<p>Ok, I know I have read that many colleges do not post up their graduate stats, but I just wanted to see if anyone knew what engineering GPA is considered competitive for graduate school? I know that a 3.8+ is competitive for a law school, 3.6+ is competitive for business school, but what GPA is wthin range or at least competitive for engineering? </p>
<p>Some of the schools I am looking at are MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley.</p>
<p>Most people will say 3.5 for PhD programs. Slightly lower for MS programs.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I plan to do an MS program, so I should be good then.</p>
<p>Sorry to revive an old thread:</p>
<p>The schools he was looking at were MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley however. Is it still a 3.5? </p>
<p>Let us also assume for the sake of argument that he came from a similar caliber undergraduate school.</p>
<p>It also depends on your major. If you're in engineering/sciences/math I'd say a 3.5+ is competitive if you're from the Ivy League/MIT/Stanford/Caltech.</p>
<p>I've heard from professors that used to be at MIT that they have an unofficial cutoff at 3.8 or so in Materials Science. I know all my friends and myself that had over a 3.5 didn't have a problem getting into top 10 schools, though there was a bit of variability in which schools each person got into.</p>
<p>3.5 out of 5.0 right?</p>
<p>5.0 -> 4.0
4.0 -> 3.0</p>
<p>Something like that.</p>
<p>Where do you get a 5.0 in college?</p>
<p>No, 3.5 out of 4.0, where 4.0 is an A, 3.0 is a B, etc.</p>
<p>RacinReaver, would you say it's fair to say that the variability in which person got into which school is based more on prior research and fit for program rather than GPA? I assume that's the case, and not because one had a 3.8 and another had a 3.5.</p>
<p>My son's Engineering Major GPA is 3.8 and that was competitive enough for him to have been offered Academic Fellowships at both UCLA and UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>Ken, I'd agree. Once you're above a 3.5 or so it mostly comes down to recommendations and research experience. All else equal, I'm sure a 3.8 would beat a 3.5, but I'd take a 3.5 with a lot of good research experience over a 3.8 with no experience whatsoever.</p>
<p>Incidentally, my one friend that got into MIT (she's a 4.0 with lots of research experience) said many of other people she met there that were admitted hadn't done any research at all in their undergrad careers. She wound up going to Stanford because they offered a lot more money and she said the atmosphere was a lot better. So maybe for some of the top ones depending on who's in the admissions committee it might matter, but all of us got into schools we were happy with.</p>
<p>Misunderstood the question.. I thought you were talking about MIT undergrads getting into MIT grad, since gpa is scaled out of 5 in MIT.. right? Or am I confusing myself and many others...</p>
<p>Based upon my personal experience (3.5 or 3.6 with no research experience as an undergrad, applied to structural engineering masters and a few doctoral programs, admitted to all seven of the top ten structures programs I applied to), I should pipe up that the fact that you have no research experience whatsoever isn't necessarily a deal-breaker... I think I had pretty good recommendations. I wasn't really aware of any research opportunities during my undergrad years, but did serve as a TA for the mechanics of materials course, and had a summer internship with an engineering firm. I don't get the impression that I'm a terribly weird case for some of the more practically-based courses of study...</p>
<p>Just my two bits.</p>
<p>Yeah, as far as I know summer internships at technical companies are just as good as working in a lab. The only real benefit of working at a school over a company is the off chance you'll be able to publish a paper, which is a big feather to put in your cap for admissions.</p>
<p>I think as long as you're doing something related to your field during the summer then you should be fine with lab experience.</p>