"The top schools only really look at 3.9+ GPA, anything lower is a serious disadvantage"

[Nilandia]

I'm pretty much the poster child of "GPA/awesome school isn't everything."

During my undergrad years, I had a complete lack of a work ethic for a time, and my grades showed it.  The proverbial "young and stupid," if you will.  After a while, I found the field I wanted to study, lost most of my credits switching majors from humanities to science, took a bunch of fundamental courses and gen eds from a community college, and finally transferred and graduated with a science degree from a run-of-the-mill state school.  I now work in a non-science field due to lack of available science jobs in my area.  Still, I've shown years of actively pursuing my field, even outside of school and work.  At least one of my LOR is stellar (haven't seen the other two), and my GRE scores are rock solid.  I can also demonstrate my maturity through going back to school and pulling a perfect 4.0 in full time STEM coursework while still holding a full time job.

I can show that I'm willing to do unspeakable things to do what I love, and that I have the talent and personality to flourish.  The schools have responded very well to that dedication.  Even though I don't have even a 3.5 GPA from my undergrad, I've already been accepted by two very well regarded programs in my field, and I have high hopes for more.

So yeah.  GPA isn't everything.