<p>I’m currently in a blended BS/MS engineering program.
I say blended and not ‘combined’ because my program has allowed me to take grad courses at the same time with my undergrad courses.
A required 7-month co-op is required for my engineering program, which I am fulfilling at the moment (I’m 3 months in. Im working in Japan at an electrical/mechanical engineering company in their R&D section).</p>
<p>My expected graduation date is May 2014 and at this time I will walk and receive my 2 separate degrees: my BS in Bioengineering and my MS in Engineering Science with a concentration in Mechanical Engineering.
So I am currently a 5th year student (because of my co-op and the blended MS program which takes 1 year (summer + fall+ spring courses , I have no break) so I didn’t walk this past spring with the rest of my class.</p>
<p>I will return to classes in January 2013 so I still have a good year and a half until I graduate. The problem is I want to continue grad school and get a PhD. I understand that this requires a competitive GPA and my GPA at the moment is about a 3.11.
This is my ‘Undergrad’ GPA, as I’m under the impression but because I’m in this blended program, I don’t know if I get 2 separate GPA’s…like an undergrad GPA and a grad GPA…</p>
<p>and say I do have 2 separate GPA’s…if I apply for a PhD program, will they look at both of my GPA’s? or just the grad GPA??
I really don’t know if I should even try applying to a PhD program with the GPA that if im just getting 1 overall GPA beacuse of this blended program.</p>
<p>Ph.D admissions aren’t formulaic, so they will look at the grades which you earned. If you earned the kind of grades that get you a 3.11 overall GPA, you will probably not be competitive for most Ph.D programs.</p>
<p>i messed up big time my freshman year…and that just started my college GPA allll baaaaad :(</p>
<p>I’ve been doing a lot better since then…this past Spring semester I got a 3.75 GPA…again that was just for the semester…so that only bumped up my overall GPA by a teeny tiny bit.</p>
<p>That’s why im asking if i will have 2 GPA’s or just 1 GPA because of this blended program Im in.</p>
<p>my first grad class i got a B+…but i dont know if this is the start of my ‘grad GPA’ or if that just got added to my ‘undergrad GPA’ because I don’t see a grad GPA on my unofficial transcript.</p>
<p>yes im aware of the 3.0 i must maintin to stay in the program.
I am considered a ‘grad student’ because I have started my grad program…but I am still kinda an ‘undergrad’ because I havent finished all of my undergrad courses yet…
but I have started my grad courses, thats why my university calls it the Blended program.
we can only start taking grad classes the last semester of our senior year, which is what i did.</p>
<p>I only have a single gpa for my bs/ms program. It depends on the school. PhD programs will look through your courses in more detail than looking for a single number.</p>
<p>I spent 3 years in charge of Graduate Admissions at my school and we definitely looked at the undergraduate and graduate GPAs separately. In addition, we look at improvement in grades so that a poor first year will not impact you so negatively.</p>
<p>That being said, a 3.11 GPA won’t get you into top 20 programs but if you have strong GRE scores, you have a good chance of getting into a strong program that is not in the usual lists of top schools. Your best resource is the faculty in your current university who can give you suggestions on programs which might fit you best.</p>
<p>Remember that what is important in the Ph.D. is research that you are passionate about, getting good funding throughout your program, having a good advisor who can help you find a job after graduation, and an overall supportive environment. You can find this at lots of schools. A good place to look is [PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources](<a href=“http://phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://phds.org) which has the searchable results of the 2007 National Research Council survey. Of course the data a a bit out of date but it will give you some suggested schools that you can then investigate further.</p>