116student

I am an international student with the following stats.

Major: Mechanical Engineering
GPA: 3.4
Research experience: a year and a half of experience working with countries abroad and within the US.
Activities: 1). An active leader in a number of clubs on campus.
2). Culturally very active in various programs
3). A lot of volunteer work for community service.
4). Also was highly active in high school.
Achievements: won a couple of scholarships and awards.

I will be graduating in a years time and i was hoping to raise my gpa to at least a 3.5 by the time i graduate. I wanted to apply for graduate school however, i was not sure which schools would take me. What do you think are my chances at getting into the following schools.

University of Illinois, Urbana Campaign
UCLA
University of Southern California
Yale
Cornell
Penn state
Harvard
California Institute of technology.
Texas A&M

I was also wondering should i wait for a year until my gpa was high enough to apply to these schools?

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

116student

Please help!

b@r!um

Are you currently studying in the US or abroad?

We can't "chance" you because the single most important factor of your application are your letters of recommendation. That also makes your (potential) references uniquely qualified to give you advice about graduate school.

Since you asked for our honest opinion: the mere fact that you are asking here instead of asking your professors is a bad sign.

xraymancs

For graduate school admissions, your GPA is only one input. You have to take the GRE and as b@rium says the letters or reference are key. You also have not stated whether you are interested in a M.S. or Ph.D. as the entrance requirements and financial aid options greatly depend on this.

Speaking from my experience as Assoc. Dean for Graduate Admissions at Illinois Tech, you are aiming quite high with these schools and they always have very high quality applicants and very strong competition for admission to the Ph.D. programs. You would do better to apply to a few of them only and then some other universities which are not quite so highly ranked.

116student

I have very good recommendation letters at hand and i am applying for the MS program. I am also currently studying in the US.

I always had a good gpa from freshman year, but it dropped due to one semester and ever since i have been trying to get it back on track. I am hoping that the schools would be considerate and overlook this and see my other qualities.

PCHope

Unless your undergraduate school is extraordinarily hard and you have extraordinary research experiences, you have little chance to get into these schools.

xraymancs

It is often easier to get into the Masters program because departments will generally not offer any financial assistance and the masters is often considered a professional degree. Still the schools you mention are going to be tough to get into.

Catria

Try Polytechnique in Montreal... fully funded if you want to do a research MS.