Grad School with very low GPA but with Job Experience

Graduate School
1

Hello,

I am an mechanical engineering undergraduate at UCSD. I have overall GPA of 2.3 & major GPA of 2.8.
Due to my GPA, I gave up going to grad school directly. Fortunately, I have gotten opportunities to work in the mechanical engineering industry, and I am working as an intern right now. I have been offered as full time employee after graduation, so there’s that. However, I was wondering whether how many years of job experience is required to compensate for my low GPA. From the searches from other threads, it seems like most people says 2 years minimum 5 years maximum.

Also, does it mean I cannot apply for any grad school with straight cut-off GPA at 3.0? For example, UCSD mechanical engineering department has cut-off requirement at 3.0 and recommended GPA of 3.5. Since they don’t require CV/Resume, I don’t see how my job experience can be considered assuming most application systems are similar.

From what I saw, I think my options are pretty limited on going to grad school. I have to apply for grad program with no GPA requirement. I was also thinking about getting an associate degree while getting job experience to overwrite my GPA. Is this even possible option?

Thank you for reading my situation.

The questions are:
- Years required before applying for a grad program
- Whether it is possible to apply for grad program with 3.0 GPA cutoff
- Is getting an associate degree option?
- Other possible options that I didn’t consider

2

Contact the grad programs you are interested in. Ask them about your specific situation.

3

-There’s no hard and fast answer to this question - it depends on the quality of your work experience, the program itself, and the competition you face from other students as well as the rest of your application. I’d say 3-5 years, probably, for a 2.3 GPA.

-I mean, you can always apply, but this varies too. Some programs will have a hard cutoff no matter how long you’ve been out of school and some are more flexible.

-I think getting an associate’s degree would be a waste of time. Better would be to take a few graduate classes as a non-degree student and do well in them.