<p>Okay.</p>
<p>So, I'm worried if I go to a first tier school for undergrad (Berkeley, Cornell, etc.) my gpa will be screwed since its so competitive there so I will be screwed when applying for grad school. </p>
<p>However, if I went to a not-so-top school (UCSD, for example) and get a pretty high GPA there, I could probably go to any grad school I wanted assuming the other determining factors were in place.</p>
<p>What is your advice?</p>
<p>Grad schools aren’t fooled by high GPAs. You will be judged by how much effort you put in. There is an article by a CS professor who served on the graduate committees of MIT, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon who claims that admissions committees see a 3.9 at a decent public school as approximately equal to a 3.4 or 3.5 at a top private.</p>
<p>^What do you mean by top private? Is a top private school considered “top” if it’s highly ranked overall (such as in US News), or is it only considered “top” if the major (department) at the undergrad school is top-ranked? For example, if one majored in chemistry and wanted to continue to grad school, would it be better to go to UIUC (U of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, which is ranked 39 in the USNWR natl. universities list but rank 7 for chemistry according to USNWR), or would it be better to go to Yale (which is ranked 15 for Chem), or even a school like Duke, whose undergraduate program is prestigious but whose chemistry dept is ranked in the 40’s?</p>
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<p>There are no private universities in Canada, so are Canadian applicants at an inherent disadvantage then? I’m sorry but I find that blanketing statement pretty arrogant. I can assure you where I’m studying at (University of Toronto) the curriculum is extremely rigorous and very challenging (for chemistry at least). Course averages hover around the C+/B- range well into junior level courses and even some senior level courses. If anything there’s grade deflation at this institution, the situation being analogous to that at Cornell (though I imagine the Cornell kids have it much worse).</p>
<p>lol ucsd actually has a reputation of being a cut-throat university, especially in the bio sciences and engineering</p>
<p>well great. so what the hell am i suppose to do?</p>
<p>I’m smart enough to get into UCSD… maybe Cornell and Berkeley(hoping anyway)…</p>
<p>but do I really want to go there if my GPA is gonna get screwed?</p>
<p>I know a guy who went to Berkeley worked his ass off and could only get into UCI for grad school…</p>
<p>Research is much more important than GPA. Go to whichever school you’ll enjoy the most that has the best research opportunities for undergraduates. There are loads and loads of Berkeley and Cornell graduates who end up at great schools; just take a gander at the various lab pages or program pages online.</p>
<p>If you want to go to med school, go to a university where you can get the highest GPA. IMO. If you want to go into research, go to the school with the best undergrad dept in your research area. In the end, doing research with top profs in the field, taking a wide range of courses in your field, the ability to take courses from top people in the field, etc… will outweigh any few points you might lose in GPA.</p>
<p>Blackroses, don’t overthink it! Go to the undergrad institution that you like best and can see yourself enjoying for four years. You never get to re-live undergrad years, and, trust me, the right school for your personality can make those years some of the best of your life. The CC culture promotes anxiety and second-guessing and all sorts of stuff (such as thinking of getting into grad school when you haven’t yet finished high school) that is detrimental to enjoying education. You can’t predict how well you’ll do academically at any school, so you may as well go someplace that you’ll enjoy, therefore increasing the odds that you’ll be happy enough to reach your potential.</p>
<p>As Phuriku points out, GPAs from universities known to be tough are more respected than the SAME GPA from a lesser school. A 3.4 from MIT outclasses a 3.4 from, say, University of Florida every time, no matter how respected UFL may be. Fortunately for students, however, GPA is only a small part of the grad school application. What you do at your undergraduate institution in terms of research and cultivating working relationships with professors will count more.</p>
<p>The only exception to the above is when applying to med school. Then, GPA becomes a huge factor.</p>
<p>@haplophytine: no, it does not matter that Canada does not have private universities. Graduate school departments know the best universities in the world, not just in the US, so they will be able to gauge the rigor of your school. In the US, it just happens that most, but not all, of the top universities/college are private. Again, however, GPA and where you went to school do not matter as much as research and being able to get outstanding letters-of-recommendation.</p>
<p>UCSD is pretty easy. No worry man.</p>
<p>No, we have it the worst haplophytine. That is a fact hehe.</p>
<p>Who else can lay claim to an average 2.65 undergrad cGPA?</p>
<p>Anyways, some of the above posters have a point. First of all, it would be naive to assume you are going to grad school at this point in time. Have you ever done an independent research project? Go to the school you think fits you best. Look at the area, the people, the mentality.</p>
<p>And what people say about your GPA being one of many factors in grad school is true. </p>
<p>If you go to a grad school department webpage that lists all the grad students and their undergrad institution, many of the top schools that are supposedly competititve show up frequently.</p>
<p>why do you think UCSD is easy?? you can say that UCSD is EASIER than Cal but i wouldn’t say it’s easy. i dunno what your major is, but as far as i am concerned it’s a very good engineering school. if you think you would be screwed by not being able to stay competitive in Cal, i doubt you can do MUCH better in UCSD. yes i agree you would get a better gpa in SD than in Cal, but i think the difference in it is too small to justify your decision. the adcom will know that a lower gpa from Cal is normal because it’s a cut throat school so they wouldn’t throw a Cal 3.6 away when compared to a SD 3.8. just go to the one you like better. some ppl do better under pressure, some ppl do better in a chill atmosphere. </p>
<p>personally i like SD much better than Cal, the area is so much better: beaches vs ghetto town. hands down. and i care about the area and atmosphere A LOT… it’s where your next 4 years gonna be at so you really need to be comfortable with staying there for that long. i just never see myself going to cal or living in berkeley. in fact, i just turned down cal’s offer this year for master for another school. don’t get me wrong, it’s still an awesome program but to me it’s all about fit and atmosphere.</p>
<p>asian75: which schools do you consider ‘hard’??</p>
<p>Looking at his post history, he’s probably say, “STANFORD #1 HARD SCHOOL HANDS DOWN”</p>
<p>Thanks guys, I appreciate all the input. I do realize it’s early to decide this, but after doing a research project at UCI and talking with the grad students I worked with there, I started to think about it. Don’t worry they thought I was crazy for thinking this ahead too haha. </p>
<p>I just want to make a good decision so I don’t end up screwed down on the road. Some people have suggested that I sit in on the classes and see how I feel. I think I’ll do this after I see where I get admitted. I am a senior in high school right now and will be applying in the fall. I would have toured the schools I am applying to earlier, but my dad sees it as a waste of time because I don’t know if I’m going to get in or not.</p>
<p>So I’ll take things as they come. No need to worry now. Thanks for the advice guys. :]</p>
<p>Nice to see you around Blackroses, hope you are well.</p>
<p>I believe you originally had plans of going to do engineering in undergrad, so I assume that’s where you’re planning to head for graduate school too (perhaps you mentioned this somewhere in this thread, but Mathboy is feeling lazy, though entitled to comment nonetheless). I believe in engineering, differences in GPA do not matter quite as much, and if you get a high GPA from an easier school, that will be taken into account. Engineering is a field where you really should be doing research as much as you can and of as good quality as you can, I think; this is for instance much different from my own field, where yes undergraduates do research, but as a rule no matter how advanced the undergraduate, the four years of undergrad should probably be spent getting up to speed with the modern way of thinking about things, leaving the meat of getting used to research to graduate school. </p>
<p>Plus, as someone stated, UCSD isn’t exactly going to be a cakewalk for engineering. There may be something of more competition at Cal or Cornell, but as I hint, the fact that GPA isn’t your end-all, along with this observation that your GPA may not even be very different at these different schools tells me you should choose the school you’re comfortable with. As Momwaiting says.</p>
<p>yes it’s better to worry about getting in first. get your app ready. but sure to visit the schools/ go to orientation after you got admitted! it definitely helped me decide which school to pick</p>
<p>Hey Blackroses,</p>
<pre><code>I am a recent Cornell grad in graduate school and my experience with getting into engineering grad schools has had a wide spectrum - its almost impossible to have a consistent pattern of acceptance as it largely varies with your gpa, research, department, etc. I had a roommate get into MIT PhD MSE with a 3.4 because he spent an insane amount of time buried in research. Conversely, I had a friend not get into Stanford, MIT, Berkeley in ChemE and he had a 3.9. So it really depends on your individual experience and what you make of the best at the school. I would say always shoot for giving yourself the best opportunity even if you think it may be underappreciated (aka go with better schools). If you go to a good school feel like you are in the middle of the pack, its ok, you are still working your butt off and learning and that will count later in life reguardless of where you go next.
</code></pre>
<p>@Oyama and @moommoombaba: Don’t you think Stanford is hard?</p>
<p>I of course think stanford is hard
i was just asking what (other) schools you think are hard</p>
<p>As someone who worried about the same GPA-for-grad-school thing three years ago, I turned down Cal and Cornell to attend UCSD. In hindsight, I think it would have been better to attend the better schools. At UCSD, only a few of my classmates are very intelligent or inspiring to me. A great deal of education comes from your classmates and friends.</p>