<p>Hi all! This is my very first post. And I'll get straight to the point.</p>
<p>I am a student at BITS</a>, Pilani - Goa Campus here in India. I have seen MIT OCW lectures and boy! they are impressive. Everywhere I see people talking about 4.0 GPA. Here they give grades out of 10 and NO ONE has a perfect 10.</p>
<p>Questions:
1. Does that mean we have no change of getting into MIT (graduate programs)?
2. Say, if I have a CGPA (that's what it's called here) of 7 (out of 10) is there any hope?
3. Is it true that if you have papers published at an international your grades no longer matter?
4. From what I gather a good recommendation letter matter if it comes from a person they recognize (which will be difficult without international exposure, correct me if I am wrong). So if I am lucky to have international exposure and consequently I manage one, will this (recommendation letter) combined with point 3 (published papers) be good enough?</p>
<p>The faculty at your university are probably the people who are in the best position to tell you whether you have a chance of admission to a graduate school in the US. They know which of their previous students have been admitted to grad schools, and which specific grad schools have admitted them. They also have professional colleagues and old Ph.D. classmates scattered around the world who may be able to advise you.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>US universities are well accustomed to international grad students - there are conversions available for the 10-scale that will give you an idea of your relative strength against 4.00-scale students. Much more goes into the decision than just gpa, but typical applicants to these schools have a 3.7 or higher, and generally rank among the very best in their schools.</p></li>
<li><p>See post #1 - I believe a 7/10 corresponds to ~3.0 - 3.1 on the 4.0 scale, which is not very strong at all for MIT and the like. For most of these schools you would need 8/10 to have a shot and 8.8/10 to be competitive, based on this conversion table:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>[VEF</a> GPA conversion table](<a href=“http://home.vef.gov/download/conversion_table.htm]VEF”>http://home.vef.gov/download/conversion_table.htm)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Grades always matter, but admissions is holistic so strengths in one area can offset weaknesses in others. Published research is the strongest boost to your ap, depending on the quality of the work and the publication, but nothing overcomes (for example) a 2.50 gpa.</p></li>
<li><p>Good letters are very important, and the recognition of the writers is important as well - they will give more weight to letters from famous researchers, or at least those well known to them. I am not sure how to interpret “point 3” publications…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks a lot cosmicfish! what i meant by “point 3” publications: the 3rd bullet which talked about publications.</p>
<p>Is it true that universities also give more weight age to the latter half of your UG work?</p>
<p>But your answers answer my questions. Thanks a lot again!</p>
<p>Different schools treat your undergraduate work differently - some will heavily weight your final years, some will not, and none of them are likely to tell you how or if they do it.</p>