<p>Hello Everyone. Hope summer is going well for all of you along with studying for the GRE, other exams coming up for people. I was making this thread in hopes of previous grad students experiences when applying to grad school. Right now I am going to be entering my 5th year of civil engineering at UCI and hoping to attend grad school to focus more on my specializing of structural/architectural. The one school I would love to attend is University of Colorado at Boulder. However, some other schools I plan on looking into are University of Washington, USC, UCLA, Oregon State, University of Utah, University of Texas and possibly a few East coast schools. Below are some stats about me currently, and do note that I plan on striving to achieve a higher GPA for my senior year.</p>
<p>Current GPA: 3.07</p>
<p>Engineering GPA: 3.11, shows an upward trend.</p>
<p>I have no experience in research, but I do participate in the steel bridge contest for the school. This year, I'm also planning on participating in undergraduate research earthquake engineering. For fun, I'm also going to do this extracurricular class in design build fly.</p>
<p>I haven't taken the GRE test yet but plan on taking it end of August/early September. So I'll be taking the revised test which hopefully isn't going to be too much different than the old version.</p>
<p>I never really thought about wanting to attend grad school, until I met someone who ended up turning into a very good friend who had his eyes set on attending right after undergrad. I really don't want to take a year off let alone a quarter/semester due to the possibility of not wanting to go back. I know my GPA isn't stellar but hopefully it's decent enough to possibly go to one of the schools listed above. You can be critical, since I understand attending grad school is very competitive and they want not just the best but students who are going to strive and who how has the desire to want to be there.</p>
<p>Any feedback and information that can help my chances increase would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for all your time.</p>