<p>I will be starting my junior year in Aerospace Engr. this coming fall semester. I was looking at a PhD from CalTech, MIT or Princeton. This can obviously change based on my research interest but my current interest fields have some of the best labs at these institutions. However in order to graduate early, save money and also pay through school, I was working all of my last two semesters, full time. I had an extra load on the classes too. Took me two semesters to realize that was a bad idea since I messed up my grades real bad. Now the best I can do is 3.75</p>
<p>One of my questions is will that GPA be enough to convince people at these high end schools to accept me? I did a research project my freshman year with the physics dept. This year I am working on a second one in Aerospace engg. (Fluid dynamics) and the program pushes us to writing a paper at the end, not guaranteed though. I am also looking to do more research over the next two years.
Second question is that is it enough to do research? Should I do an internship in the industry? Also is it crazy to graduate a semester early with a lower GPA? I was hoping it would help my profile. I ask this because if I graduate in 4 years, i graduate in December. These grad schools take applications only for fall, meaning I would have 8 months to do nothing. Nothing because I'm international and most companies require you to have citizenship in order to work. </p>
<p>Also I have a physics minor too!</p>