With grad school there is really two options, subject based or technical degrees with the former being something like Biology or English and the later being Public Health or Bussiness Administration. The subject stuff is great and the technical stuff is great, no disagreement there, but they do lead to different outcomes. For example, a MA in Japanese means I can do translation work, writing, teaching and/or researching among other things while a Masters in Information Management means I don't plan on for further study cause I wanna work at a tech company or at an IT office, research and teaching is mostly closed off to me as my degree is for a job outside of academia.

Someone else could explain that better... The point is do you want to attend grad school for a job or particular profession, or do you want to learn and help others learn and understand more? I did my undergraduate in history because I love history, but now I'm doing a masters in Library and Information Science to move myself up from shelving at the local public library to helping people conduct research at the university library. I may continue on into academia, but right now I need to start a career and give that my all cause food and rent is too damn high.

Once you figure out if you wanna be closer to an academic or closer to a non academic career person, your list of degrees will shorten. It will also help you figure out what you can get into...

I thought no school would accept me, but MLIS graduate programs place more emphasis on letters, essays and career experience pretty high thus my grades didn't matter as much. If I applied to do a MA in History my grades, thesis, and GRE scores would have been more important.

I got into another program, one in public health, and I feel that was because some grad schools really need money, so the degrees become that for them. They won't admit anyone, but standards are lowered or more flexible because of monetary reasons. These programs will not give you funding by the way, so it's easy to spot them. This is great if you need to change careers or didn't do well for your BA/BS, but again it's costly.

Also, your letters and your essays are read and counted on. You may not be the best grade wise, but the schools wanna admit someone who is a good fit, someone who has the same research interest as the faculty or is a student who will show promise in the program as they already are mature enough to know what they want from it.

I hope this made sense. My stats are 2.5 overall gpa, 2.9 last two years gpa, and 3.6 major gpa.