Mechanical Engineering graduate school

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi everyone. </p>

<p>I just graduated from a top five university with a B.S. in Mexhanical Engineering and am considering applying to grad schools for next years spring or fall semesters. My profile pretty much looks like this:</p>

<p>GPA: 3.05. This is probably the weakest part of my application. My major GPA is even worse ( around 2.8). However I went to an extremely rigorous university with a low average GPA ( my 3.05 was enough to get me on the dean's list and 3.15 is graduating with honours). My GPA also improved significantly over my last two years (2.9, 3.2, 3.8 and 4.0). </p>

<p>Gre Scores: Q:164, V169, W: 5</p>

<p>Recommendations:
1 excellent ( I'm assuming) recommendation from a professor in my field whom I did research with.
1 good to excellent recommendation from a professor in my field.
1 supportive but not extremely strong letter from a professor in my field ( alternatively this can be substituted by an excellent recommendation from a professor not in my field). </p>

<p>I also have two relevant internships and a bunch of extracurriculars. </p>

<p>I know that my low GPA means that a top ten program is probably out of the question. But what about some moderately ranked programmes (say 20-50)? If anyone could give me some advice on what caliber of schools I should consider, I'd really appreciate it. </p>

<p>Thanks in advance and apologies for the long post. </p>

2

<p>Maybe ask this at the graduate school. They may look at the last 2 years of your college so an improving trend is good. But it doesn’t make sense, you claim to have 2.8 for major GPA yet you have 3.8, 4.0 GPA for junior and senior year, how is that possible? and the other two years you have 2.9 and 3.2 which is higher than you major GPA. Somehow the math does not make sense. One usually takes the majority of one major in junior and senior year, no?</p>

3

<p>I’ve seen that some universities focus on the last 60 units. But really, how can your major gpa be 2.8 when your last two years were 3.8 and 4? I can’t make sense of you not taking major classes in the last 2 years, huh?</p>

<p>Are you looking at MS? Why not work first?</p>

<p>edit: this should be in the grad school forum --you can also browse that area for similar scenarios</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the replies. I’ll post this in the grad forum too. Regarding the 2.8 major GPA, I took a lot of mechanical engineering electives in my senior year that the college didn’t include in the calculation of my major GPA but included in my overall GPA ( hence the 3.8 and 4.0 in my last year).</p>