Lowish GPA at good college?

Graduate School
1

<p>What chance has someone with a GPA of around 2.8 at UVA got at getting into a decent grad. school for international relations or public policy?</p>

<p>I know that most places want a GPA of at least 3.0, but does it make a difference with the school you went to?</p>

2

<p>Hey, I go to UVa too. Although I have a science/engineering major, I feel your pain…</p>

3

<p>Pretty low coming right out of undergrad. You’ll need several years of work experience afterwards, as your undergrad GPA becomes less and less important as more time passes and your work experience counts more. Also, be sure to score well on your GREs to have a shot.</p>

<p>I think it also depends on what your major is. A 2.8 in poli sci/international relations/liberal arts in general is a lot worse than say a 2.8 in engineering or math.</p>

4

<p>Your undergraduate college doesn’t matter too much so long as most people have heard of it. Sometimes if a school gets a reputation for grade inflation it can take the wind out of a high GPA.</p>

<p>If you went to an Ivy or CalTech/Stanford/MIT/etc, it could maybe give it a small boost, but other than that, a 2.8 is fairly weak.</p>

5

<p>on a similar note, do graduate schools look more closely at your gpa for the particular major that you would be applying for (i.e. your history gpa for a history graduate degree) than your overall gpa?</p>

6

<p>ReDbUll298,</p>

<p>Short answer: Yes.</p>

<p>However, one must still qualify for admission by attaining the minimum GPA required by the Graduate School. (Usually 3.5 or 3.0.) When an applicant meets minimum requirements, then their application is forwarded to the department to which they are applying. It is the department that then makes the decision. So a history department, for instance, is not going to care if you got a D in physics. Nor is a history department going to care if you got a lowish score on the quant section of the GREs.</p>

<p>However, a high score on the quant section will be one minor factor that could help an aspiring grad student in history to attain a university-wide fellowship. (See the Grad School 101 thread for more info.)</p>