<p>I am a CS major now and my gpa is around 3.6..... is it too low if I want to get into MIT Stanford or Berkeley for grad school? What type of gpa do I need to get?</p>
<p>My GPA is 3.52 and my GRE scores this time were around 1,100 which to me is low, but it got me into two really good schools.</p>
<p>on a universal scale, i'd say 3.5 in anything is enough for you to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>I've given this anecdote before, but here goes: I was talking to a professor who's on the math admissions committee at the University of Washington. He said that they nearly always cut people if they have less than a 3.7 overall in junior and senior math classes. By the way, the UW is a good school in math (top 20), but not a great school (top 5). So, I think that there's no hard and fast rule on what kind of GPA is "acceptable" for grad school admissions --- it's really dependent on field.</p>
<p>It probably depends on how competitive your major is as well. There are unique cases of stellar applicants with sub-3.0 GPAs who do get into top schools. And it probably depends on the department's previous experiences with people with subpar GPAs - departments that have a history of admitting people with subpar GPAs may be more lenient towards those with subpar GPAs (especially if those students turned out well in the end).</p>
<p>It all depends on the institutional background (and the background of recent departmental applicants)</p>
<p>You have to show (a) achievement, (b) aptitude, and (c) willingness to actually stay committed to one's major (a lot of grad students do drop out, so this becomes a factor). If you manage to show all three characteristics but have poor grades for the first couple of years - then your main goal is making sure that your application is not weeded out before it has a chance to be evaluated seriously. The only problem is that the job market isn't particularly hot right now - which translates to more mediocre applicants applying to grad schools - which also translates to more applications being thrown out before being seriously considered. If you have a close relationship with a professor - the professor could call the departments you're considering and tell those departments that you are a very serious type of student.</p>
<p>Now, this is pure speculation - but I think that smaller departments are more willing to seriously consider people with weaker GPAs (they don't have to deal with so many applications to instantly weed out).</p>
<p>It's hard to say. I know people with >3.9 and almost perfect GRE scores (both quant and verbal) with great research who've been rejected by MIT, and vise versa people with average stats get in. It depends a lot on the makeup of the department, how many students they want to recruit, and other 'intangibles.'</p>
<p>I think a 3.6 is fine so long as you have outstanding letters of recommendation and good GRE scores. Apply to all of those schools, and just see what happens. I didn't think I'd get into any of the schools I did because I had a weak quant GRE (720 for an engineer...), but lo and behold I did just fine and go to a top ten school.</p>
<p>Why just limit yourself to MIT and Berkeley? For CS University of Washington, my alma matar, is ranked 7th in the country, why not go there? You need to broaden your horizon there're a lot of good schools out there. I'd take the path of least resistance :)</p>
<p>I got in ND engineering w/ just a 3.4 gpa (770Q and 550V), i felt pretty lucky. The mean for my department ranges from a 2.8 to a 3.1 though so that's still a bit above average.</p>