Major GPA question

[ryanmor]

Hey everyone,

I am wondering how major GPA is calculated for graduate school admissions? My undergrad calculates both major and cumul GPA, but my major GPA is a bit low due to a few required classes (hmmm....physics...hmhm), those of which have little to no relevance to my field of interest. But I am doing really well in my major subject and related field classes. When I apply, do I report out the major GPA that my school produces or do programs recalculate that from only the relevant classes?

Thanks

[Owlie]

Ah yes, physics. My worst enemy. And p-chem.

My gut instinct would be to report the one that the institution gives, on the grounds that they'll probably see it anyway, and any discrepancy would make an adcomm go "Hmmm...". You can always explain elsewhere that while you did poorly in physics, you did well in the classes that are directly applicable.

(For what it's worth, my undergrad institution didn't put major GPAs on the transcripts. I calculated them based on all the coursework necessary--the only difficulty was that I took a bunch of electives in both majors.)

[emmm]

I saw the info sheet on me that one of my interviewers had, and it listed my overall GPA from my degree-granting undergraduate institution (easy to see since the GPA for that school was not calculated on a 4.0 scale). It did not take into account the full year I studied at a different college during my senior year of high school or any of my many post-bac classes. The difference in GPA was not huge, but my main undergraduate school was the toughest school I went to (and I was an engineering major!).