high GPA at average uni or low/average GPA at top uni?

International Students
1

<p>I’m an international student (will finish my freshman year by mid-July) at an American university in Europe. I feel like I’m simply wasting my money because I’m not getting any practical experience (ex. the students services is practically dead, no school activities whatsoever), I feel as if I’m not given the chance to grow in my field, I feel like I’m at an “artificial” university, and I feel like my schoolmates are simply there because they’ve got the money to pay for the tuition and not really to study.
I’ve got a 4.0 GPA and I feel that by graduation time comes, I could get several awards and I can even be the summa cum laude.</p>

<p>However, I am also thinking of transferring at a top-ranked UK Uni (preferably Royal Holloway)–a bit more expensive that where I am now, yes, but I feel that my money will really be going into my education if I go here instead.
My only worry is that the UK educational system has only 2 exams per academic year (compared to my present uni’s 8-week system, meaning we get exams every month). I am so much more used to studying less information and taking much more exams, I keep on thinking, these 2 exams would affect my grade a lot, what if I feel overloaded with information and not do well on these 2 exams–therefore resulting in a lower GPA and not graduating with honors? </p>

<p>I am also planning to go to a top graduate school in the US, and I do not know whether the name of the undergraduate school or the high GPA/honor matters more.</p>

<p>I’d appreciate any advice you may give. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Imo, you’re better off going for the top uni… By the sounds of things, you’d be happier with more of a challenge. And who knows, you could get a high GPA anyway.</p>

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<p>if you have to pick between them many in US will pick the GPA. Its not the reputation that will get u into a Great Med, Business or Law school in the end its your GRE/GMAT/LSAT, GPA, and ur experience that will get you into Top Notch schools. </p>

<p>To be fair Harvard’s 3.0 or Berkeley’s 3.0 might be different than UCSD 3.0 but at the end of the day a 3.0 is still a 3.0 where ever you go. </p>

<p>So if you put this logic of GPA into perspective if you went to a really bad high school and got a 4.0 uw is different than going to a really tough high school and getting a 3.0 uw. Colleges will know where is harder but at the end of the day the person got a 4.0 and the other person got a 3.0 plus its only undergraduate</p>

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<p>Royal Holloway is not a top uni. Not even close.</p>

<p>Plus, for grad school admissions your GPA matters far more than the name of the school. (For employment directly after undergrad, the opposite is generally true.)</p>