Okay, so I’m a rising sophomore at Cornell University, with a cumulative GPA of about 2.7. Yeah, I know it’s terrible. As I’m going into my second year at Cornell, I’m starting to thinking about grad school, specifically for getting my MBA - I’m currently a PAM major at Humec.
The thing is, I fucked up epically on my first semester of freshman year - I had a GPA of 1.41 due to a combination of lack of self-discipline as well as ongoing issues with my family back at home, and if it wasn’t for some very desperate reasoning with my advisor, I would have most definitely been placed on one semester of academic leave. Afterwards, I picked myself up, and came out from my freshman year spring semester with a semester GPA of 3.98 (no, I did not earn this by taking entry level courses or courses that are famous for being easy).
Honestly I haven’t given much thought to grad school at all, but now that I’m starting to look through my potential options, I was wondering whether GPAs are only seen on a cumulative scale during admissions screening at grad schools. If I manage to maintain my current work ethic and grades, I believe that I can graduate from Cornell with a 3.6 cumulative. I know this may sound extremely naive given my first semester grades, and given that workload will undoubtedly increase as I become a junior/senior.
I was told by one of my seniors about how an upward trend in GPA is good (although she obviously did not expect me to come out of first semester with a 1.41) - would colleges (and job recruiters too) be able to see a breakdown of your GPA for each year? I know I really let myself go with that first semester but I don’t want to think that that’s what will bar me (GPA wise) from being a competitive applicant at the top business schools in the future - ESPECIALLY if the other 7 semesters (assuming I graduate in the standard 4 years, no more and no less) have been excellent.