<p>My parents wouldn't go for a medical leave (I received a concussion earlier this year) so my GPA is going to drop drastically this semester to a 2.87. I want to go to graduate school for physics/engineering. Are my chances completely over?</p>
<p>I worked in a lab up until my concussion. I go to a top ranked school (ivy). </p>
<p>help?</p>
<p>I’m not a good person to answer these sorts of questions, but maybe you could incorporate this incident into your personal statements when you do apply so you can show grad schools you can overcome adversity or something like that.</p>
<p>How much time do you have until you graduate? You may be able to raise it above a 3.0 before you start applying.</p>
<p>If your GPA is going to drop that drastically, can you go plead for a late medical withdrawal? I was sick one semester and attempted classes anyway; I did poorly, and in around November I asked a dean for a late medical withdrawal (it was past the W date) and was granted one. It’s silly to force you to try to complete classes if you are not capable of doing so; concussions can be serious.</p>
<p>IS it just your <em>semester</em> GPA that would be a 2.87? If you already had a competitive grad school GPA (3.5+) I feel like your GPA would not dip that low even if you failed everything. So either that 2.87 is your projected semester GPA (which doesn’t matter as long as your overall stays pretty high) OR your GPA was already pretty low to borderline.</p>
<p>If this is just your semester GPA, and your previous GPA was at least around a 3.3, you can explain your statement of purpose very briefly that you had a concussion which gave you a difficult time, but now the problem has resolved and you are performing at full capacity. It’s not to show that you can overcome adversity; it’s simply to explain bad grades in a short, bounded period of time.</p>
<p>If the 2.87 is your actual cumulative GPA, you are unlikely to gain admission to a PhD program right out of grad school. Consider instead doing an MS first - there are some funded MS programs in engineering and physics.</p>