The More Important Factor in Graduate Admissions?

Graduate School
1

<p>I am an undergrad sophomore/junior right now (sophomore/junior, because I haven't decided if I wanted to graduate early or not yet), a social sciences major, and am unsure of how to plan out my remaining year(s) in college.</p>

<p>Currently, I attend a top tier undergrad college, but my #1 goal is to get into a big name (the ivies, for instance) graduate school--please, no judgment/lecturing, please.</p>

<p>I also want to save money, so I am debating on graduating in 3 years instead of 4. </p>

<p>My choices:</p>

<p>--If I graduate in 3 years, I will most likely end up with around 3.75 Major GPA, with one major and a minor. For my resume, I have interned last semester (but it's irrelevant to what I want to get into) and have influential leadership positions for this year and hopefully the next. I am going to do research over this summer. I will take the GRE beginning of next year.</p>

<p>--If I graduate in 4 years, I can work towards a different major so that I can have a better major GPA (I got a B+ in a major I have been working towards, but I can drop the major since I can use many of the same courses for a different major). I can also double major and study abroad.</p>

<p>Again, my primary goal is to get into a prestigious school, and my secondary is to graduate early so as to save money. If my GPA is going to be around 3.75, is that not good enough for an ivy? Would it be better to stay the extra year so as to improve it (which it will--I had a hard time transitioning freshman yr 1st semester... hence the drop)? Would it be worth it? Also, I heard that double majoring doesn't really matter for graduate schools, but that studying abroad is a plus. Is this true? Would study abroad experience improve my chances? Again, is it worth staying the extra year?</p>

<p>So basically......</p>

<p>improve GPA + study abroad (graduate admission) > 3-yr graduation (financial benefits of) ?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>What exactly do you want to go to graduate school for?</p>

<p>Graduate admissions usually cares much more about relevant experience (e.g. research or internships) and your letters of recommendation than small variations in your GPA. In some fields it’s commonplace to take a few years off between college and grad school to get more real-world experience. (For example, most sociologists I know didn’t go straight to graduate school. Economists, on the other hand, often do.) </p>

<p>Why don’t you discuss your graduate school options with your professors?</p>

3

<p>I have never heard of study abroad helping your admissions unless it is highly relevant to your grad school program (such as pursuing a high degree in a foreign language or foreign policy). Your GPA can even be overlooked if you have a lot of relevant work or research experience. Again, this all depends on what you actually want to go to graduate school for. Usually it is not a good idea to breeze through undergrad quickly and miss other opportunities, but if you take an extra year and do things that aren’t relevant to your grad program, then that won’t help either.</p>

4

<p>OP: All of this depends on what you want to do in grad school, what kind of degree you want to pursue, and what your career goals are after grad school. </p>

<p>Some quick things:</p>

<p>

Only professional programs like business and law are likely to care about things like this unless they actually involve research. If it is a professional program you want, you are in the wrong forum.</p>

<p>

If this is one grade, it is not damning.</p>

<p>

Generally, no. However, research-based graduate programs (i.e., 99% of the programs discussed in this forum) expect to see undergrad research from you… and you have not mentioned it all so far. If you have not yet done so, I would seriously consider using that 4th year to do some quality research.</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Well I don’t have any, but that isn’t stopping me. “Expect?” Maybe, but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker.</p>

6

<p>"Well I don’t have any, but that isn’t stopping me. “Expect?” Maybe, but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker. "
You’re just applying to grad schools this year, correct?
So you don’t have any acceptances yet or have any idea of how your application will be viewed. You’re speculating .
The OP needs to listen to those who have gone through the whole grad school application process.</p>

7

<p>

It is a deal breaker at top programs and a weakness everywhere else. Can you get accepted without research experience? Absolutely. But you will generally get accepted to noticeably better programs with good research experience, even if your other application factors are the same or even a little worse!</p>

8

<p>Yeah i havent gone through the whole process yet so I don’t know. But i think i have somewhat of an idea of what tey like to see, enough to try to help on CC. </p>

<p>There are some days I feel like my apps are absolute s**t. And other days I’m optimistic. Given that, I may get rejected from every school i apply to. Who knows. I’ll still have a job at least.</p>

<p>I agree with comic fish. I am not trying for all top programs though. Trying to cast m net wide.</p>

9

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<p>I remember when my professors were really surprised at a handful of the schools that turned me down. It was a little surprising when some of the schools I felt were a match I didn’t get into while some of my reaches I did!</p>

<p>I only know of one top program that admitted students without any research, but I’ve also heard lots of negative things about them from both admitted students and alumni. (This is also only one particular program at one particular school, so I don’t really want to mention it by name.)</p>

10

<p>No judgment on getting into a big name gradaute school - that’s actually ideal, since prestigious graduate schools lead to better jobs in some fields. My only comment is that sometimes the Ivies are not the most prestigious graduate schools in a given field.</p>

<p>But yeah, this question is nearly impossible to answer without knowing what you want to go to graduate school in. I’m also inclined to state that you shouldn’t drop a major just because you got one B+ (or even if you had one C); a major is a reflection of your interests. And in addition to that, I’d say go for the fourth year so that you could study abroad. I studied abroad myself. My program was directly related to my PhD program so it did help, but even if it didn’t, it was a massively enjoyable experience. EVERYTHING you do in college doesn’t have to be towards the singular goal of getting into graduate school; you can do some things just for personal enrichment.</p>