Undergraduate in a (kind of) awkward situation

[carlsaganism]

Hi guys (I am new here!),

I am a sophomore at Boston University studying planetary geophysics. I messed up bad in my freshman year (ended up with a 3.0 GPA and a C+ in calculus). But I currently have all As and one A- in my classes this year and I hope to keep it up.

My main concern is that even if I ended up with all As in my entire sophomore year, my GPA would still be hovering at about 3.4-3.5 ish, which is low to compared to what I have seen here (people with 3.6+ GPA still got rejected from mid-tier programs)

However, I conduct research over the summer and I am going to present the projects results at AGU fall meeting in December, which I heard is a big plus to my resume/experience.

Anyways, I am hoping to pursue a PhD in geomorphology/surface processes in a top planetary science program (Caltech/UArizona etc) and I am wondering my failed freshman year would prevent me from doing that.

 

I know that UW has a mean 3.2 GPA for incoming PhD students

http://www.ess.washington.edu/ess/education/grad/research/admission.html

but Ive heard from people who had 3.7+ and still didn't get in some of the same or lower tier programs than UW.

Also, I am serving as a undergraduate researcher in our Earth science department as well as in the Center for Remote Sensing and I am also planning on applying for funded earth science/planetary science research internships for the upcoming summer. I was also wondering if experiences could make up for my low GPA by the time I apply for grad school (in 2 years or so)

 

Any thoughts/comments/insights from you guys would be greatly treasured!! Thanks!!

[123hardasABC]

Jesus...where do I begin....

 

1.) Don't worry about whether you'll get into a PhD program this early in your undergraduate. For now, focus on improving your grades, studying hard, and maybe picking up some internships/research experience. You may have the GRE to worry about later too.

 

2.) GPA isn't everything. It's only one aspect of your application. Those people with perfect GPAs who got rejected, admissions probably saw something else in their application that they didn't like, i.e. irrelevant work & research experience, bad letter writers, bad impression during interviews, etc. 

 

3.) On top of that, different schools weigh GPA differently. Some schools look mostly at the last 60-90 units, others only major GPA, some science GPA, some look for improvement trends, etc.

 

4.) Calm down and enjoy your undergraduate years!

[carlsaganism]

Thanks for the advice!!

[GeoDUDE!]

if you are worrying about grad school this early, you aren't having enough fun in college..... and geology graduate programs want to accept people... not robots.

 

Are you working for David Marchant by any chance ? He's a great guy... and a good scientist. make sure to take his classes

[carlsaganism]

if you are worrying about grad school this early, you aren't having enough fun in college..... and geology graduate programs want to accept people... not robots.

 

Are you working for David Marchant by any chance ? He's a great guy... and a good scientist. make sure to take his classes

no haha, college has been a blast. It's just that my brother messed around (at Johns Hopkins, no less) and ended up being too late in worrying about graduate school and had to delay it for a year or two. I am afraid of being like him (I had too much fun during freshman year xD)

and to answer your question, no, geomorphology is just my graduate research interest. I am doing seismology (Prof Ulrich Faul at MIT) and remote sensing work (Prof Mark Friedl).

[emie]

I want to second everything 123hardasABC said.  I just finished my PhD in Geophysics at a top 5 program, I got in to every PhD program I applied to, and I had a 3.45 GPA.  GPA does not matter as much as it did for undergrad admissions.  The really important things are research experience and recommendation letters, and it sounds like you are way ahead of the curve.  I didn't start research until the summer after my sophomore year and never presented at a conference until I was in grad school.  

 

Stop worrying about getting in, and instead focus on figuring out what your passions are.  People usually change their field of interest a bit between sophomore year of undergrad and grad school, and in my experience the difference between a happy PhD and a miserable one is a good match between student and topic/advisor.  Start doing research into programs in the spring/summer after your Junior year, until then, relax.

[carlsaganism]

I want to second everything 123hardasABC said.  I just finished my PhD in Geophysics at a top 5 program, I got in to every PhD program I applied to, and I had a 3.45 GPA.  GPA does not matter as much as it did for undergrad admissions.  The really important things are research experience and recommendation letters, and it sounds like you are way ahead of the curve.  I didn't start research until the summer after my sophomore year and never presented at a conference until I was in grad school.  

 

Stop worrying about getting in, and instead focus on figuring out what your passions are.  People usually change their field of interest a bit between sophomore year of undergrad and grad school, and in my experience the difference between a happy PhD and a miserable one is a good match between student and topic/advisor.  Start doing research into programs in the spring/summer after your Junior year, until then, relax.

thanks for your thoughts on my situation!!

[InquilineKea]

In ESS, research fit often matters *a lot* more than research experience, since you often only have research fit with one professor. So then it becomes a single professor choosing between applicants rather than a department choosing the best applicants. I at least know this is the case for Harvard EPS and Berkeley EPS, which don't even have an admissions committee. 

 

Other EPS programs have admissions committees, but even then, you often need a professor who is able to fund you for at least 3 years of study. Even in these programs, you can be a top applicant who ends up rejected because the department might not be able to find a professor with funding willing to support you. This is different from most other PhD programs, where they simply accept the X best applicants in the area. Funding is often especially important in geoscience programs since they often don't have as many TA positions as other departments.

 

So if you're super-passionate about what you do and can show that you can do good work (better than the other applicants), no one will care about your GPA as long as it's not TOO horrible.

 

I'd say though - Caltech GPS does have an adcom and they do admissions by committee vote (they also have really generous 2-year fellowships so funding is not as much of an issue). So getting into Caltech GPS with a low GPA is non-trivial. The only other geoscience program I know that does admissions in a somewhat similar way is Princeton AOS. Anyways - people tend to care more about GPA if there are lots of required courses in grad school - because they want to know that you're able to survive them (and the quals). Which is particularly true for fields like physics and math, where one doesn't really do serious research with an adviser until after the 1st year (and where the student-adviser relationship isn't so critical that year). But cores tend to be far ore flexible for most geoscience students, and the student-adviser relationship becomes very important right from the very beginning.

 

Atmospheric Science programs are kind of in between as they tend to have somewhat more homogeneous applicant backgrounds (and more required courses), but are generally culturally closer to geoscience than physics/math.

Edited November 18, 2013 by InquilineKea

[carlsaganism]

In ESS, research fit often matters *a lot* more than research experience, since you often only have research fit with one professor. So then it becomes a single professor choosing between applicants rather than a department choosing the best applicants. I at least know this is the case for Harvard EPS and Berkeley EPS, which don't even have an admissions committee. 

 

Other EPS programs have admissions committees, but even then, you often need a professor who is able to fund you for at least 3 years of study. Even in these programs, you can be a top applicant who ends up rejected because the department might not be able to find a professor with funding willing to support you. This is different from most other PhD programs, where they simply accept the X best applicants in the area. Funding is often especially important in geoscience programs since they often don't have as many TA positions as other departments.

 

So if you're super-passionate about what you do and can show that you can do good work (better than the other applicants), no one will care about your GPA as long as it's not TOO horrible.

 

I'd say though - Caltech GPS does have an adcom and they do admissions by committee vote (they also have really generous 2-year fellowships so funding is not as much of an issue). So getting into Caltech GPS with a low GPA is non-trivial. The only other geoscience program I know that does admissions in a somewhat similar way is Princeton AOS. Anyways - people tend to care more about GPA if there are lots of required courses in grad school - because they want to know that you're able to survive them (and the quals). Which is particularly true for fields like physics and math, where one doesn't really do serious research with an adviser until after the 1st year (and where the student-adviser relationship isn't so critical that year). But cores tend to be far ore flexible for most geoscience students, and the student-adviser relationship becomes very important right from the very beginning.

 

Atmospheric Science programs are kind of in between as they tend to have somewhat more homogeneous applicant backgrounds (and more required courses), but are generally culturally closer to geoscience than physics/math.

thank you so much for the super detailed comment! It really helped me shape my thoughts...