Having hassle getting onto masters programs

fdfdsffddsfa

I have an undergraduate degree and seven years experience in the working world, anyways I recently applied for a few masters programs.
I was shocked to find out that I didn’t get onto one of them.
One was over subscribed and the only people who got onto it were undergraduates who had attended that college!
Is this common? How do colleges get away with this favouritism?
My application for the other masters that I applied for was rejected, but I was told that I could do a one year diploma in the subject and then do a masters.
I already have a degree and my thinking is that at this stage I ‘should’ be pretty much entitled to do a masters.
Doing a diploma is not something that appeals to me, but it’s the only way I can do one of the two masters programs for which I applied.
What do I do?..reapply for the oversubscribed course in a year (with no guarantee of getting in) or should I do the diploma in the other course that will lead to the masters?
Of the two the oversubscribed course is the one which I want.
Is it possible to do masters through distance learning? Just found Irish universities too difficult to deal with when its come to masters applications.
Anyone been in my shoes?
An academics want to offer me some (useful!) advice?
Had banked on starting a masters program this September.

rain on

hmm. what mark did you get in your undergraduate degree? if it was less than a high 2.1 you'd have trouble getting into a lot of (maybe most) masters programs. what subject/discipline are you talking about?

about the oversubscribed course and favouritism, that's a bit mental.. most of the MAs in the department I'm in are vastly oversubscribed and there's always a healthy balance of students from inside and outside the college (UCD, for what it's worth). never heard of a policy like that before.

derek27

Eh? I had a myriad of good advice and recommentations for the OP on his/her dilemna... but just checked how many posts s/he had before going about writing a lenghty reply (ie. to make sure they'd be back to read it)... OP has only one post... which is obviously the subject matter heading this thread... yet the OP has been banned from the forum. I cant see why that is???

ecksor

I could be wrong, but I think it was a case of several accounts with dodgy looking names getting registered in the space of a few minutes prompting some action.