belowthree

Probably not at all. At this point it's probably not going to be your grades that matters. They're good, so now you need to move on to other things and make sure they're as good.

Economic development... on the Pacific Rim?

I know you were exaggerating, but the entire flaw in your reasoning revolves around assumptions like this. To be a professor you need a remarkably thick skin. If you really did offend him I think you could expect comments sooner rather than later. Why don't you just check with some of the other students and see if they got their comments back yet? Or you could even just write him a short e-mail and mention that you're worried he might have been offended and you were wondering what he thought of your paper.

Did you extend your decision deadline or something? I would have thought you would have had to get back to some of these folks by April 15th. Anyways, I just thought I'd chime in because I recently chose to attend a school ranked in the 50s (I'm in CS too, so I understand what you mean by that...) over some others for some of the same reasons you mentioned. An enthusiastic advisor, funding, a solid group, good location and I felt I'd be able to have the freedom to do whacky things there. I'm pretty happy about my choice. I think there's actually an advantage in taking a position at a lower ranked program in that people are going to likely give you a lot more leeway there. If you're good, you'll be one of their top researchers and that means you'll be able to get what you need without issue. The downside is you're going to have to push yourself because the environment will be less competitive, but if you're self-motivated then maybe this will be fine.

After I started taking graduate courses my second year of undergrad. I really enjoyed it and started doing research the next year. Then I knew I was going to take a whack at it. When I told friends I was planning on going to grad school, they were a little skeptical. I'm well known for slacking off in some of my courses. I just figured I'd find something, sure enough, I did. [*:1wep8x2a]In September I had no idea which schools I was applying too [*:1wep8x2a]In October I started meeting with my advisor to narrow down a list of schools [*:1wep8x2a]Sometime during November I stopped by different professors offices and got my 3 letter writers together, told them to expect a list and a packet later on [*:1wep8x2a]In early November I started drafting my SoP and getting some feedback on it [*:1wep8x2a]In mid November I opened my first applications to see what types of questions would be on the apps. [*:1wep8x2a]In late November I contacted some auxiliary recommenders [*:1wep8x2a]In the first week of December I sent out the packet to my letter writers with a list of schools I was applying to, my SoP, my CV and a copy of my transcript. I dropped a physical packet off a few days later with paperwork for the two schools I was applying to that still used non-electronic letters. [*:1wep8x2a]The second week of December I sat down for two days and filled out every application for all the schools. [*:1wep8x2a]My first LoR writer submitted only a few days after the deadline, my second three weeks after the deadline and my last almost two months after the deadline. One of my auxiliary writers came through to at least put most of my applications in a "complete" state so that by the time they were being reviewed I had three letters of rec even though I was hoping to have four. The first school that accepted me did so with only 2 of 3 letters. [*:1wep8x2a]Oh, that came in late late January along with an interview request. Two weeks later I had half my decisions, almost all the rest were in by mid March or so. Both. 11 apps gets you pretty far in terms of shooting at a few places you don't expect and a few you might. The results were a bit surprising actually. In some cases the top schools and the bottom schools I applied to were interested in my application and the schools in the middle were not. It was a bit odd. LoRs are one of the most important aspects of your application. I know that's what got me in to the school I ended up selecting. (I met with my potential advisor last weekend and he introduced me to one of his colleagues as "the guy with those recommendation letters", I'm pretty sure it was meant in a good way.) Publishing really helps (especially with the rec letters) but it isn't necessary. Having experience in research is important too, even if you don't end up publishing.

Places that accept you. I find those in particular have a remarkably higher rates of providing aid. Apply to the places you want to go, worry about aid later. Especially in engineering.

This is why I list some of mine. It's a "hey I care about these things and I work with these groups of people." At some point in academia a lot of people share the same groups and it makes less sense for awhile, but then usually at that point you're participating in them in more defined ways and your affiliation changes simply from "I'm a member of this" to something more. So in my mind it's reasonable to list them. Just don't expect anyone to care about it.

My advice: Don't. Let your work and your application stand on its own. If the learning disability is going to hinder you in grad school that's not going to work out very well either. Let your application be evaluated the same way everyone else's is.

Someone here might be able to help you, but you might have more luck asking in a different venue. This is more focused towards graduate level education. Although I see from your other posts that you were also considering a master's program. Perhaps you might be able to get some better information if you were to ask about the differences of an AAS vs. an MFA or similar for someone with your situation. As a complete outsider I'd hazard that getting an AAS before getting an MFA couldn't hurt, but is a master's degree your ultimate goal? If so, are you interested in some advice on whether or not getting an AAS first is a decent way to transition fields?

As I hinted at earlier this is illegal in some states so look up the laws in your area if you don't already know.

I'm at UCSD for my undergraduate work and then I'll be moving next year to UCSC. It's certainly possible to get in without research experience but that is is a tough row to hoe for a PhD applicant. If your rec letters sing, they'd probably take you. With MS this is less of an issue. Probably apply to UCSD as a reach and look at some of the other UC schools as well. UCSB, UCSC and UCI come to mind. UCD maybe even.

Hmm... given what you're saying here, I'd say: investigate secondary schools within strong state systems and primary schools within weak state systems. A lot of it will come down to your LoRs and statement. Just your profile like this offers very little in the way of narrowing things down. People with your profile get admitted to every single school in the field.

I'd have to go with "mostly worthless."

I don't post things on the Internet I would be too embarrassed to stand behind later if I had to. That said, I could probably never run for political office.

Well I submitted mine online, so it took only a few moments after I bothered to find the button that said "register for your ID" at which point I got my e-mail account. I was a bit surprised at one institution that gave me an e-mail account just for *getting* an offer of admission without waiting for me to accept it. I was even more surprised at another fairly well known institution that gave me an e-mail account just for applying! That seemed odd! So overall I ended up with three new e-mail accounts. I imagine two of them will be deleted soon enough. Naturally I only joined the facebook network at the one school I actually decided to go to.

Much like glasses posted above, bad grades don't demonstrate lack of passion at all. The problem you have is you don't have the grades so you need to demonstrate passion. Someone who has the grades probably doesn't. Grades don't really indicate passion one way or another. I'm well aware that a low GPA doesn't mean you have a lack of interest in your field. In fact I tend to suspect that anyone with too high a GPA might have a lack of interest in their field. (Only in extreme cases. If someone's getting a 4.0 I think their priorities are screwed up and they should have been spending a lot of that time doing things other than classes if they really cared about their field, obviously getting good grades takes precedence over actual learning at some point. Hard to tell where the line is.)

Oh right, sorry. I sometimes forget which policies our school has to follow are ubiquitous and which are not. It isn't irrelevant for all schools. However for all public schools in California this field is irrelevant by law and they can't rescind your offer even if you intentionally lie, from what I can recall. However even those schools that do care about this field are unlike to quibble over the difference. Not because there is none, but because it doesn't significantly change the demographic makeup really as neither are terribly underrepresented in most parts of academia. Though I suppose a little of that might depend on your field.

I joined the school's network a few minutes after I set up the new e-mail drop. No reason except that odd desire to have things correctly filled out everywhere.

Yeah... I wish passion was required to get As in classes these days, but it really isn't and good grades just don't show passion. Have you worked on any actual projects in these fields? There's tons of open-source projects out there... Follow your passion, see where it leads you. I wish I could be more specific, but everyone's path is different. Mine led me to research and grad school. Yours may lead you elsewhere and eventually an MS. I'm not convinced grad schools care about jobs much. But experience can help. Just make sure a job leads to impressive and tangible experience and not "I worked for 5 years doing a generic job in my field"

It's completely irrelevant.

1) To be honest it's really really really really hard for an international student to get in with a low GPA. Domestic applicants have it a lot easier. 2) Even domestic applicants would have a tough time getting into a top program with a low GPA, you slip by with a bunch of research experience, a few connections and a bit of luck. But it's tough. For an international student... wow, really tough. 3) Research is less important for MS applicants and this poses a bigger problem: it also doesn't serve nearly as big of a counterweight. While research can overcome a low GPA for a PhD student, it may not do as much to aid an MS student. It depends heavily though on everything... either way, yes, research is important. To be completely honest, to an adcom you'd probably sound pretty under-qualified. No research experience, no research goals, only 6 months experience at a firm the adcom is unlikely to recognize or care for, no demonstrated passion for the field and a bad GPA? At that point you may very well have enough issues getting into a top program even if your GPA was good. (I'm actually not certain that a 2.5 is that bad in the schools over there... they grade things differently than we do. I know there's plenty of international students with higher GPAs, but how good or bad is a 2.5 from India anyways?) I don't mean to sound mean, but uhm, you're going to need to learn how to highlight your strong points better than this I would think... Summary: While students with low GPAs can get into top schools, you better have really clear goals, a demonstrated passion for the field and a clear reason for the adcom to hang their hat on when they look at your app. Whether it be research experience (likely) or something else, you need something to say "well this is so good that the other stuff doesn't matter I think we should take them anyways."

I propose this as a new question on most graduate school admissions forms: Would you be willing to sit in a high-backed chair behind a giant desk, stroking a fluffy white cat and manically laughing about the destruction of humanity? Yes / No (Circle one)

I knew I was forgetting a step!

400 miles away really isn't close at all... I wouldn't factor that into your decision at all. If you're more than 100 miles away it doesn't really matter a whole lot whether you're 500 or 5000 miles from it, you're not there.

Congrats... that story reminds me of my undergraduate application process when I got offered winter admittance without my major, housing or the college I wanted to enter and then they contorted themselves around afterwards and offered me all of that with regular admission and then casually sent me a letter telling me they were placing me into their honors program... Admissions processes are crazy. Congrats on funding!