I'm stunned at some of the replies to this thread. A GPA under 3.5 as bad in grad school?? Wow it must really depend on the school and program...
I was in a top 10 school for a PhD program in Engineering and anything above a 3.0 was fine. Literally, fine. Many people had around a 3.2 while there were a few who put in more effort for higher. What mattered was research output, having teaching assistantships, and demonstration of leadership. We were all smart coming in (again, coming in depended on GRE more than GPA... bc I had a 3.1 GPA undergrad but went to a top 15 school for engineering where the average GPA was a 2.7) so therefore GPA didn't matter too much, even for a PhD?
I left the program after my qualifiers for a Masters due to funding difficulties and just being bored with research. A few years later, I figured out my life a bit more and went back to a PhD program in a different school, different major. Now in Pathology and Molecular Medicine -- all medical sciences. Now I had a GPA of 3.6 (busted ass for that becuase I completely switched majors) and knowing others', it is competely fine to have a GPA below 3.5. I think we all average around a 3.5-3.8. Nobody gets higher than that.
In my "gap time", I worked and had tuition reimbursement for classes. I took night classes because I am just crazy like that... took some grad level classes and easily got A's in those... I think it depends on the program??? I really cannot imagine getting above a 3.8-4.0 in grad school in engineering or medicine... the bell curve just doesn't work like that... but I don't know. Just my limited experiences
