually don't completely understand how such a small department is allowed to give out BSs -- we had one classroom for physical sciences, one for life sciences, and one for math. I took about twice as many science classes than most other students there, since I didn't do a professional concentration in education, and the only 'research' I ever got to do was in the library. My astronomy coursework was more thorough than my biology (since I sort of just jumped into a bio practicum and went from there to the advanced courses and independent studies) but even that was oddly limited; I didn't take calculus until after I took all the astronomy we offered, never had the chance for chem, and was exempted from the intro physics course. (Oddly, I have more research and field experience with human development than marine biology, from all the general requirements in that area.)

I am pretty good with a lot of different marine bio fields, at least, which comes from my visitor education work at the aquarium. And I know way more about jellies than I ever expected to, thanks to my time doing husbandry there. The grad program I'm probably most likely to get into would be BU's marine science program -- two of the faculty are involved with the aquarium, and that's where my professional references would come from. There's also the advantage of me living basically down the street from BU.

The other thing is, I don't necessarily want to be a marine biologist. I want to do marine biology, but it's not all I want to do, and I don't want to limit myself to living in coastal areas in the future. At this very moment I think I'm most interested in, of all things, marine paleoecology (how extinct organisms interacted in the ocean), especially among reptiles and arthropods. But that's a very specific field, and I think I'd like to do grad work in a field that looks at ecology generally, and then be able to apply that to all different kinds of environments. UMass Amherst has an interesting Organismic and Evolutionary Biology program, and it's in an area I like; SUNY Albany has a biodiversity master's program that would probably give me a chance to work in the Pine Bush, which is definitely something I'm interested in.

So that's where I stand with grad school at the moment. Hopefully I'll get my full GRE results soon, so I have a better idea of where I can go. A little decisiveness would be a nice thing as well.