<p>There are Mudd students in many of the strong graduate programs in mathematics, but they were probably very, very strong students, probably with those 3.7+ GPAs. </p>
<p>I think OP, CS seems a bit more forgiving about GPA, although programs like Stanford and MIT can probably ask for high GPAs along with all the other stuff. I feel like a 3.5 or 3.6 from Mudd with very, very persistent effort at getting a strong research background and fantastic letters should get you into a terrific graduate program.</p>
<p>The one issue I can see with CS admissions is that it seems a lot like “Hey, I want this person in my research group, and they were recommended by someone I know well, let’s hire him…”, and that sort of thing may favor undergraduates who come from very CS-heavy schools for undergraduate, and make it less likely that you can get in from Mudd. I’m sure Mudd academics is well reputed, but I think that means it <em>might</em> be true that you should be in the camp of the absolute most successful students in school to get into the most competitive graduate programs. I just feel someone who struggled a lot less to get a good GPA at Stanford’s undergrad in CS, for example, would have the connections and right background to have an “in” at a terrific program.</p>
<p>This is a point that others can discuss. Miru seems to know how to get you to a good school from Mudd, so I’m just throwing out an outsider’s perspective.</p>
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<p>As encouragement, if your GPA <em>in the field of study of concern</em> is very high, I think this will matter a ton less. That is, if you got a C in biology but your physics GPA is super high, I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting into graduate school in physics.</p>