<p>I am a newbie,please pardon me if I have posted in the wrong forum.
I am an international undergraduate computer science senior student(from India).I have learnt that MIT is acadamic centric.I have a GPA of 8.3 on a 10.0 scale.I am concerned about my low gpa.Does MIT consider applications only with 3.5 gpa or above?I have also learnt that this is one way of screening applications.
Will my application be REJECTED for sure with this gpa?</p>
<p>Also,my interest is mainly in Quantum computing.I have experience with embedded systems,I am a open source hacker as well.How do I impress with my quantum computing endeavour?Are Research papers sufficient to be considered ?Or will I need to get involved in research programs as well?
Is an internship going to be a plus?</p>
<p>I would be obliged if I could find some answers to my queries.</p>
<p>MIT does not automatically reject anyone based on GPA. However, an unweighted GPA below 3.5 makes admittance highly unlikely unless the applicant has a hook.</p>
<p>MIT’s graduate program in EECS is very competitive, with admission percentages around 5% many years. Successful applicants generally have outstanding GPAs as well as extensive internship/research experience.</p>
<p>Colleges look too much into GPA’s. Anyone can study for infinite hours, but how many are genuinely intelligent? I think you have a shot doij, GPA’s are very overrated in college admissions.</p>
<p>^ Uh, I don’t follow your logic. If colleges overrate GPAs and doij has a bad GPA, how is that helpful?</p>
<p>It’s true that genuine intellect is desirable rather than just plug-and-chugging. This is why recommendations and such are very important to the admission process - but a bad GPA is still a bad sign, whether or not you have genuine intellect.</p>
<p>(Note, I’m not commenting on this specific situation.)</p>
<p>This question is about admission into one of MIT’s graduate programs, not to the undergraduate program.</p>
<p>GPA is not the most important factor for graduate admissions in general, but in a program like MIT’s EECS which admits such a small percentage of applicants, it is essential to have a stellar GPA in addition to everything else.</p>
<p>8.3 on a 10.0 scale, if it’s at one of the IIT’s, is not necessarily a low GPA. I am guessing that this is in the category for first-class honors at graduation? It would be useful to know what % of the students have GPA’s above 8.3.</p>
<p>France also has a pre-college grading system that is nominally based out of 20. However, you can’t obtain the American-equivalent GPA by just dividing by 5. I think that a French student with an average of 18 would have a 4.0 in almost all American schools (if an average of 18 is even attainable in France). The MIT admissions people are familiar with different systems in different countries. International students should not be discouraged by the apparently high American GPA’s, especially at high school level.</p>
<p>As someone from India, I know how harsh the Indian grading system can be. I’m sure that MIT won’t care much about the absolute numeric value of the GPA without taking into account the context behind it. Just see how well you’ve done compared to others in your college/university system.</p>
<p>I don’t want to discount that applicants often have stellar everything, but I strongly believe connections can get you out of having to worry too much about GPA for something like EECS, assuming the connections write glowing things about projects you did. Of course you should have done quite well in some serious coursework, but having blotches does not seem to matter when connections are strong. At least from cases I know of.</p>
<p>I, of course, agree generally – connections and great letters of recommendation are results that are very important in graduate school admissions. And an applicant who had great grades and nothing else would certainly not be admitted.</p>
<p>The EECS program at MIT is just particularly competitive among graduate programs, and I suspect they can have their pick of people with great grades plus stellar letters and interesting previous work. And admission to US graduate programs is (as you know) particularly competitive for international students. Those factors do not work in the favor of international applicants who aren’t the unquestioned best in their particular location.</p>
<p>Yeah, I would refine what I say for the sake of internationals, at least possibly. Among US applicants, all admitted people I have seen were very impressive to me, and there were the near perfect GPA types, but on the other hand, there have been those who were able to be quite confident in their applications [which is saying a ton for such a competitive program] with a relatively lax showing on classes. Admittedly, this was always a case of having knowingly chosen to spend time differently from splitting hairs on GPA, but that is of course my point.</p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say is…if connections really can be so powerful, that is something to be aware of when making choices on how much time to spend on classes versus something else. </p>
<p>Might I add that my advice for theoretical fields would be really different.</p>