<p>I heard it's much harder to get a high gpa in Cal, especially in engineering, than in many other schools that just as or more elite than Cal. I know that's just life, but that seems kind of unfair considering that someone getting a 3.8 at Cal is probably much harder than at Brown (and the Cal student probably knows their stuff better). So engineering students at Cal have much lower chances of going to good graduate schools, since they won't just adjust their cut off GPA for Cal students.</p>
<p>Correct me if I'm wrong though. Berkeley is my dream school in every sense except when I hear how hard it is to do well compared to similar schools. I really want to go to graduate school, so should I just opt for a different school? I like that Berkeley is tough, but not so much that I'm worse off in the future because I actually chose to challenge myself. But I guess that's just the life of engineering majors in general.</p>
<p>What? That’s a terrible idea, Cal is the best public school in the country. I can 100% guarantee you someone with a 3.0 from Cal will look better than someone with a 4.0 from New Mexico University.</p>
<p>Well graduate schools don’t seem to care how hard the school is, just your number. This is what I’ve heard (a lot), and I just haven’t seen anyone counter it so it must be true.</p>
<p>That is not true, they care a lot, both graduate schools and professional schools do. For example, pre-meds who are in college of engineering and have been accepted to medical school have a lower average gpa than those in L&S who’ve been accepted, and both are lower than those from many other schools. Admissions does not “adjust” the gpas, rather, they accept lower gpas from Cal (to a certain degree, obviously).</p>
<p>You can google the stats yourself, though it is a bit skewed considering not everyone submits their information. </p>
<p>Where you go to undergrad certainly does matter for graduate school and I’ve heard this from admissions reps that have visited here, where have you heard that it doesn’t matter?
You do want to think about if you can handle the hard work though, because it certainly is tough.</p>
<p>If you want to continue grad school in engineering, there are not that many students applying in the first place so having above 3.5 or so is good enough to have a chance in any universities combined with good letters of rec from your professors and solid statement of purpose.</p>