Hi all,
I haven’t posted a question since I was a senior in high school applying for colleges, but now I’m kinda freaking out. I’m a Sophomore in college right now. My Freshman year went great but my sophomore year is tougher because of a lot of factors outside of my control. It’s also when I started taking more classes in my major. This semester especially has been the hardest few months of my life (not because of class difficulty, because of life stuff that I don’t really want to get into) and it means that my major GPA is about a 3.6, while my overall GPA is almost a 3.8. I hope to bring it up in the next two years, but if I can’t, does this put good grad schools completely out of reach for me?
Thanks for any help, grad school in my field was always my plan and I feel kind of stuck thinking that it might not be attainable anymore.
This will depend pretty heavily on what field you study.
I’m majoring in International Relations but I’m looking towards grad programs in Peace and Conflict Studies (my minor, we don’t have a major for it)
A one year dip due to things ‘outside your control’ is not going to deep-six a grad app, as you have 1-2 more years to boost the major GPA.
But for international relations, I strongly suggest that you obtain overseas working experience (assuming a US citizen). Look into Fullbright and Peace Corps.
@bluebayou I want to go into international peacebuilding and most of the people I’ve spoken to in the field did time in the field with the UN or Peace corps so Peace corps before grad school is definitely something I’m already heavily considering!
This also isn’t a problem as both of your GPAs are pretty high - a 3.6 major and a 3.8 cumulative don’t give any reason for concern. Where this would become more of a problem is if you had a 3.8 cumulative and, say, a 3.3 major GPA.
Also, you have a whole extra year and a half to two years to raise your major GPA.
Your GPA is fine. As long as you show an upward trend going forward, it shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of majors have a few specific “weeder” classes, so a small drop for those is not unreasonable.
Thanks all 
I’m still a little worried because now the only two grades I have that are lower than an A- are in my major (also my lowest two grades) but it’s conceivable I can get it back up to at least a 3.7.
Hi wonderlanddd, I wonder how’s it going for you now? I’m a sophomore now and I’m kinda in a similar situation. I’m considering to late drop a course that would end up severely affecting my major GPA. But I really want to just keep it as it is because I don’t want to let the grad school admissions officers think that I have difficulties completing things…