<p>Hey everyone, I needed some VERY last minute advice concerning this summer. Long story short, I have two choices: (1) Stay at my institution over the summer and continue the research I've done over the spring semester or (2) go home and retake a course from my freshman year and raise my GPA .1.</p>
<p>I had a very poor freshman year and I have been working towards the goal of grad school. I'm a sophomore and possibly retaking the course would be raising my GPA from 3.07 to a 3.17. I have no idea which to do. To be honest, I would love to do the research but I need to know if the GPA boost will be more important. Staying and retaking the course here while doing research at the same time is not an option.</p>
<p>I appreciate input, I need to make the decision quickly!</p>
<p>Is it possible you could bring your GPA up in the next two years (you’re going into your Junior year, right?) and get it up to the level you want before you graduate? </p>
<p>Also, if you can do research next summer between your junior and senior years, but feel that this is the best time for you to re-take the class, then I would say go home and re-take it now.</p>
<p>I imagine graduate schools would see you retaking freshmen level classes at a likelier easier community college to try and replace your tougher university grades and wouldn’t care a whole lot about the grades you’ve gotten from retaking.</p>
<p>You could always try asking a few professors at your current school what their opinion is on your situation.</p>
<p>My math may very well be off, but if you are less than half way through your college career and changing this grade would increase your GPA 0.1, wouldn’t the end result when you are done with college only amount to 0.05 on your GPA? I gotta tell ya, I rounded these kind of values when I filled out graduate applications (eg. 3.35 = 3.4)</p>
<p>On the other hand, you said that you have the opportunity to stay on in your lab over the summer and get some good research experience. I personally would opt for the latter, an extra skill or published abstract or stronger letter of rec would be substantially more impressive than 0.05 GPA units, especially given the fact that this may get rounded anyway.</p>
<p>They’re going to see your transcript, so it’s not really going to matter. Just keep it to 2 decimal places and you won’t have to worry about it.</p>
<p>Some of my apps only had space for one digit past the decimal so…yes 3.75 = 3.8. There is so much more significant considerations beyond college grades to consider when applying for graduate school that small differences in GPA don’t really mean much.</p>