Low GPA (decent Major GPA) uGrad, what are my chances at ME Gradschool?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>Lately I've been incredibly anxious, over the past 8 months I have learned and changed so much about myself and I finally feel like I know what I want to do with my life.</p>

<p>Currently I am an (international) undergraduate at UT Austin majoring in Physics, I am doing research with one of the most renown professors in the field and we expect to get a couple of research papers before I graduate (We hope I manage to be the primary author in one of them).</p>

<p>I want to go to Grad School in mechanical engineering and continue my learning and research in fluids and nonlinear dynamics, however I have one gigantic issue. My GPA cumulative is 2.06 (3.0 Major). This is well...incredibly low. I came into university very immature and really with no idea of what I was doing and from a background of not doing anything and getting good results out of that. This has changed although I still occasionally struggle with working on some classes and I push myself harder than what I can actually handle.</p>

<p>Thus we are here, I want to know what chances I stand. I don't care about going to the N1 university in the world (I mean if I get into MIT well that would be FANTASTIC) my main priority is for me to continue working on and learning new things about what I love, applied and theoretical mechanics.</p>

<p>TLDR</p>

<ul>
<li>2.06 (3.0 Major) Physics</li>
<li>by when I graduate 2 years research experience + at least 1 publication</li>
<li>Looking for Mechanical engineering grad school</li>
</ul>

2

<p>You would have a hard time getting into a Ph.D. program at this time. You might want to start with a Masters degree to take remedial ME coursework and to show that you have the ability to perform well at the graduate level. You will likely have to self-fund the Masters degree.</p>

3

<p>There’s no harm in applying, but the chances you’ll get past the first round with your gpa is very low in such a competitive field. You’ll need to get some time away from college to distance yourself from that aspect of your application and really do excellent, independently driven lab work in the mean time. This is definitely an instance where you’re going to need to prove that you’re committed and able in the field before adcoms will look at you as a good candidate.</p>