<p>Hello. I am a rising sophomore at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics. My goal is to earn a PhD in computer science and become a researcher and professor. I am currently finishing up a computer science REU, and I have loved my experience. I got to learn about research and make a significant contribution to a project. My experience in the REU was wonderful, and I look forward to going to graduate school and becoming a researcher.</p>
<p>However, I have some worries about my undergraduate career. My first year didn't go too well and I ended up with just a 3.0 GPA for the year (I have a 3.44 GPA due to some community college courses that I've taken back in my high school career). My research experience has motivated me to do better next year, but I am worried about not having a GPA high enough to enter a great graduate program. Graduate school and research seems like heaven to me, but the next three (or possibly four) years seem like a never ending stream of courses with the pressure of trying to earn A's in most of those courses.</p>
<p>What is the best attitude for me (or any other undergraduate in a similar situation) to take when approaching their undergraduate years? How do I become one of those students who have strings of 4.0 quarters (I need them)? For those who have 3.7+ GPAs and/or got into great graduate programs, how did you do it? All replies will be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>If you're brighter than most of your peers, you'll naturally rise to the top of every class. If you're not, you better work your ass off. I don't know what else to say. Academic performance = f(intelligence, work ethic). If you lack one, you better have plenty of the other.</p>
<p>One piece of advice is a book by Gordon W. Green, "Getting Straight A's". I looked at it when I first started college years ago and thought that most of it was common sense, but he did give a number of valuable techniques for making good grades. I'm sure that there are similar books on the market as well.</p>
<p>First off, you don't really need to get straight A's if you just want to get a PhD from anywhere, or be a researcher anywhere. The truth is, there are plenty of no-name PhD programs. Even if you had just a 3.0, you could probably get into one of them. </p>
<p>Now if you want to get into one of the premier schools, then that's obviously harder. But still not THAT hard. Molliebatmit pulled only a 3.5/4 in biology and still got into practically every single top Bio PhD program in the country, including Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and Harvard (where she will be going). Granted, she did get that 3.5/4 at MIT, but still. My friend's husband pulled a 3.6 at CMU in ECE and got into the PhD programs at CMU, Stanford, and Berkeley (where he is now). </p>
<p>Good grades obviously help, but are by no means decisive. What seems to be most important of all are your letters of recommendation and your research. Glittering rec letters will go very far towards getting you in. So will publication. Plenty of students with top-notch grades don't get into the programs they want because they have lukewarm rec's or poor research experience.</p>
<p>Mollie isn't a good example of a low GPA success story, exactly :) "Only" a 3.5 at MIT in biology - plus all her research experience, great GREs, etc. Anyone who has looked at Mollie's list of accomplishments should be duly impressed - as were the grad programs.</p>
<p>This leads me to an important point, though, and probably the one sakky was trying to make. GPA is not the only thing grad schools look at. GRE, personal statement, and other experiences matter much. Get good grades, but also try to bolster your application in other ways.</p>
<p>sakky, I think, has spent too much time dealing with the grade grubbing professional schools to realize that a 3.5 at MIT in bio (along with tons of research and involvement) is an amazing accomplishment. There's more to life than a sterling GPA, despite what some around here think...(and I know you know that sakky, so don't say, "I KNOW THAT!" :p)</p>
<p>Just not if you want to go to a top 5 med or law school, where it doesn't necessarily jive.</p>
<p>But your GPA is only ONE component. Think of grad school admissions as a "green flag, red flag, checkered flag" sort of scenario. A GPA above a certain threshold is a "green flag." Below that is a "red flag. An incredibly exceptional GPA is a sort of checkered flag that opens the doors to greater options (funding, and so forth.)</p>
<p>Is a red flag automatic doom? Nope. But it may also make the adcom look a bit more closely (or less, if they don't like you to begin with!) to see why you had a low GPA.</p>
<p>--- Quick aside: one professor of mine said, "A high GPA and low GRE usually means 'hard worker with potentially limited potential.' A low GPA and high GRE usually means 'lazy.'" </p>
<p>Now, even with a green flag or checkered flag with your GPA, you're going to need other good features. A good GRE, good recs, good experience, good essays. No one single green flag will usually get you in. No one single red flag will usually keep you out.</p>
<p>Just try to get as many green and checkered flags as you can, and you'll have a good shot at many programs. But don't be bummed if you get a few dingers... admissions rates to top PhD programs are usually quite low.</p>
<p>To be fair, I should note that a lot of people from MIT applied to the same programs I did, and a lot of them had higher grades than I did -- I know for sure that one of the girls had a perfect 4.0. So the admissions people weren't like "WHOA, a 3.4 from MIT!" -- they were probably more like, "Hmm, the other people from MIT had higher grades than this chick." (Actually, after first term junior year, I had a 3.2, and one of my professors made me promise I'd try to bring it up to a 3.5 by the time I applied to grad school OR ELSE, which frankly put the fear of God about grades into me.)</p>
<p>So I agree that my GPA wasn't a huge negative in my application, but it definitely didn't do anything to help me.</p>
So I agree that my GPA wasn't a huge negative in my application, but it definitely didn't do anything to help me.
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</p>
<p>::COUGH GREEN FLAG COUGH:: :D</p>
<p>I think that admissions to grad school in some ways is actually worse. You can have amazing grades, amazing scores, but you'll have an academic interest in something that's not sought after...and there you go, you're screwed.</p>
<p>linguae: My final GPA isn't impressive (3.5 overall / 3.7 major), neither am I in the best grad program in my field (I go to GT), but I feel like I can relate to you. I had around a 3.0 all the way through my 2nd yr in undergrad because I didn't think I'd want to go to grad school. Then all the sudden I realized I really DID want to go to grad school. Now with a goal in mind, I worked harder and brought my GPA up. Looks like you are the in the same situation, except you already know you want to go to grad school. Just makes that your motivation, and I think you will do fine.</p>
<p>You'll notice that mollie said her professor made her promise to get a 3.5.</p>
<p>Every professor I've ever talked to about grad school has said that if you have a 3.5, they'll move on and look at the other stuff in youer app. If you do better in your upper level courses and your grades improve over time that will help you. A lot of upper level courses are designed to make you integrate your knowledge, which is more important than just having memorized stuff. Chemistry 101 courses and the like are usually designed to have wide distributions to discriminate the students better, no big deal. You'd be too busy doing chemistry (just as an example) for anyone to worry about testing you on it.</p>
<p>A high GPA is no guarantee of admission anyway, I had a 4 point and got rejected from 6 Ph.D programs (although not one had an admit rate above 12 percent). Oddly, it may have been a blessing in disguise. </p>
<p>I think in your case research experience might offset or overcome GPA. Plus, there is no substitute for motivation in getting good grades.</p>
<p>did any of you who got in good grad schools have publications from research? exactly how much do those help? Also, molliebatmit, what other accomplishments did you have? what type of researches did you do exactly? Thanks!</p>
<p>Yeah, I had two publications, one of which was in Cell. As I understand it, the publication helped pretty significantly, as most people aren't published by the time they apply. </p>
<p>I worked for three years in a cellular neurobiology lab, looking at the effect of protein-protein interactions on learning and memory. I worked there about 15 hours a week during school and full-time during summer and January (we have January off at MIT). I talk about what specifically I did in lab in several places on the [url=<a href="http://mollie.mitblogs.com%5Dblog%5B/url">http://mollie.mitblogs.com]blog[/url</a>] I write for the MIT undergrad admissions office.</p>
<p>I don't really know what other "accomplishments" I had -- I didn't have any awards, if that's what you mean.</p>
<p>Haha, I got two straight semesters of 3.8! My junior spring and senior fall I took 75 units each term (normal at MIT is 48), so my two 75-unit terms of 3.8 basically counted as 3 48-unit terms. Hey, my professor had put the fear of God in me, and I knew I had to get the grades. Sheer willpower goes a long way.</p>