gsaray

Is it just a rumor that in top schools (like ivy league schools) they simply throw applications with below average cumulative GPA in a low importance category? In this forum everyone's talking with 3.9 averages and all. Are there some examples of people out there who had below 3.3 average and still got into a top program?

Also, what would be the chances for someone who had this following academic record and still applied to a top Ivy league schools in engineering:
1st year: 2.50
2nd year: 3.40
3rd year: 3.85
4th year: 3.95

Cumulative: 3.28

aunt bea

better have a killer 2400 SAT and killer EC's with research in engineering.

gsaray

I do have some solid hands on research experience but I'm not sure if it will help me at all in M.Eng applications?

hesdjjim

I had a 3.2 when I applied to the GA Tech MSME program, and I got in. That said, I had some other things going for me when I applied, so that may have helped. I didn't get funding, however.

variola

@AuntBea You don't take the SAT for grad school, you take the GRE. And of the materials required, the GRE is given the lowest weight. ECs don't matter at all, unless it's research or direct experience relating to your area of interest, which is heavily recommended.

To the OP, the upward trend in your GPA is a good sign, but below a 3.5 is still a tougher sell. If you have the research/experience to make up for it though, you'd have a shot. I'm in biomed, so I know basically nothing about engineering admissions, so take this with a grain of salt.

TBH, almost no one who posts on these boards has any direct experience with sitting on an AdCom, so any info you get may be anecdotal or specific to a field. Furthermore, since grad school apps are far more holistic and put greater weight on letters of rec and experience than GPA and GRE scores, there is no way to 'chance' someone for grad school. It simply isn't a purely 'by the numbers' game.

gsaray

variola, thanks for your candid response. My aim is to see whether there are some examples of people who proved what you just explained.

b@r!um

I have a friend who weaseled his way into a graduate program at Penn. He secured a lab tech position after all of his graduate applications got rejected. As a full-time employee of the university, he got to take two classes per semester free of charge. After a couple of years of working and taking classes, he successfully applied to their PhD program and immediately advanced to candidacy. Last time I talked to him, he was finishing up his doctoral work in the same lab that had hired him as a lab tech.

hesdjjim

You want to have a good range of schools to apply to. Apply to a couple of schools you consider to be "safeties" but still respectable in engineering, then a couple of mid-tier schools, and finally, a couple of top-tier schools. After you land your first job, an MS degree is an MS degree.

iambored10

Do grad schools weigh major GPA more heavily than overall GPA?

hesdjjim

Yes. <10char>

Orbit196

How do you have a 3.28? if you average your four numbers, shouldn't you have a 3.4?

hesdjjim

It depends on how many units the OP took per term. The more units, the higher the weight of that term. Still, in engineering, the Junior and Senior year tend to count more.

nicholjs

He was probably taking a different number of credits each semester. If one semester had 15 credits, and another 12 credits, then averaging the two semester GPAs would not yield the proper cumulative.

gsaray

Ok the thing is, in my school (a top school in Canada) first year is heavily weighted, but it's general engineering courses. So I started taking civil engineering courses starting from the beginning of second year.

How can I ask admissions people to put weight on my 2nd 3rd and 4th year grades, and ignore my first year grades since they are heavily weighted and have no relevance to my major?

iambored10

From reading these threads, everyone makes it seem like if you don't have a 3.8+ GPA you are totally screwed for graduate school (particularly masters programs)...