<p>what about redressing 3.3/4 GPA
with 1490(700v+790q) GRE for top good engineering schools</p>
<p>Where did you get the 3.3/3.4 GPA? How rigorous was it? I don’t think that a 3.3/3.4 is bad in an engineering major.</p>
<p>Simply put, no way.</p>
<p>A 1490 is a very impressive score and I doubt I could ever reach that verbal but as many have said the GRE is usually used to make sure you have some skill in preparation and studying. This meaning they usually have cutoffs and after that it is down to gpa letters and SOP.</p>
<p>How would a 700 verbal rectify how you have been doing in maths and engineering courses. It does not make any sense. And about the 790, for top engineering it is quite normal, anything above 770 and they won’t really care.</p>
<p>I disagree. From personal experience, it’s possible. I had a 3.4 GPA in undergrad and I got a 1530 GRE (790v + 740q, 6.0 AW). I also had strong recommendation letters, solid research experience, and a good SoP. I’m currently in a social science program that’s in the top 10 in my field.</p>
<p>It depends on a lot of factors – I’m assuming the 3.3 is a cumulative? What is your major GPA? Mine was ~3.6, which I think influenced their decision (no one cares that I got a C in Principles of Acting during freshman year or a B in History of the Modern World).</p>
<p>My advice? Apply to a range of programs and don’t forget to add master’s programs in there too, just in case. See what happens, especially if the rest of your package is tight.</p>
<p>First off, a high verbal score for any science/engineering field won’t help you. They want to make sure you can read, comprehend, and write in english, but they don’t care if you don’t know all those words, that you will likely NEVER use again. </p>
<p>Second, high quantitative score helps, but the math is so easy, that any scientist or engineer that passed his classes understands the math. The test is only testing your ability to work through problems quickly and manage your time.</p>
<p>So GRE scores just don’t really mean a whole lot. It’s just a way to standardize applicants. Something like a 790Q 700V isn’t going to make a 3.3 look like a 3.8. </p>
<p>Really good research experience, publications, and strong LORs could definitely make up for a low GPA</p>
<p>3.3 being good or bad really depends on where you went. If you went to an easy school, the question might immediately come up about why you did poorly despite having a high aptitude. I don’t think a high GRE score will help anything, and in fact if there is indeed a mismatch then it might hurt you.</p>
<p>I don’t think 3.3/4 is really a low gpa if you’re applying for a masters program.</p>
<p>3.3/4 is a decent GPA but like everyone else, it depends on where you come from. </p>
<p>For example, my GPA is somewhere around 3.8/4 at a top 10 BME program and I did poorly on my quantitative GREs (ie. 720). I got this twice and for an engineer that could raise some questions. I recieved all A’s and one A- in my math classes (because I missed one question on one test… ouch, but I digress). My grades are a better reflection of who I am than the test in this case. I still received offers from BME PhD programs, so that’s a case where I think the GRE does not accurately represent my skill set.</p>
<p>I don’t know. I think I got some interviews I wouldn’t have without a good GRE, but I have no way of knowing. </p>
<p>GPA: 3.3</p>
<p>GRE: 640V/800Q/6.0AW (91%/94%/97% respectively)</p>
<p>But I had a lot of research (~4 years in medical school lab plus several months at a Pharma corp (abbott) plus a few months doing biofuels research simultaneously with the med school lab, plus a couple publications) which probably held a lot more weight.</p>
<p>From what I hear, GRE matters very little for engineering grad schools. It’s used only to flush out the totally unqualified candidates and will definitely not help offset a low GPA. However, if you have great research experiences and recommendation letters, your GPA will matter very little.</p>
<p>A 780 or 800 quant is expected. Verbal matters very little (unless you did really badly). So no, it won’t help.</p>
<p>Also, think about it this way. How much time does it take to study enough to get a good GRE score? How much time does it take to study to get a really high GPA? There’s an order of magnitude difference at least, so of course the former won’t cover up the latter.</p>
<p>Hi,
I posted this to a different thread, but this discussion seems more pertinen
I am in a similar sort of situation, in that I have high GRE scores (V: 760, Q: 770 and W:6) but have a lower gpa (3.43). Nevertheless, I want to study the history of religions in South Asia in Graduate school. My major gpa from the University of Virginia (which was in South Asian studies) is 3.87 which should be high enough. My gpa was affected by low grades in unrelated courses; I had initially planned on majoring in Econ and Biology and those were the areas in which I scored poorly. Could anyone shed any light on how such a circumstance may be viewed by prospective grad school programs.
Thanks a bunch.</p>
<p>religi: you should be fine. your major gpa is what matters most, and your cum gpa is still pretty good.</p>
<p>does high GPA (relative) cover for lower GRE??? T_T</p>
<p>What if you have a 3.2-3.5 GPA from a City College? >.< Would I have no chance for a Top Graduate program?</p>
<p>Gre is supposed to tell the admission officers your capabilities of learning, but never meant for compensating you GPA!</p>
<p>KidNovelist, what do you want to study? Based on your name, I surmise that you may be interested in creative writing MFA programs. For those, GPA, GRE scores, and where you went to college matter very little. It’s all in the writing sample.</p>
<p>But if you are talking about a PhD program in a more academic field, then it will be very, very difficult to you to get into a top program with a 3.2 from a City College unless you have another compelling part of your application. (A 3.5 will be much better, obviously.) That doesn’t mean that you can’t get into graduate school, however.</p>
<p>The good news is that graduate schools tend to look at the whole package, giving greater weight to research and LORs than to grades and GREs, provided that you at least meet the minimum requirements for the specific program.</p>