How I got into a Top 10 engineering grad program with ~2.5 departmental undergrad GPA

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>This thread is not to brag, but to motivate my engineering brothers out there that there is always a chance to succeed in the face of past failures.</p>

<p>Long story short, I did well my first two years of undergrad before admittance into the selective engineering program (~3.6gpa). After being accepted into the chemE department, I faced an onslaught of family, financial, and personal issues. 3 years and 2 hardship withdrawaled quarters later, I managed to cling onto my chemE degree and graduated with an overall GPA of 3.11 and dept. GPA of around 2.5.</p>

<p>I had multiple undergrad research experiences, but no publications. I had one internship as a chemicals industry analyst for a chemicals distribution company (small company under 500 employees).</p>

<p>I took the GRE. I got perfect score quant (800) and decent scores on the verbal/essay (I believe 700 and 5.0 out of 6.0).</p>

<p>I applied to 7 PhD programs and 12 Masters programs across the country, from selective to safety, and got rejected by ALL of them. Upon asking why, they ALL said I had great GRE scores, decent extracurriculars and research experience, but HORRIBLE undergrad gpa especially dept. gpa. </p>

<p>My redemption occurred DURING MY FIRST JOB OUT OF COLLEGE. (the only chance for you undergrad screw ups like me to redeem yourselves for grad school). </p>

<p>I applied to at least 30 job positions before/after graduation and accepted a position within a global aerospace company as an associate engineer within their advanced composites division. I worked my butt off and showed a ton of initiative and became lead engineer within a year. I then performed extremely well as a lead engineer and tackled one of my division's largest projects of the year. I also took on roles such as chairman of eh&s committee, and volunteered to be an associate r&d engineer for the company's r&d group. </p>

<p>After a bit over two years of working at the company, I applied to 10 Masters programs in chemE (no PhD programs because upon industry experience, my new plan is to pursue mba after masters instead of PhD). The ten masters programs I applied to were at universities where I have talked to the director of the chemE department for two years, with constant emails back and forth at least once a month, expressing my interest in their program, my interest in alternative energy, and my intentions of applying to their program after industry experience. The only difference now compared to right after undergrad is that I had a few years of industry experience, but that great industry experience has resulted in awesome reference/recommendation letters for my application and also a beefed up resume within the 2 short years I was there. I made sure to write a powerful personal statement essay, which explained my screw ups in undergrad but also my eventual intellectual redemption in the industry.</p>

<p>I was accepted to 6 out of the 10 masters programs. 3 safety schools and 2 selective that offered funding, and 1 ultra-selective (top 10 engineering program) that offered without funding. </p>

<p>I chose the ultra-selective school. No funding, but I already saved up enough money from my job to pay for the masters degree with $10k help from Uncle Sam's loans.</p>

<p>There's always hope my friends.</p>

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<p>Good Stuff.</p>

<p>There is also another “back door” method. It still requires having industry experience but take about 3-4 graduate-level courses as a non-degree graduate student. To be safe, just take 3-4 courses that are “graduate versions of previously-taken undergraduate courses” or courses that allow you to leverage your industry experience. In my case, I selected a graduate Linear Algebra course, a graduate Probability/Statistics course and a graduate CS course in Databases. Well with maturity, the internet and another crack at those two math courses, I aced them. Since I work as a Data Architect/DBA, I pretty much knew more about databases than the professor teaching it, so I aced that course too. Now I have about 1/3 of the M.S. program with a 4.0 GPA,WITH industry experience. My graduate admission was approved at U-Wisconsin in no time.</p>

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<p>Very often the regulars here suggest people work a few years anyway before going to graduate school.</p>

<p>I was surprised to learn how relatively easy it was to get into Stanford’s graduate engineering programs. It treats those programs as cash cows, so reduces its selectivity more than most people think.</p>

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<p>Interesting advice on this thread. Congrats to the OP!</p>

<p>Simba, so Stanford is a better shot because their financial grants for graduates is fairly low? I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll guess that some of these grad department decisionmakers eyes get big when they see an application from a student who has worked a few years, presumably someone who won’t need a lot of cash assistance.</p>

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<p>I think the eyes get big because a lot of companies will pay for tuition up to a certain amount.</p>

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<p>^^^ Correct.</p>