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Many of the students who post on this board are bloggers, or bloggers-wanna-bes, and are, literally and metaphorically, MIT cheerleaders, so I think it's good to get some "balance" -- to see another perspective.
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Almost all of the bloggers and former bloggers who post here were on CC first and bloggers later -- I know that's true of me, Laura, Lulu, Chris, and Anthony. We're not parroting any sort of admissions line here.
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The idea that a low GPA from MIT will be viewed more highly than an excellent GPA from State U, is simply delusional (and a tad arrogant) -- just look at where many MIT TAs come from!
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Right, they come from MIT itself. MIT is the modal graduate school destination of MIT undergrads, and MIT is also the modal undergrad source of MIT graduate students.
Anecdotally, I had a 4.4 when I applied to graduate school, rather significantly below average in my department, and I was admitted to every top graduate program in my field with no reservations. It's not that graduate schools don't care about GPA, but students from high-quality programs are given leeway in terms of their GPAs. I guarantee that no one from a state school got into my PhD program with a 3.4 GPA.
My husband graduated with a 4.0 (which is below the graduating student average, which is a 4.2), got into MIT's master's program in his field, but chose to take a great job offer. I'm not sure anyone even ever asked for his GPA -- they didn't need to.
Again, I don't think MIT is perfect. But on the list of things I would change about MIT, the interiors of dorms and forcing professors to give reading assignments are not high up there.