JChem

Is that graduate school GPA only? X( oh well. What can I do at this point? Hope they don't just throw away the application purely based on that GPA alone, and do notice the recent 4.0.

Sigh... The average grade on these classes were between a 3.0 and 3.3 (B and B+), especially the introductory classes for first year graduate students, and that's taking into consideration that all these students were top of their own classes as undergrads. I can't really change the reality... Hope they'll take into consideration the difficulty of classes in a top 3 program compared to a top 25 program etc when comparing grades. It's not like I got Cs, and I doubt there really are students from schools of the same caliber that have graduate school GPAs vastly greater than 3.5, no? Especially since grades tend to go up as students take elective courses later in their career. This is my second time applying for the program. In my previous application, when I only had the undergraduate GPA to display, I did receive an academic merit of Excellent, and the broader impacts held me back. I feel that I've addressed the broader impacts more this time (highlighting the touring of several local high schools and recruitment of undergraduate students to take on my research after my graduateion), but this time the graduate GPA may hold me back again.

Wait, so graduate school classes are actually important, beyond passing? The entire point of graduate school and a PhD program is to do good research, isn't it? Some advisors even discourage taking classes beyond the introductory classes... I'm not sure how closely they'll look at the transcript itself, as the most recent set of grades is a 4.0. They do realize the graduate school cumulative GPA will be barely based on a single year so far, right?

I know. My biger concern is how much importance they place in graduate school class grades. I already have a conference presentation and publication, and was hoping that my research would be weighed more heavily than simple grades. In the end, I did pass and am above the GPA threshold for graduation.

Hi there. This year's my last chance to apply for the GRFP. My undergrad GPA is at ~3.88 in chemical engineering, which I feel pretty good about. I gained admission to a pretty good graduate program, but wasn't prepared for the jump in difficulty. My graduate school GPA tanked quite a bit, and while it's improving, it's still at 3.29 right now. Do you know if this will affect my chances to get the fellowship? I was thinking of simply appending an enrollment verification that shows me being registered throughout the last year in the PhD program, but the instruction states that I need a transcript from every institution I list. Your recommendations would be highly appreciated.