I currently have an undergraduate GPA of 2.94. I worked as a summer undergraduate researcher at The Ohio State University in Summer 2011 and impressed my boss. In my concentration, OSU is considered a very good school by most. I knew I would have a very hard time getting in, even with a letter of rec from a tenured professor at OSU. On his advice, I achieved my first 4.0 semester, bringing my at-application GPA to 2.94. I am on my way to another 4.0 semester. I haven't skimped on difficult classes, either. I took the GRE general test and scored 168/170/4.5 V/Q/W. I have 3 years of research experience strictly within the subfield that I would be earning a PhD in.
I applied on January 7th, 2012 with three incredible letters of recommendation. Up until mid-February, they were still considering rejecting me. They expressed some concern about whether or not my GPA was still increasing, so they contacted my quantum professor (one of my letter writers) via phone. According to the admissions secretary, he said some amazing things about me, because they quickly recommended my admission thereafter.
The committee filed a petition to have me admitted and it was approved on 3/12/12, granting me an offer of admission which I accepted.
Going into that summer research job, I had a GPA of 2.65. Becoming a legit scientist has been a dream of mine since I was 13. I overcame many terrible situations to get to where I am today and I don't anticipate I will ever be so lazy again. I can't really point at any one thing I did (aside from working fiendishly hard) to earn my offer, but since I starting working that summer research job, I've been putting in 40-70 hour weeks making sure that I always have something to offer people whether it's tutoring, data, research advice, high test scores or exemplary projects.
