<p>Hi all, I'm currently a senior at Princeton. I didn't do too well my first few years and now I have a 3.0 GPA. But I still want to go to a top graduate school and get at least a masters. Do you think it's possible for me to get into Harvard or Stanford graduate school? I would like to get any type of masters degree.. Has this ever happened before? I'm a white caucasian male by the way majoring in econ by the way.</p>
<p>“Hi all, I’m currently a senior at Princeton. I didn’t do too well my first few years and now I have a 3.0 GPA.”</p>
<p>2 years of school =/= rising senior year, just saying. And I’m a bit wary about this being your first post. Either you are telling the truth and just haven’t thought to talk to some of your professors about this, or you’re ■■■■■■■■. </p>
<p>Who have you had for your econ professors? If you can answer that, then we’ll talk.</p>
<p><a href=“marketmynovel.com”>marketmynovel.com;
<p>How do you know he’s a ■■■■■? I don’t specifically know about Princeton, but I know Harvard has an advanced standing program where if you had taken enough APs during high school and did well on the tests, you could begin as a sophomore instead of a freshman.</p>
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<p>he said “few” not “two.” </p>
<p>unless I’m missing something</p>
<p>Yeah, you can technically do that at Princeton too (it’s called Advanced Standing at both institutions). I just find it questionable that (1) his post count is only 1 and (2) most Princeton students will ask their departmental professors and/or their advisors about these kinds of issues, not people on some random college forum consisting of predominantly high school students.</p>
<p>I mean, it could be totally legitimate. I just want to make sure before I waste my time trying to answer the question. </p>
<p>EDIT: Totally missed that, thank you hippopotomonstro. I apologize.</p>
<p>I also missed that… I just read Peytoncline’s post and took that tidbit if info from there.</p>
<p>Close reading + groupthink FTW.</p>
<p>Actually, this thread is a pretty good reflection of what would actually happen at Princeton.</p>
<p>haha, guys its an honest question, i’m not a ■■■■■…some courses ive taken include eco362 by harrison hong, eco310 by takahashi, mae305 by martinelli (the worst prof. ever)…need more proof? anyway, i’d really appreciate it if u guys could help me out. i did math-track econ except for macro (took eco301). looking to get cert in finance. thanks.</p>
<p>I say it is a ■■■■■</p>
<p>^Now the real ■■■■■…</p>
<p>Sorry wonderboi, it’s just people like iCalculus who make me skeptical. I mean, like I hinted at earlier, I think the best thing to do is to talk with your advisor and see how he/she assesses the situation. IMHO, with a 3.0, you probably won’t be able to get into schools like Harvard or Stanford, unless you figured out some groundbreaking economic theory. But, I want to say that you can still get into pretty good grad programs because a 3.0 from Princeton is by no means a bad GPA and compared to applicants from other schools with the same GPA, I think you would have an advantage by just having gone to Princeton.</p>
<p>This is something I’m going to have to keep in mind myself because I ended up not doing as well as I wanted to this past year as a freshman. Granted, most of the classes I took I’ve ruled out as potential majors, so my future departmental GPA could be just fine. But, who knows how grad schools will consider my freshman year grades.</p>
<p>Why are people being hella hostile? Why would a ■■■■■ even ask something like this?</p>
<p>It’s not a ■■■■■ unless they did extensive research and picked out the three of the most annoyingly graded and difficult economics and applied math courses here, and the professors that made those semesters particularly painful. I’ve taken all three of those (with the same professors except for 305) and they were tough.</p>
<p>I would say ask your adviser though. I do think it’s a stretch to be aiming that high for graduate school since there ARE students who did well in those classes, especially 362, and 310 was pretty easy if you hadn’t taken it with Takahashi, but there are other graduate school options. Also, it might help if you got a masters first at a different school and did really well on that and then applied to a different program at a more prestigious school. If you’re talking MBA, it’s more helpful to work a few years first anyway.</p>
<p>Do many people from Princeton have 3.0 GPA’s? I’m just wondering, cause it seems like its harder to get good grades at the prestigious schools, which would hurt your grad school chances. Would it be smarter to go to a less prestigious undergrad so that you could get good grades?</p>
<p>A lot of places have terminal master’s programs that are pretty much designed for this kind of problem – smart people with spotty records, or people coming out of unreliable undergraduate situations. Those things make it really tough to get into a funded PhD program, but you can go pay for a master’s (sometimes with some funding, sometimes not) and basically put yourself in a strong position to get accepted in a funded PhD program.</p>
<p>In other words, expensive, but a means to an end, and often an effective one. And because the programs are pretty big and not funded, they are much easier to get into than PhD programs, especially right out of college. I only know a few students who have taken this route, and in some cases the issue wasn’t mediocre grades so much as under-preparation (e.g., a CS person who wanted to get a PhD in math, but really didn’t have enough undergrad math to be a competitive candidate). But my impression is that if you can show any meaningful potential (and the ability to come up with meaningful tuition), they will overlook whatever flaws are there and give you a chance to prove yourself.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Harvard and Stanford. But I know MIT and Chicago have various programs like this in math and social sciences (and humanities, too, at Chicago). I’m sure other places do as well.</p>
<p>Thanks, that helps so much. Do you think (if I could fund it) that I would have a reasonable shot at Harvard’s masters in statistics program? What kind of GPA’s did those people whom you mentioned with sub-par gpa’s have?</p>
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<li><p>I don’t know. Not Phi Beta Kappa. Not competitive for PhD programs (or not, at least, successfully competitive). The people I know who did this are casual friends of my kids, or distant relatives of mine, or children of co-workers. Believe it or not, I tend not to know people’s GPAs unless they talk about it. I don’t ask.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know. Harvard’s AM in Statistics program looks relatively small – about 15 students/year. And, on an eyeball basis, all but a handful are Korean or Chinese. So it could be very competitive.</p></li>
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