Frustrated about the grade I got and still wanna pursue PhD

[illousion]

Hi everyone

 

I am currently in first year master student in Industrial Engineering in states. I wanna apply PhD in the incoming December, but...my GPA right now is not very high, only 3.56....

 

My bachelor degree is business so switching to engineering at first is very challenging to me. I worked hard and try to make up my background in business in order to get chance for PhD admission. But...stochastic process is really hard, I got B and B+ for two stochastic process related courses and do not know what to do know. Does anyone know how committee evaluate GPA when it comes to PhD application? Some professor in my school say if you don't have 3.8 or higher GPA don't even think about to get in some TOP 20 Industrial Engineering Program, so I am kinda upset after hearing this. 

 

This summer I will work with a faculty in my school to do a related research, does this help?

 

If anyone would like to share their experience or give me some constructive/insightful comments and suggestions I will be much appreciate it. Thank you!

[bsharpe269]

I'd say your gpa is below average for what they are looking for but not horrible. I think the best way for you to overcome this is to really impress admissions with your research. A summer isn't going to cut it. As a grad student, you should be putting in 20-30 hours a week throughout the semester. This is what I do at least and most of the programs I am applying to are ranked 20-40. Research can overcome gpa so I would start really pursuing it. Good luck!