<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am currently a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering. I go to a top 5 mechanical engineering school and my GPA is 3.55. </p>
<p>I plan to go to graduate school in mechanical engineering. (masters or ph.d.)
My dream grad schools are MIT, UC, Berkeley,and Stanford. </p>
<p>I think I can get my GPA up to 3.6 or 3.7 later on and I have had several research experiences.</p>
<p>I started doing research with an assistant professor at my school in January and I plan to do so continuously. I am working on 3 projects and it is highly probable that I can get 2 or 3 publications (most likely 2nd or 3rd author) at the end of summer. After 1 month since I started working with him, I was able to get his strong recommendation letter to apply for SURF programs. Therefore, I think I can get a very strong LOR from him when I apply for the grad program.</p>
<p>While doing research with him, I will be doing 2 more research projects with 2 highly regarded professors at my school during the summer. They are the president of my university and a chaired professor, respectively. Because I have not started working with them yet, I am not so sure if I can get publications, but I think it can be possible to get their LORs.</p>
<p>What would you recommend me do if I wanted to go to my dream schools?
Do you think my low gpa will prevent my goals? I have seen the results from another thread, and they usually had 3.8~3.9 GPA. </p>
<p>Also, if I want to continue doing research this much, I may graduate a bit later.
Would it affect my grad application?</p>
<p>Is it easier to get into masters than ph.d? </p>
<p>Any tips will be helpful.</p>