<p>What is the average GPA for Engineering majors, Civil E, Mechanical E, Chem E, and EE?
What is the minimum GPA employers expect to see? </p>
<p>The average varies a bit between schools and departments. When I was at Penn State EE i think it was in the area of 3.00, based on cutoffs for various honor societies. </p>
<p>As to employers, it also varies depending on the size of the company and the type of work. A lot of large companies use a GPA floor of 3.0, but may want higher for certain jobs. Smaller companies often accept a lower GPA, for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>And work experience trumps GPA.</p>
<p>In EE, no interviews for students with less than a 3.0.</p>
<p>Purdue’s average GPA is a 2.8. </p>
<p>My company’s structural department likes to see over a 3.5 gpa. I think I saw a civil company recruiting at my school that had a 3.7 minimum. There was also one with a 2.8 minimum. Over a 3.0 is good for most companies, over a 3.2-3.5 should be good for most large/ big name companies. </p>
<p>Adding to boneh3ad, project experience (steel bridge, robotics, solar car) is amazing and can trump GPA. </p>
<p>That being said, it’s not impossible to get a high gpa. I have co-op experience (1.5 years of work experience so far), club experience, and a 3.92 gpa. </p>
<p>
I am curious - is that for the whole university, the engineering college, or your major? And where did you get this? Most schools won’t release these numbers.</p>
<p>Purdue’s overall average was 2.81 in 2006, according to <a href=“Purdue University”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/Purdue.html</a> .</p>
<p>More colleges at <a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/</a> .</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, it is easier to get the summer or co-op job that gives good work experience if your GPA is higher, so that it passes the “interview cut-off threshold” for a greater number of potential employers.</p>
<p>If that is the source then it is for ALL majors, not just engineering. And it also indicates that Purdue is an outlier, unusually low.</p>
<p>When I was at CMU (early 2000’s) the CIT teetered around 3.0 by about 0.02 any given year. The source there was the registrars office report to fratenities and sororities and was also broken down by all-male (usually lower) and all-female (usually higher) averages as well the greek organizations reported their group averages against this benchmark for bragging rights (membership included releasing grade reports to excomms).</p>
<p>At Maryland it was ~3.1 for the Clark school before plus minus grading hit full force in 2012, that source was the associate dean of the school in a private conversation. Since then the top end (latin honors) has dropped about 0.1 for each tier in the top 10% (can see that on the engineering school website) but I don’t know if the overall was affected much. Transfer students within the AE department typically drop 0.6 from incoming gpa in their first semester. That was in the PowerPoint I got as part of the “welcome transfer AE students” presentation by the department. Regardless, half the Sigma Gamma Tau officers are transfer students.</p>
<p>Real? 3.0 GPA.</p>
<p>I don’t get how so many schools can have an average GPA of around 2.8-3.2. What happens to all the kids who have under 3.0, since they wouldn’t be able to get interviews from employers OR admission to graduate schools due to not meeting the minimum cutoff?</p>
<p>There is no hard GPA cutoff. The more well known companies and more glamorous jobs can pick and choose, but engineers are needed at smaller local and regional companies as well, and they often have looser hiring practices.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, a 3.0 is just a B average. It’s not terrible.</p>
<p>A friend just said that he wouldn’t hire a “B” average Civil Engineering student to help build a bridge. lhh</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nobody would go into engineering if companies had such high standards. The number of qualified engineers would drop by more than 50%.</p>
<p>Besides, it’s an 85% average… That’s still a respectable number. </p>
<p>Most large companies use a GPA floor, most small companies DON’T. There are a lot of small companies and they hire a lot of engineers.</p>
<p>At my school, the average is right around 3.0, with a 3.5ish being good enough to get you into most of our engineering honor societies. </p>
<p>Most companies use 3.0 as an interview cutoff. Some go lower, some go higher. I actually had a recruiter tell me one that she looks at your GPA to see if you meet the interview cutoff and then never looks at it again. This could just be that particular company, but the point is that GPA isn’t everything. Work experience trumps GPA almost every time. (Except for like grad school/med school/law school.)</p>
<p>Son graduated with a 2.7 from a small ABET school in EE. He had two internships(same company) and landed a great job working for a top company and he loves what he does.</p>
<p>If you don’t have the GPA to open the door - use connections. Internship was through an old friend of mine and his job was from a former graduate of his college who wanted to interview a graduate or two from his school.</p>
<p>He practiced the STAR interview technique and had that down cold and then the third interview was a presentation on how the company’s product worked. Nailed that too but he prepared and rehearsed and researched.</p>
<p>His GPA got him crossed off many a n interview list but the company that hired him looked beyond all that. It’s hard but not impossible to overcome a GPA below a 3.0. He was actually hired over a guy with two advanced degrees and experience. Companies still need people /engineers with good soft skills too - you need to be able to “play well with others”.</p>
<p>;) </p>
<p>At my old college, a 2.8 was the average. However, my college’s engineering department was more rigorous than most other school. All our Math classes were actually taught through the engineering school instead of the Math department. We had a test, quiz and homework EVERY week. This was along with the fact we had a 16 hour semester load. The engineering school had 1/3 retention rate.</p>
<p>I just saw an internship posting from a major aerospace company that specified 3.7 as the minimum GPA to apply.</p>
<p>Yeah some of the top aerospace places have astronomical requirements ;-)</p>
<p>Three that come to mind are:
SpaceX - 3.7 or higher (I believe this was stated on a quorra answer by one of their recruiters and a former intern claimed it had to be 3.6 or higher on a sub reddit) and they also want demonstrated leadership on a team based engineering EC and relevant aerospace experience. </p>
<p>JPL - 3.7 or higher (Granted I only spoke with a quarter of the people interviewed on campus, but everyone had a 3.7 or higher). in addition required decent programming prowess and must be a space zealot.</p>
<p>ULA - 3.9 or higher (this was what was posted on my engineering school’s internal career/coop listing). Not sure what they were looking for past gpa. </p>