<p>I will be going to UF most likely, and majoring in industrial engineering. From what I understand, a 3.5 GPA is needed to gain admission into the top grad schools...whether it be for an MBA, MS, or M Eng. How hard would a 3.5 GPA be to have?</p>
<p>I thought it was a 3.7?</p>
<p>*among other things. A friend was rejected from MIT with 3.97 UG and 800 on q GRE. I have heard of people with 3.6’s getting in. SO gpa does not guarantee admission.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t even be concerned about grad school until your senior year of college.</p>
<p>4 or 5 years of undergraduate education is plenty to bite off at one time.</p>
<p>I’m just wondering. Realistically, how hard is it going to be for me? I don’t want to be disappointed or vis-versa.</p>
<p>There is no answer to this question because there are so many variables. Difficulty will vary somewhat by program and school but in general an engineering degree is the one of the most rigorous undergrad degrees one can pursue. I agree that you should focus on undergrad first and worry about grad school later. Just be ready for the “weed out” courses freshman and sophomore year. (i.e. calc II, chem, physics, etc.) Many are not ready for the difficulty of these courses.</p>
<p>Tigerton,</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering school will be very, very hard. For many of the students, it’s the first time they have had to actually study and work hard to pass classes.</p>
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<p>Do your absolute best to maintain the highest GPA possible, and things will sort themselves out.</p>
<p>Do not follow bigtrees advice and wait until junior year to think about it. You ought to start thinking about it your junior year to make sure you have enough connections with professors and such and some research experience so that you aren’t scrambling at the last minute. You don’t necessarily have to decide to do it by then, but if you get to junior year and you are still interested in grad school even at all, it is time to start preparing by trying to get some research or something like that.</p>
<p>GPA matters but it is not the end all. I got into Texas A&M with a fully-funded Ph.D. (they are ranked 11 in my field) with an undergraduate GPA of 3.3, so you certainly don’t NEED to have a 3.8, but it sure as heck doesn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Bottom line, though, is that it comes down to your whole applications, which includes recommendations, GRE scores, research experience and various other smaller criteria in addition to GPA. There are many pieces to the puzzle.</p>
<p>Like I said in another similar thread, other factors include
- If you are looking for a fully-funded full-time program or be part of a continuing/distance education program</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Availability of space</p></li>
<li><p>Work experience</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Boneh3ad, how have you gone from undergraduate to Ph.D? I know my uncle did this back when he was in college, but I’m not really familiar with what it takes to do this and how it really works. I thought you needed a masters degree to pursue a doctorate (that’s the logical process that I’d assume).</p>
<p>Hadsed,</p>
<p>Many of the top programs do not even offer a MA/MS degree…strictly PHD.</p>
<p>As a Math major undergrad, if I (by some sort of luck) wanted to attend Princeton, Cornell, Penn or Yale for math grad school, my only option would be a PHD.</p>
<p>Now a very small number of PHD programs may offer a “masters degree along the way” as you study for a PHD.</p>
<p>Bonehead,</p>
<p>I sure don’t think that high school seniors or college freshman need to worry about GPA for grad school yet. Whether they decide junior or senior year is up to the individual, but you have to agree that it’s far more important to know you’ll finish undergraduate engineering before worrying about graduate school. High school seniors or college freshman have about a a 1 in 3 chance of graduating in the major they choose from the beginning.</p>
<p>“I sure don’t think that high school seniors or college freshman need to worry about GPA for grad school yet.”</p>
<p>I don’t see what the harm in knowing is though. It’s not as if people [in engineering] then choose a path based entirely on the assumption that they have to grad school otherwise they end up working at Burger King. Why shouldn’t someone try to aim for grad school from the beginning? And obviously if I (or one) doesn’t graduate from engineering school, they make new plans.</p>
<p>bigtrees:
I agree that it is pretty laughable to think about grad school in high school. In fact, every time I see some kid on here post about his big plans to go to school X so that he can go to grad school later at [insert MIT/CalTech/Stanford/Berkeley here], I chuckle a little to myself. I was merely pointing out that in my experience, if you get to your junior year and grad school is still a real option, you ought to start planning ahead and not waiting until senior year. I saw several of my colleagues wait until senior year and end up missing the boat because they were unable to get all their applications in order in time because they waited until their senior year to prepare. It was not meant as an attack on you or anything like that.</p>
<p>hadsed:
If you know that you for sure want to get a Ph.D., you can save yourself a year or so by doing direct to Ph.D. instead of getting an M.S. first. Once you have that Ph.D., people aren’t really going to say “well he has a Ph.D. but he never got a Masters so I don’t think he is qualified.” It is fairly uncommon though simply because there are a lot of people who aren’t sure if they want to (or if they should) take that step towards a full Ph.D. right when they enter grad school. For me, I knew pretty much right after my first internship that I didn’t want to stop at B.S., and by my junior year, I had a strong feeling that I would probably pursue a Ph.D.</p>
<p>I don’t think its a bad thing in any sense to start thinking about it in high school and asking questions such as this. Sure there are a few hurdles in the way, there always will be, but having goals in mind isn’t the worst thing in the world. My approach to the entire process nearly spanned all of my collegiate career. Starting in my freshmen year I spoke with advisors about potential research opportunities and when they might come up, and I planned my summers around my future. For instance, I made sure to have an industrial internship for at least one summer, and an academic research opportunity another summer to get a feel for what life would be like in both worlds. All of this started in my freshmen year and I wouldn’t hesitate to do that all over again. The minimal amount of time it takes “plan” this won’t get in the way of enjoying your college experience at all, in my view it only prepares you better for the future. With that being said, don’t obsess about it. I got no sense that the OP is/was obsessing about it, but you certainly don’t want to ruin your 4 years of college too worried about the future. </p>
<p>As a side note, applying to Ph.D programs directly and skipping masters degrees is entirely dependent on the program. You simply cannot do it at some schools coming straight out of undergrad. I found that at quite a few schools you aren’t actually in their Ph.D program until you pass your qualifying exams which take place in your first couple of years in the program. At other schools you might be able to apply directly to Ph.D programs but there is no universal rule with how universities handle there graduate programs.</p>
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<p>That is how it works at all schools to my knowledge. You can still apply directly to Ph.D. and get admitted, its just that all your coursework at first is to start getting you ready for that qualifying exam which you take within the first two years at most places.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. That’s the difference between Comps (comprehensive exam) and Quals (qualification exam).</p>
<p>The “traditional” approach was for a school to admit a student as a “graduate student”, where the student took MS-level courses. After a year, the student took Quals. If the student did not pass (either failed or refused to take it), he was placed on the MS-track, and spent a year working on a thesis, after which he graduated with an MS. If the student passed the Quals, he progressed to doctoral course work and became a “doctoral student”. After a year or two of doctoral coursework, the student took the Comps. If he did not pass the Comps (again, either failed or just did not take it), he was awarded an Engineer’s Degree and sent on his way (some offered an MS). If he passed the Comps, he was awarded an MS and allowed to continue on to a dissertation, now called a “doctoral candidate”. After several years, he defended his dissertation. If he failed he reworked the dissertation, if he passed, he was awarded a doctoral degree.</p>
<p>With the advent of the direct MS admissions, professional MS degrees, and attending one school for an MS and another for a PhD, this uniform system has broken down over the years and now varies greatly by department. Many schools still have Quals, but did away with Comps. Some schools have Comps, but did away with Quals (in which case you’re admitted directly to a PhD program after applying). Some still have both.</p>
<p>There’s no real distinction between what program does what - it’s not like the “good programs” do something and the “bad programs” do something else - you’ll see all the variants at good schools and not-so-good schools, and you’ll see different variants at different departments in the same school. It’s all a matter of preference of who runs the PhD program in that department.</p>
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<p>Thats exactly right. There is really no uniform way that graduate school works these days, which in some ways makes sense but can also be frustrating trying to decipher the requirements at all the schools.</p>
<p>What about Princeton engineering grad school?</p>