<p>I had a good engineering internship where I was given a project to do that took two summers. The finshed it off with a pretty big tech report with my findings. I have good test scores and recs but only a 3.03 gpa. I'm a math and econ double major looking to go into industrial engineering with a operations research concentration. Ideally I would like to get a phd. Should I try to find a go m.s. program then apply for a phd later to impove my grades? If I apply for a phd and get rejected, will they consider me for an m.s. (maybe this varies by school)? </p>
<p>I figure that most if not all phd applicants have research experience so I don't know if it will be enough to keep me competitive. Especially since I'll probably have a lower gpa, but I'll have better test scores (on average for the schools I'm looking at.)</p>