<p>I have a bioengineering BS from a top 5 engineering school but my GPA is only 3.35 (although 3.9 the past three semesters). However, I have extensive research experience and am close to publishing in two labs. I also have extensive work experience outside of research in the related field. Overall, I deem my experiences to be much more of a selling point than my GPA.</p>
<p>I am looking to get a MS in bioengineering at a top school, and not a PhD. </p>
<p>Questions:</p>
<p>1) I know that research is crucial to top PhD admissions but is it still a big factor in MS admissions?
2) Is there a chance that I might have a better shot at gaining PhD admission due to my excellent experiences vs. MS admission because of my lacking GPA? The idea here would be to withdraw after obtaining a MS.</p>
<p>Note: Funding is a non-issue. Also, please avoid a discussion of how it's "wrong" to join a PhD program with no intention of completing it and stick to the posed questions.</p>
<p>I could only possible see that working if your undergraduate professors would pull strings for you to get you into research labs lead by their colleagues.</p>
<p>As far as your academic background is concerned, I’ve never heard of a department setting lower standards for their PhD students than their Master’s students. Normally it’s the other way round: I do know several people with lowish GPAs who applied to Master’s programs with the intention of working their way into the PhD program.</p>
<p>No, I don’t see there being that chance. Usually the GPA requirements are higher for the PhD, in addition to the research requirements being higher.</p>
<p>I think that research experience can only be an asset in MS admissions.</p>
<p>I’m a 2nd year undergrad biochemist at ucla working in the bioengineering department in tissue engineering/biomaterial as a researcher with lots of projects with no grad student above me. I’ll make this short and to the point since ive seen my friends go through all of this already.</p>
<p>For graduate school, publications is most important then amount of research followed by recommendations and gre scores then gpa. This is my opinion to getting into grad school. However different grad school some years take a lot of students and some years dont. The reason is because sometimes a professor doesnt need more grad students until the old ones graduate. So don’t worry too much about your gpa as long as it isnt 3.0 or below. but what school do you go to?</p>
<p>For school politics in general, it is actually easier to get into phd programs than a masters. Here’s why. A masters program is difficult for a professor to fund personally unless
The pi wants to fund you through a grant that they have to personally apply to and hope to get. A phd program is easier to fund since there are special budgets for these students in the school since they set it aside because the though behind this is that you are staying with them for 5-7 years, that means a pi doesnt have to train a whole new person again every two years like a masters so the faculty will vote for more money to this budget. I’m sure I’ll get a lot of opposition to this but I’ve seen it from experience. It may be different at different schools but I can only say what I’ve seen. </p>