Anyone successfully admitted into a U of T science graduate program with a low CGPA?

[HanbinLee]

I will be attending an upcoming seminar where there will be Q & A regarding graduate school admission at OISE building. However, I am anxious to ask someone if they have any personal experience. I know that graduate admission is different for different programs, so I wanted to ask science/math students about their experience.

 

Have you ever experienced rejection/acceptance into UofT graduate program in any of its science/math programs (including programs such as Statistics and Economics) with low CGPA but competitive final two year grades? I started out terribly as a Humanities student, but I am studying really hard to get A's for Math and CSC. I was wondering if my chances will be terribly crippled by my prior academic record, or if I have a fighting chance with high grades in my new programs.

 

I will gratefully read every one of your responses. Thanks.

 

* Also, if you have any similar experience with rejection/acceptance into other graduate schools (US included), I would equally appreciate your response.

[eternallyephemeral]

Hi! I was waitlisted at a different program at U of T (Rotman's PhD), but I have some friends that applied to science graduate programs.

Generally, people will look at your transcript, see that you switched programs, and if that explains you low grades before and high grades after, then that is a good thing. Many programs take your last two years into account. It's important to explain this in your statement of purpose, and you can frame it in a positive way by saying that you found what you really excel at, and that changed your university performance.

Of course, it depends how low you're talking about, what your cumulative GPA is, and what the rest of your application is like. Setting yourself apart with research, publications, relevant extracurriculars, and strong GREs is important. Finding a good fit with a supervisor is important. Do as much as you can with these other aspects, because GPA is just one part of the application.

Best of luck!