I’m a transfer student. I got into UNC-Chapel Hill and University of Virginia. I have a 3.9 gpa at my current school (top 50 ranked). Do I go to a better school and risk not performing as well acaemically/gpa-wise or stay at my current school and know I’ll be able to continue to keep up my grades so that I’ll have a high GPA when applying to grad school?
Why are you trying to transfer? There must be a good reason. High GPA is important if going to grad school, but it’s hard to give advice because we have no idea why you are transferring out of a Top 50 school.
I’m a finance major and the program at UNC is ranked top ten, but Pepperdine’s finance program was just started 3 years ago and is ranked 150 something. I’d be getting a far better education at UNC when it comes to my major but I for sure want to go to grad school at Wharton or Harvard and can’t do that if I anything under a 3.8ish minimum.
Since grad school is your main priority you should go to UNC or UVA and try to bust your butt. UVA also has a great finance program and you would have a decent shot at an Ivy grad school. I’m pretty sure schools take into consideration grade inflation or deflation of each school so, as long you have the brains, you should be fine.
Grad schools do not take grade deflation into account except perhaps a little bit. Every med school likes to brag that its average GPA is X.
@SeekingPam I agree to an extent, but OP may not be looking into pre-professional grad school. Grad school could also mean Ph.D programs amongst other things.
by grad school I mean getting my MBA
^ In rereading his responses, OP is interested in Wharton, implying business school. I would suggest he pose the question on the preprofessional or business school forums, they would know best whether a lower GPA at a prestigious program beats a higher GPA at a less prestigious school.
On a related note, Harvard requires you to work for at least two years after college. Which school will provide the best job opportunities in the field OP would like to enter? How much does GPA matter? IDK but this is something OP should understand in making his decision.
I think you are looking at this the wrong way. First, you can’t go directly to Harvard or Wharton to get your MBA. You will have to work for a few years first and show promise that you are exec material. Second, you won’t get that much more, if anything, out of transferring to UVa or UNC as far as the material that is covered. If you do end up at one of those MBA programs, all the advanced stuff will be learned there and, assuming you do well, having an MBA from one of those two will go far to getting you started at a high level. So unless you are really unhappy at Pepperdine, I would stay put and just do great. Then do what needs to be done to get into one of those schools in about 3-4 years.