<p>Hello all. I am a rising sophomore neuroscience student at a pretty big university in Boston. I am interested in going for my PhD in Cognitive Science from either JHU, MIT, RPI, and IUB. I know that I'm just a freshman, but I have some serious concerns about my GPA.</p>
<p>My first semester was pretty rough, with an F in a chemistry course. My school doesn't allow grade repeals or repeats, so it's on my transcript forever. And this semester, I might get a D in an intro cellular bio course. Coming out of this first year, I should get between a 2.0-2.1 in the GPA range. </p>
<p>I will start research in the upcoming fall and plan on taking summer classes for transfer credit. I have talked to my advisors about this, since I want to go to grad school. I know that after this year, these grades are never landing on my transcript (I was foolish in my class choices and realized too late that I was not well-prepared for them). The thing is that do I still have a chance?</p>
<p>As stated above, my top schools for the PhD in Cognitive Science programs are MIT, JHU, RPI, IUB, and my other choices are pretty much any university nearing the east coast with a PhD in Cognitive Science program. Am I too far behind to catch up? When my grades improve (they will!), the max GPA I could have is a 3.6-3.7. Is that reasonable for this study, including my potential research, GRE scores, personal statement, etc.?</p>
<p>Honest opinions are always welcome! Thanks everyone.</p>
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<li>No, you are not too far behind to catch up. I’m in a related field and I had a 3.4 cumulative GPA (and my crash and burn was in my junior year.) Just do better, and get a high GPA in your major.</li>
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<p>But, I’m curious - you said you had a D in one class and an F in the other, but your GPA is a 2.0-2.1. Does that mean that most of your other grades are Cs? That doesn’t look good. Doesn’t mean you can’t recover, just do very well your sophomore and junior years, and focus on beefing up the rest of your profile.</p>
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<li>Don’t pick a graduate school based on location. Shouldn’t be “on the east coast” but whichever programs are the best fit for you, research wise.</li>
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<p>@juillet: I am in the process of creating my own major as my school doesn’t have a cognitive science major (neuroscience is too bio-intensive at my school for me), so I will definitely aim for all A’s and an occasional B. My target range is in the 3.4-3.7 end of junior year GPA. I believe this is attainable. </p>
<p>Yes, my freshman first semester was the F in chemistry and 2 C’s. The second semester is mostly A’s, B’s, and the D in intro to cellular bio. The transfer credit won’t show as a grade on my transcript, rather a “TC” mark, but the credit will be applied to my degree. </p>
<p>Because of my rough start, this is why I am looking into research for my sophomore and junior years in addition to getting my pre-reqs out the way over the summer as transfer credit. </p>
<p>I wasn’t referring to grad school solely on location. I’m sorry if I came across as such. I would just prefer the west coast since the schools fit my research needs better, such as MIT’s social cognition program and JHU’s overlap with the cognitive science and neuroscience departments. And Duke has a nice program, too.</p>