<p>hello, i found this forum today, great info!</p>
<p>i wanted to ask question. my first 1.5 years were garbage (mostly C's and D's, a few B's... in a business program... accounting, econ, and the like) but then i switched to pure math, took the hardest courses i could (including the core ones for Ph.D program), and got A's and A+'s (and one B ). i also did research and will have 2 publications by next august. the only thing is the fact that my overall GPA is 3.15 (because my first 1.5 years were really very bad). i want to go to cornell (ideally). </p>
<p>I was reading a book (there are SOOO many resources on this topic) that discussed this very issue. The writer had gone through the same dilema as you have with poor grades, etc...The general message of what I was reading was that improvement matters the most. You can explain why your gpa is so low, etc. However, I am not so sure about a 3.15 Sorry, that is low. Though your publications will look great</p>
<p>Your GPA is a bit low but given research experience and publication record I do believe you won't have a problem getting into a grad school, but your choice in universities will probably be reduced (apply to many places anyway, sometimes with good GREs and good recommendations, you never know). Though Cornell might be your first choice, it is very possible that some of the top reseachers in your specific field of interest (or possibly, particular problem) are in other (possibly lesser known) universities, so do inquire about which potential PhD supervisors in your field (wherever they might be).</p>