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Out of everyone I know, 3.1 is among the high end of the gpas here though, so I know Im not stupid
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And that does not matter. I'd be very surprised if Berkeley let in anyone outside of an MIT/Cal Tech grad in with a 3.1...(or a Berkeley grad, if they had sufficiently proven themselves to profs).</p>
<p>"I'd be very surprised if Berkeley let in anyone outside of an MIT/Cal Tech grad in with a 3.1...(or a Berkeley grad, if they had sufficiently proven themselves to profs)." </p>
<p>I know, at least for some types of engineering a few years ago, UIUC was considered on par, if not superior to, MIT/Caltech. I'm not sure about specifics (I applied there for undergrad) but perhaps that would make a difference? I know UIUC has a reputation for being brutal to its engineering students.</p>
<p>I hear your pain, though. My school doesn't believe in grade inflation, especially for the sciences. Anyways, good luck with raising that GPA!</p>
<p>A 3.0 is a bare minimum GPA to have be even have your application considered at virtually all engineering graduate programs. Even the schools rounding out the bottom 50 (according to US News) still have average GPAs around 3.5. Even within these lower rankings, you have some solid schools like Rutgers, Brown, Lehigh, and Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I am currently working on eight applications, and only Berkeley has asked for the GPA of my last two years. I know this doesn't mean no one else will give those two years more weight, but I just wanted to point out that few schools are that explicit about it. I wouldn't go so far as to say that schools like Berkeley ONLY look at those two years, but surely your major classes are given more weight. Freshman year is definitely a transitional period, and adcoms know this.</p>