<p>
</p>
<p>But for the purposes of PhD programs, GPA is itself ‘soft’ - indeed arguably the ‘softest’ portion of the application in the sense that it conveys very little information about how strong of a researcher the candidate is. And ultimately, within a PhD program, and within academia as a whole - which any PhD program is supposed to be targeting as a career path - research is all that matters. Nobody in academia will ever care what your GPA was, either undergrad or grad. All they will care about is the quality of your publication record. </p>
<p>Anybody who’s been around academia can surely think of numerous people who had stellar GPA’s but simply couldn’t overcome the research hurdle, which usually means not even being able to finish the PhD at all. Consuming and understanding knowledge is far different from producing new knowledge. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But I’m not sure that the distinction matters. Either way, you’ve proved that you know how to ‘play the publication game’. You know how to write a paper of publishable quality in an A-level journal - and we are assuming that you are publishing in an A-level - and you know how to satisfy the concerns of editors and referees. in the world of academia, that, frankly, is far more valuable than high grades. Like I said, if nothing else, many departments will want to admit you simply because faculty will probably want to collaborate with you, or at least pick your brain, so that they too can publish in that same A-level journal that you did. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I suspect that, for reasons stated above, that requirement is highly permeable for applicants who are already successfully publishing. But even if not, there is nothing that states that you have to go to Berkeley specifically. A number of top graduate programs exist; surely one will admit you if you have already been successfully publishing. </p>
<p>The point is, at the end of the day, research/publishing is by far the most valued activity within academia, and any undergrad who can prove that they can do that is going to be a prize applicant, regardless of whatever other deficiencies he may have. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I never said that it was commonplace - indeed, the ability to understand information is surely highly correlated with the ability to produce new information. Any strong researcher is likely to have also been a strong student. </p>
<p>But the point is, the two are not necessarily linked and actual research/pub prowess is far more prized than is pure ‘student’ prowess.</p>