anyone here get into a great graduate school with not so good undergrad grades/GPA?

[skim milk]

I'm wondering if work experience and GRE score can play a significant role for students with low grades

 

[Cattlegod]

define not so good.

 

[skim milk]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
define not so good.

GPA is 3.06

but every semester I tend to get one C or more... my freshman year was horrible... so far three withdrawn classes
my last semester broke my upward trend because I was doing so many things at once... really angry about this. A C and a U looks bad in one semester
U = unsatisfactory (Pass/Fail class)

 

[Parasitic]

If you get good enough recs and show a gradual improvement in your records then your bad grades may be overlooked. Of course there are also other factors like research experience and publications.

However, if you're qualified and considerably "borderline" then somebody with high overall GPA would be favored over you.

 

[Cattlegod]

Originally posted by: fritolays

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
define not so good.

GPA is 3.06

but every semester I tend to get one C or more... my freshman year was horrible... so far three withdrawn classes
my last semester broke my upward trend because I was doing so many things at once... really angry about this. A C and a U looks bad in one semester
U = unsatisfactory (Pass/Fail class)

What is your degree and what program are you trying to get accepted into? That is important too. Many schools you will have an optional essay, you can explain why your GPA is where it is there. 3.0 isn't all that bad, on the app you can simply round it to 3.1 which is even better. I got into the U of M MBA program with a 3.4 in computer engineering. The rest of my application was extremely solid though. Do you have any volunteer activities you can put down? I was able to put down that I aid in the local detroit area high schools for robotics competitions (teaching them how to program a robot and the like). They asked me a lot about this in my interview.

Oh, and to answer your other question, yes work experience and GRE will play a significant roll. Think about it this way, depending on how many things your school wants for the application:

GRE 15-20%
Work History 10-20%
GPA Undergrad - 15-20%
Essays - 20-40%
Volunteer Activities: 5-15%
Other - 0-10%

 

[dr150]

Depends on your major, graduate school dept., logical explanations for lower GPA semesters, and other unique attributes that can bolster your application.

Don't get hung up on a school's name. Go to wherever you can get in and work on getting a competent skill set. Skills and a graduate degree will get you a good job. Once in the job, it's up to you how you progress, not your formwer school's prestige.

 

[The Stigenator]

what about someone who has a 2.xx GPA??? can he go to grad school? Say for ease of things someone with 2.5 or so?

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: TheGoodGuy
what about someone who has a 2.xx GPA??? can he go to grad school? Say for ease of things someone with 2.5 or so?

You can go to grad school but not a very good one. With a 3.0 you arent that likely to get into a good(tier 1) grad school.

 

[postmortemIA]

In my school everything <3.2 is automatically dismissed.

 

[ModerateRepZero]

I went out of state for my undergrad, and years later was taking classes unmatriculated in my area of interest at an in-state school (both of these institutions are public universities), one of them being with the dept. chair. My gpa was mediocre and so was the verbal part of my GRE, but apparently I did well enough that even though I got turned down for acceptance into the graduate program, the chair (having learned of the rejection thru my e-mail) said she'd look into it and a few weeks later I got an acceptance letter

So I would say that even if your gpa wasn't so good, it can't hurt taking a few unmatriculated classes and doing well in them (some/most colleges will let you take courses if you have a college degree, although the number and availability of classes will vary).

 

[miniMUNCH]

With a 3.06 you are not going to get into a "great" tech. graduate school. You have a fair chance of getting into a tier 2 school if you apply to many tier 2 schools and your GRE is really good, your essay is fantastic, you have quality work experience, and your profs write you good recommendations.

Tier 2 schools can be great. The whole idea of ranking graduate schools ala US News and World Report is pretty pointless anyhow.

Once you get started on your MS/PhD research, it is all about the quality of the work you put out. The most important thing is the real resources at your disposal (equipment, computing power, knowledge base) that you can make use of in your research.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Also... for what it is worth.

I'm doing a PhD in Chemical Engineering @ Carnegie Mellon which is a lower tier 1 or upper tier 2 school for ChemE depending on who you talk to.

I was my class valedictorian from a Cal St. school...got a 3.73 GPA. I worked for 5 years in the pharma/biotech industry. Married, no kids at the time I applied.

I was rejected by Stanford, UC Berkeley, Cal tech, MIT, UW-Madison, and UC Santa Barbara ... Ouch ... Oh, well. I don't know why I was rejected by all these schools. Maybe my qualifications weren't good enough (most likely). Maybe they had a policy weighing against taking students after long layoffs from undergrad. Maybe the financial packages they were offering would be unsuitable for me and my wife so they didn't bother accepting me (probably not the case). I don't know. Two people in my graduating class went to UW-Madison and UC Berkeley, albeit 4-5 years earlier.

But it doesn't really matter anymore... I am very happy at CMU and very thankful for the opportunity to study/work for a PhD.

I also do wholeheartedly recommend grad school... it is way better than working, IMO.

 

[RollWave]

I got into a private med school with a 3.05

 

[Tiamat]

depends on what grad school and what program. I know somebody that had a 3.99 GPA in EE/ECE double major and he couldnt get into Caltech's ph.D program even though he had 800Math/780Verbal/ and maximum points on the Essay section.

Statistically, 8/10 slots are native californians, and the other 2 are from the rest of the country.

He ended up finding a job @ BAE for now.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Also... for what it is worth.

I'm doing a PhD in Chemical Engineering @ Carnegie Mellon which is a lower tier 1 or upper tier 2 school for ChemE depending on who you talk to.

I didn't know we had more chemical superfreaks on ATOT - I thought it was just Dullard and I.

My undergrad GPA was downright shoddy (2.994 IIRC). I worked in a research position and took a full load and took grad classes. I decided that I'd stick around for a masters in my undergrad school's BS/MS program before applying for a PhD. I got like a 3.85 and finished my masters in 15 months (barely ). I had very nice recommendations, high GRE scores, and wrote a very nice essay that explained why my undergrad GPA was so bad. I didn't make excuses - I just told them how it is. In my case, I went to a terrible high school and never did any homework. I came to college and had to start juggling my time between work and school. I started to get it figured out by the time I got my BS, and definitely had it figured out by the time I got my MS (as evidenced by the GPA differences). I got rejected by MIT and Johns Hopkins (no surprise really, but I had to try ) but got accepted everywhere else. I picked WashU because they gave me free choice of research topics and advisors, whereas other schools wanted to bin me into someone's lab of their choosing. If I'm going to be doing research on one topic for several years, it better be something I'm interested in.

What I recommend is talking to a trusted professor and your department chair to get their honest opinions. They will be up front with you and tell you what you can expect. Mine even looked over my essay for me before I sent it (which is why I say it was good - it was the only paper I gave them that they didn't have any corrections for ). It behooves your department to help you get into as good a school as you can because it makes their department look better, so take advantage of that fact. GPA isn't everything, the GRE is even less. Recommendations, work history (especially publications), and your essay are very important. Also, pick a professor or two at the schools you're applying to and mention them in your application as people you might want to work with. The professor will get your application to review it, basically giving you one more chance to find a proponent within their department.

This is exactly what I told my younger brother too and he just got in to a PhD program at Stanford as of yesterday. Now I can count on him to support me when my research goes belly-up. :thumbsup:

 

[gocubs2k5]

do well on the GRE and go from there. My undergrad grades weren't as high as I would have liked, but I did well on the LSAT, so I was able to get into good law schools. If you are going for a Ph.D, just go wherever you can get accepted. Someone said previously in this thread that what matters is the quality of work. Remember though, grad school is a different world. If you even get a B in a class, chances are you are screwed, and most likely dismissed.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: gocubs2k5
If you even get a B in a class, chances are you are screwed, and most likely dismissed.

This isn't true at all, at least not here. There has only been one guy in the last 20 years to get a 4.0 in a PhD program in chem eng here. No one in my entering class got a 4.0 even their first semester. Grades barely matter in grad school at all, except if you've done below average before the qualifying exams.* C's are bad, but not the end of the world.

*I'm an engineer. I can't speak for non-engineering disciplines.

 

[gocubs2k5]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: gocubs2k5
If you even get a B in a class, chances are you are screwed, and most likely dismissed.

This isn't true at all, at least not here. There has only been one guy in the last 20 years to get a 4.0 in a PhD program in chem eng here. No one in my entering class got a 4.0 even their first semester. Grades barely matter in grad school at all, except if you've done below average before the qualifying exams.* C's are bad, but not the end of the world.

*I'm an engineer. I can't speak for non-engineering disciplines.

in history, grades do matter. and just about all the professors I had all mentioned how if they got a B then they were screwed, since no university would want somebody to teach the students who got a 3.0.

 

[Eeezee]

Relevant work experience > *

But GRE scores are pretty important too

I believe that if you can get your Bachelor's and have the strongest recommendations, then it doesn't matter what your GPA was. In Physics, I can tell you with certainty that a high GPA will not open any doors for you.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: gocubs2k5
in history, grades do matter. and just about all the professors I had all mentioned how if they got a B then they were screwed, since no university would want somebody to teach the students who got a 3.0.

Ah, that makes sense for history I suppose. You can't have someone teaching history who couldn't get his facts straight on an exam.

 

[Kanalua]

Originally posted by: fritolays
I'm wondering if work experience and GRE score can play a significant role for students with low grades

LSDAS adjusted undergrad GPA of 2.44
LSAT score ~160

Got into a top 100 law school (barely in top 100)...

Just won a national Moot Court Competition (Best Advocate)...combo oral advocacy and brief submission...beat out teams from UCLA, Arizona, Harvard, Columbia and more...

It can be done, but you will have to work you butt off to succeed...