Bad grades then, great grades now

[Victorious Secret]

I am a chemEng/biology double major at a large public institution. When I was 20 (around 2005), I transferred to a top-20 biochem program and did ok the first year (3.0) and miserable the second year (1.3, withdrew from school). During that time I was working full time while caring for a close relative with a terminal illness, and I was unable to fulfill my academic obligations.

In 2013 I returned to academia at a different university and since switching to chemical engineering/bio at that time my GPA is 3.92. I have taken four graduate engineering classes, with a 4.0 GPA in them. However my cumulative GPA when I apply will only be around a 3.35 due to my earlier studies. I have completed two years of research plus an REU, and will complete another two years of research by the time I apply for PhD programs. I love research more than anything I have ever done. I will likely have a publication submitted in the next month, first author. I have taken the GRE for the first time recently and scored 163/164/5 V/Q/W. I will be working hard on the vocabulary and quant skills to shoot for at least 165/166/5 the next time around.

I would like to attend a strong PhD program in the Boston area (I am geographically tied to this region), in either chemical or bio/biomedical engineering (my interests in protein and biomolecular engineering lie at this interface of these disciplines). I am strongly considering the following schools, all of which have faculty whose work aligns closely with my interests:

MIT (ChemE and BioE)

Tufts (ChemE and BioE)

BU (BiomedE)

Brown (ChemE)

Northeastern (ChemE and BioE)

Harvard SEAS (Bioengineering concentration)

My questions:

1. Is there any circumstance under which it would be disadvantageous to apply to two closely linked programs such as these at a single university, when my research interests genuinely are in both fields? (Basically, biochemical engineering, which is often handled in ChemE and BioE departments.)

2. How much damage did my earlier academic career (11 years ago) do to my chances for admission? I often was unable to even attend exams because of my responsibilities, but did not want to quit by dropping out. I see now that I should have left school and returned later but my grades now are so close to perfect... Did my foolish choice to remain in school when I was young ruin everything? I know that graduate programs will pay more attention to my most recent grades, but I fear that my lowered cumulative GPA will cause my applications to be rejected before the circumstances are seen. 

3. What can I do to help hide the old dark mark from my record. I started an NGO last year (with funding from my university) that does biodigester engineering work in a third-world country, I also mentor, tutor, etc, but I hear that such efforts are worthless as far as graduate admissions. I am even taking 20+ units each semester to try to raise my GPA further, with no drop in grades. What can I do to get them to look past the old grades? 

Edited July 6, 2016 by Victorious Secret

[sjoh197]

Question 1: I'm not in your field, so I can't really offer much advice... but there are subforums for chem-e and bio-e down at the bottom of the discussion homepage where you might glean some better information on that. Particularly, there might be people who have had the same question before. 

Question 2: You say that your overall gpa will be around 3.35 when you apply. This is above the common 3.0 cutoff, although different universities have their own standards. This will mean that your application will at least get to your department without being tossed.  Also... if you do decide to mention why your early gpa is not so good... do it very quickly and move on. A single sentence was all that I used. 

Question 3: There is a very good forum in the Lobby, something along the lines of "the sub-3.0 gpa forum." It doesn't directly apply to you, since you estimate you will have well above a 3.0, but it does have some very great advise on accentuating the positives of your application in order to overcome a lower gpa. Some of the advice could certainly help you "hide" your early poor performance by "distracting" them with all of the other "awesome" parts of your application. 

Field specific work and research is the best way to overcome a poor gpa. Do you have any research experience... or any more opportunities? 

 

[Victorious Secret]

 

On 7/7/2016 at 8:38 AM, sjoh197 said:

Question 1: I'm not in your field, so I can't really offer much advice... but there are subforums for chem-e and bio-e down at the bottom of the discussion homepage where you might glean some better information on that. Particularly, there might be people who have had the same question before. 

Question 2: You say that your overall gpa will be around 3.35 when you apply. This is above the common 3.0 cutoff, although different universities have their own standards. This will mean that your application will at least get to your department without being tossed.  Also... if you do decide to mention why your early gpa is not so good... do it very quickly and move on. A single sentence was all that I used. 

Question 3: There is a very good forum in the Lobby, something along the lines of "the sub-3.0 gpa forum." It doesn't directly apply to you, since you estimate you will have well above a 3.0, but it does have some very great advise on accentuating the positives of your application in order to overcome a lower gpa. Some of the advice could certainly help you "hide" your early poor performance by "distracting" them with all of the other "awesome" parts of your application. 

Field specific work and research is the best way to overcome a poor gpa. Do you have any research experience... or any more opportunities? 

 

Hi sjoh,

Thanks for your response, and sorry about the late reply. I mentioned my research background briefly in the second paragraph, two years + an REU so far, with a first-author publication being written right now. Another two years coming up. One project will be a year long "Senior Research" project for credit that I'm taking in my second to last year, another is my Senior Honors Thesis (in my actual Senior year) which will be a year long research project as well, and my paid work is in a research laboratory on campus doing nanopharmaceutical research. I would imagine that I will be a part of another upcoming publication next year, and I am contemplating writing a review article on a niche I have done research in. I am also considering taking one or two key upper division classes as "Honors by Contract" which would require for me to do additional work outside of class, potentially wet lab or computational research (all of that is discussed with the professor at the time of enrollment). 

Also, to clarify, when I say "hide" my old GPA what I mean is drowning it out with current excellence. =)

-VS

[pterosaur]

1. Check with each school specifically about what they allow in terms of apply to related programs. Some schools I looked at specifically forbade applying to multiple programs at the university in the same year. In contrast, I went on my post-acceptance visit to CMU (for bio eng), they asked why I hadn't applied to the robotics program there as well.
2. Given the big time gap between your first go at university and your current success, if I were a university I would have no problem with it. With very high recent grades and research experience, it's clear that you've matured, become more responsible, have fewer other distractions or responsibilities. Whatever the case, something clearly changed drastically for the better. I would put a sentence or two about it in a personal statement: a very brief explanation (without making it sound like an excuse), framed in terms of how things have changed and led to this improvement. I don't think it has completely destroyed your chances of doing a PhD.
3. Honestly, I think you're doing everything right to compensate: research experience, high grades, broader impacts (to use the NSF term). The big two things that you can affect now are your personal statement and letters of recommendation. From my experience, admissions people put a lot of weight on letters of recommendation. I would definitely recommend sitting down with your letter writers when the time comes. As professors themselves, they're the ones best able to assuage any fears of professors handling admissions that you wouldn't be successful. If you haven't started building those relationships with professors yet, start doing so now.

I have some experience with 2 of these schools - I did undergrad at Northeastern and I'll be starting at Harvard SEAS for my PhD later this month. You specifically mentioned fit, which is good. Honestly, that's the thing that's make or break for getting into PhD programs for qualified candidates: do they think your research interests align with theirs so that it would be mutually beneficial to have you. Part of the way they did this at Harvard was with informal Skype interviews arranged by faculty. The first interview I had was with someone who did really cool work, but was much more on the mechanical engineering side (I felt under-qualified and I was kind of embarrassed and awkward), but he ended up passing my info on to a professor who I hadn't put down on my application (because she's in CS and I was applying for bioengineering). Long story short, we hit it off, her research is awesome, she's the one who emailed to tell me I was accepted, and she'll be my advisor. Sorry for the tangent, but that was my experience with one of the schools you have on your list! Fit is really big, so make sure your applications are framed to show why you and the program fit together like puzzle pieces.

[Victorious Secret]

Pterosaur:  Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate you volunteering your experiences with the process. It is helpful for me to know what to expect.

[jujubea]

Regarding question 2: since you attended two different universities, at two different times, the admissions panel will clearly see that you had a whatever-crummy GPA 11 years ago, and a 3.92 GPA at your current/recent school. This will speak for itself.

You also have a lot of great other strong points, and a legit reason that academia was a different (difficult) boat for you 11 years ago.