Hi Guys,
I attended two undergrad schools and therefore have two GPAs. My second school has a significantly higher GPA because I learned better there and really put more effort into keeping my grades up. For reference I had around a 2.47 at the first school and I graduated at my second school with a 3.50.
I recently applied for my Alma Mater’s (the one I graduated from) Master of Social Work program. I submitted my recommendation forms and letters and then they called to let me know they still needed my resume and personal statement. I asked if they needed any of my transcripts and they said no since I was a student they had both their own transcripts and the transcripts I submitted when I transferred and that was all taken care of. I submitted the rest of my application only to get a call saying they just realized that when they cumulate my GPAs from both schools I fall short of the required 3.0 admission GPA…I asked what the GPA came out to be…she reluctantly said it came out to be a 2.995. We talked about provisional admission, which required me to take the MAT and score at least the 30th percentile, which I was OK with, but then she also said provisional admission is only considered for students who are going the 3 or 4 year part time option. I was really only interested in the 2 year full time option, so I reluctantly told her I would think about it, but was leaning towards withdrawing the application entirely.
At this point I was narrowed down to doing the Social Work degree or doing their Master of Health and Human Services degree which only requires a 2.70 GPA and some pre-requisite business coursework, which works out well for me since my undergraduate degree is in business/HR and focused most of my research papers and projects on healthcare administration anyways. I think that degree is basically their version of a Master of Healthcare Administration, which I do have an interest in. The other nice thing about that particular program is unlike many programs like it, it requires a practicum, which would make me much more marketable than someone who has no experience before or during the program. Maybe it was a sign that this was the route I should take…ha ha.
I was kind of disappointed they didn’t figure that out before I contacted all these people to get letters from and spend a few weeks really putting together a good, passionate personal statement and that it was that close. I have requested they recalculate it just to make sure, but I am sure a computer did it so it is probably right.
My question is…is this common practice to cumulate all undergrad GPAs? How do they calculate it if one schools uses +/- grading and another does not? I ask because most of the graduate programs I looked at specifically wanted all transcripts, but quite a few specified they were really only interested in the “GPA on the transcript in which the bachelors degree was conferred on.”
Thanks guys!