<p>Is it true that, in applying to graduate school, the final two years of undergrad are viewed more heavily than the comprehensive GPA?
I've heard but wondered how true this is.
Is it more that the graduate school is interested in performance in courses of the particular field of the program one is applying into? Or maybe they want to see how one has performed in undergrad in their upper level classes in general, across subjects?</p>
<p>If this either is true, how does a 5thy ear of undergrad affect this. If "final two years" is somewhat of a rule of thumb, than it would seem that an extra year would significantly reduce the importance of the junior year of undergrad...</p>
<p>This is field-dependent, and often university-dependent.</p>
<p>Some departments will explicitly state that they focus on the final two years of undergraduate work when looking at transcripts. Others will not. It seems to be more common in STEM fields to focus on the final two years.</p>
<p>In the humanities, it is more common to look at the overall trajectory of a transcript, and to focus on how well the student did in the major (presumably the major is the field of intended study at the graduate level). In other words, terrible grades in the sciences will not affect humanities admissions, unless these terrible grades brought the GPA below minimum threshholds (or departmental standards).</p>
<p>Most programs will not care how a student did in completely unrelated subjects, regardless of the year in which these unrelated classes were taken.</p>