Non genius applicants

jack63
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:18:44 +0000

soccergurl7988…I’ve felt you pain…and then some. My GPA out of College was similar to yours. It trended upward thru my junoir and senoir year. I’m an engineer. I applied to Masters(not even PhD and I was willing to pay) programs out of college, and did not get my first, second third, or fourth choices. I got my Masters though, and worked for a number of years after that. I reapplied to PhD programs with significant work experience that was very relavant to research being done at these schools. Got into a Phd program that was truly tied for my first choice school…a school usually ranked about 5 to 7 in my field and overall. A school that had turned me down as a Masters student years earlier. My work experience was the key I believe. This game is a long one…at least for me.

…and by the way. Sometimes the 4.00 won’t do it. These PhD schools look for fits, research experience, and other cool experiences. I went to a very good liberal arts school. I’ve seen the person who was literally top in has class do worse at getting into top grad schools than somebody with below 3.50 GPA because of fit, research experience and letters of recommendation.

My advice is get research experience or other cool experiences. A guy I knew from college got into the peace corps and taught in some god forsaken place. He was not a 4.00 student, but got into Harvard physics PhD after that peace corp experience.