<p>I'm a masters mechanical engineering student at Stanford, the current no.1 school for my program. I hope to get funding by a professor there and continue my PhD there. I have finished two quarters out of a typical 5 quarter MS program and my GPA is just higher than 3.5, which is the minimum required for a PhD. To get funding, I will be working for a few professors for a quarter for free hoping something will click. Do you guys think my GPA is going to hurt my chances of finding funding in Stanford. </p>
<p>Since I really want to get a PhD, if nothing works out in Stanford, I will be applying for other top universities. How do you think my GPA will affect me in that case? </p>
<p>I just want to also say....I find the level of competition to be a lot higher....my undergrad GPA was 3.85 at a top 5 school for MechE. Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m ready to get my ass handed to me in grad school :|</p>
<p>you better work on that GPA. A Master’s GPA of 3.5 is not going to look good for Stanford or any other top Ph.D. program or industry in this tough environment. </p>
<p>Despite the quality of your peers, industry generally views graduate school classes as having easy grades. And this is true to an extent. While the class material is harder, a C in grad school at Stanford is basically failing after all. This is not the case in undergrad. </p>
<p>My suggestion to you would be to consult other graduate students to find out what an easy class might be and load up on one or 2 next semester. </p>
<p>Another idea would be to take your advisor’s class and ace it (obviously easier said than done). Often times, professors will approach the top student in a class they teach for a Ph.D. position if available. This is a high risk high reward proposition though. If you bomb or do average in a class with a potential advisor, you might lose out. There’s obviously less pressure to do well if you’re already funded by the professor and have to take their class since you don’t necessarily have to impress at that stage.</p>
<p>HTH.</p>