I am a final year undergraduate student of Mechanical Engineering from Nepal. I plan to do master's in aerospace engineering (propulsion systems, to be specific) at a prestigious university in the US. With virtually zero scope for aerospace engineering research in our country and little to no guidance from experts, I have been involved in many research projects for years and have already got a number of papers published so far. I hope to add at least three more conference papers to my profile before I apply to any graduate school. But the problem is that I am going to have a very low CGPA, anywhere between 2.4 - 2.7. I have heard that many schools don't bother to look at anything else in an application when they see a low GPA and reject it straightaway. Does that mean I have no chances at all? I have been working very hard to offset my low GPA and make my resume look better than those of most other applicants.  MIT, for example, recommends a minimum of 3.2 as a guideline. What does that mean for me? Please respond.
718
When applying to a PhD program in the US, how does the admissions process work? If an applicant is weak in a particular area, is it possible to offset that by being strong in a different area?  Note that this question originated from this . Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.
122707
I attended a 2y MSc mixed mode (Coursework+Thesis) program which is incomplete as of today. I have completed two semesters and still 2 more semesters to go.   I have dropped 3rd semester and never attended the 4th one. Coz,   I ran out of money. I didn't like the program as it contained too much coursework. A whole load of coursework unrelated to my area of research interest was hindering my effort towards getting into research. Suppose, I am interested in Machine Learning. But, I have to study Economics and so on.   Now, I found that I, actually, can apply to Ph.D. programs without completing an MSc program (there are a lot of universities which accept Ph.D. students without MSc). I have good GRE score, so the chance of getting into a Ph.D. program is very high. But, I am worried that my previous incomplete MSc program will discredit my CV and statement of purpose as the dropped semester would be considered as failed courses.  Would it be a crime to not to disclose the incomplete MSc program? What would be the possible consequence of concealing an incomplete degree?
101255
Suppose multiple students have asked me for letters of recommendation to the same graduate department in the US. Am I expected to explicitly compare the students to one another? Am I supposed to do this in both letters (assuming they haven't been submitted yet)? Do I need to explicitly state a preference for one over the other, or can I just get away with listing relative strengths and weaknesses (for instance, "X is stronger academically, but Y has more research experience and is a stronger programmer")?
90935
I know you should build a good network with your professors as early as possible, not only it will help your study, but also you can get great recommendation letter from them.   But not all students aim at graduate school when they start their undergraduate, for example, I only became interest in research and decide on going to graduate school after my third year of undergraduate. At that time, I have done a research project with a professor and certainly I can ask him for one. However, most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters.  I know a good recommendation letter should speak about the candidate research potential instead of 'did well in my class', but in my case, only my undergraduate adviser can speak about that. What should I do besides asking recommendation letter from professors I get A grade in their classes?
44963
I hope to receive my PhD in Mathematics in May of 2015, so I am currently applying for jobs.  Due to life circumstances, I'm fairly certain that I will only be staying at my next position for about 2 years.  Does this mean I shouldn't even try to apply for tenure-track positions?  Will a hiring committee not even consider me for the position if I'm not willing to commit to staying with them for a certain amount of time?  I would love to get a teaching/lecturing position at any institute of higher education (4-year research university, liberal arts school, community college), but as I look for openings, a lot of them are tenure-track assistant professor positions.  Should I go through the effort of sending in an application, or will that be a waste of my, and the committee's, time?  Thanks for any advice you have!  Edit (to address Nate's comment):  My wife is currently applying for 2 year graduate degree programs in various cities in the US, so I'm applying for jobs in the same cities.  When she finishes her program, we plan to move outside of the US (Africa or Southeast Asia), where I do hope to remain in academia, teaching mathematics to college-aged students.
15869
I have a master's degree in International Studies, and a double major with Computer Science from undergrad.  My transcripts suck.  There's no other way to dress it up.  I have pretty good teaching experience, and my GRE scores are awesome, and I suspect my recommendations are as bland as everyone else's.  Basically, to an admissions committee, I suspect I'm the model of a student who is probably smart enough but didn't work hard enough.  I want to do a Ph.D. in Political Science, but the response from my applications is looking pretty grim.  Am I permanently out of the running, or is there something I can do for the next few years which will help to counterbalance my unfavorable GPA?
88556
I study in India and in here we have 10 pointer system. I wanted to convert my CGPA to american based GPA system of 4. I googled and got this .  So does that mean I need only >8.5 to get a 4.  This may be a stupid question to some but please consider that I know nothing of american CGPA system.
115948
During graduate studies online application submission period, is there any preference given for an applicant if he/she submits his application at the beginning of that period compared with someone who submits his/her application couple of hours before the deadline?  Or as long as the applications are complete there is absolutely no difference!
74831
Out of five needed members for my doctoral thesis committee, four are fixed. For the fifth member, I approached Mr.A. He has no real connection to my research or topic but I contacted him because he was just as good a fit as anybody else in the department to be the fifth member. I have never worked with him or taken any classes but we did talk a lot in the first few years where he would just ask about my progress by the copy machine, etc. We don't even have a "rapport". The relationship is absolutely neutral, nothing positive/friendly, and nothing negative. I asked him to be on my committee and he said yes. I said I'll get back to you with dates, etc. He is a senior tenured professor.  Then about a month later, I was looking at the CV of some of the new hired (junior) faculty in the department Mr.B (this is his first year) and I see that we have a collaborator in common. Mr.B has published multiple papers with him and Mr.B is working with the same code and the code managing team that we are working with. He is definitely a good person to have on my committee. I finally see Mr.B after a few more months (because of busy schedule/travel/etc.) and he agrees to be on my committee.  The question is, how can I tell Mr.A, as tactfully as possible, after about four months of being quiet that he is basically rejected from my committee because I didn't know about Mr.B but now that I know, Mr.B is a much better match than he is? That I don't need him but I do appreciate his offer? I don't want to antagonize Mr.A or burn any bridges. Should this be in email or in person? Should I explain or just keep it terse? Should I keep it vague that I don't need him and thanks for his time? Or should I tell him about Mr.B and why he is a better match?  FYI, this was before anything official/paperwork was done so there is no problem with that.
25295
While accepting an offer to grad school, one is basically entering into a lasting relationship with one's adviser - most likely, someone whom the applicant has never met before, and the only exposure has been through the potential adviser's website/publications. It is in the interest of both parties to ensure (to the greatest possible extent) that there are no personal/professional traits of either that hamper the formation of a pleasant working relationship - no-one would want to go through the ordeal of having to change advisers midway!  While the faculty has a chance to have a good look at the applicant's profile as well as his motivations (through his grades and SOP), the applicant doesn't have a similar opportunity. So, I'm interested to know what parameters can be used to gauge a potential fit. I've thought of the following:   Past students:  Did anyone ever drop out/change advisers midway, and if so, for what reasons? These would be a bit hard to find though, as I don't expect the faculty concerned would list them on their website. It would be great if anyone could let me know how to find out the list of incoming students to a department for any year. Publication rate, taking into account the venues where they were accepted. Time taken to graduate - though I accept this is more dependent on the student, a median figure should be telling ... What they did post Ph.D. - did anyone get tenure if they went into academia, or is almost everyone unable to break out of being a post-doc?  Tenure status: I'm a bit unsure about this, so wanted the community's opinions about it. Just so that I'm clear, I'm only trying to calibrate the applicant's expectations about the working style of his potential adviser - and hence need to know to what extent are the following "typical" assumptions valid.  Tenured professor  A full professor is more likely to get grant funding, hence less time spent on TAship - but could also mean less time/effort spent on interactions with students (either being busy with other projects/talks, or due to more commitments to family at that age).  Tenure-track faculty (Assistant profs)  More likely to be young and energetic, and could translate to more time spent on one-to-one discussions with grad students - but funding may prove to be an issue, and may have to be on TA for a longer period.   What other factors would be relevant in this matter, and to what extent am I correct/incorrect in either the factors considered, or for undertaking this exercise at all?
116758
Background: Five years ago, I obtained a Master's Degree from a top 10 American university in the Social Sciences.  I was a novice in academia, only one year post completing my Bachelor's degree, and simply not yet ready for the rigors of professional academia.  I had virtually no quantitative background from my Bachelor's degree, but after my first semester during my Master's program, I became interested in quantitative analysis, and registered for a doctoral level course in quantitative analysis.  I was simply not able to keep up with the course, and I received a C-, and my performance in my two remaining classes for the semester was negatively affected, and I earned a B- and B+.  For my final semester, I got my act together and earned three solid A's, including in two very quantitatively oriented courses.  I went on to pursue a second master's degree in a foreign school where, although by no means as prestigious as the first, I had a 4.0 GPA.  However, I am quite confident that my low GPA of a 3.33 from the first Master's will immediately kill any chance I have of receiving an admissions from American schools, which essentially means that one poor performance five years, at a time when I was an entirely different individual, will forever preclude me from pursuing my life's dreams.  I do not believe that it is in any way immoral to want send the transcript of my second master's degree, which I feel better represents who I am and what I am capable of, though obviously I am well aware that this is not allowed.    I am not trying to avoid responsibility for my academic performance, I am simply looking to pursue my life without being kept back by one poor performance five years ago.    Questions   Is it possible to request from my first university to have my degree revoked and registration cancelled in a legal, open, and transparent manner?  Is there any way that I can, once again, legally and by the book, not be forced to send in a transcript which will assuredly destroy my chances of being accepted or looked upon as series student?
40746
Suppose you do bad in undergraduate school in say computer science. But you do very well in a masters program in computer science. If you want to apply to a PhD program in computer science, will the masters degree grades offset the undergraduate degree grades?
47555
I am an international student in the US (important as my stay in US is tied to my student visa, issued to attend my current university).  I joined as a grad student in the MS CS program in one of the okayish public universities (ranked ~50 on QS/US news). I joined in Fall '18 and am still in my first semester. I took all the so-called "difficult" courses, but I find them very trivial (considering my undergrad was from a very good university). I am very disappointed with the curriculum and feel the coursework is not at all rigorous for a grad-school.  I might sound super arrogant, but I feel out-of-place when I talk to other students and hear them cringe about how hard the courses are, or how they don't have enough time to finish assignments within the deadlines as I find all of the coursework very trivial and feel that the assignments are a joke.   Fortunately, I am working with one of the best profs the university has to offer on a very impactful project and the research is going great. But that's the only plus point I see from sticking around.  My aim from grad school is to get research experience and join one of the Big 4s or upcoming CS unicorn startups. I cannot see myself joining one of the Big-Ns after graduating since the students from this school rarely bag a Google/Fb/unicorn startup job.  Since December is the Fall'19 admissions deadline, I am thinking about reapplying to those top 10 CS schools which I couldn't get into last year (probably because of my poor undergrad GPA).   On the other hand, since every CS company just asks leetcode-style questions in interviews, I can just be super good at it and try to nail whatever interview I get without wasting another year and then doing the same.  I'm not really interested in any kind of credit transfer either since I would like to start fresh in a more rigorous curriculum.  I'm not sure if switching schools would be a wise decision and could really use some advice from the community here.  PS :  Probably related -   Posting with a dummy account for anonymity.
116121
When I was 23, I quit my computer science undergraduate studies at USC with only one semester worth of units left and a low (less than 3.0) GPA due to personal reasons.  I just turned 30 and have rekindled a desire to pursue research in computational neuroscience.  Is there any realistic hope of eventually getting into a PhD program and pursuing a career in academia, or is it too much of a long shot given my personal circumstances and the job market?    Basically, what I want to know is, if I were to finish my BS, kick ass in a master's program (applied mathematics), and have great GRE scores, would that overcome my abysmal undergraduate record and gap in years away from school?  The biggest obstacle in my view is getting into a terminal master's program with my undergraduate record.  If I were to get into a 1-year terminal master's program in mathematics at a sub-par university and do great, would I have a chance at a higher ranked university for my PhD?
63379
I am planing to apply to study in graduate school, major in computer science/engineering. I just took a GRE test, this is my 1st time, and the result is pretty...not so good :(  Most schools, the science or engineering related program, reveals the average or preferred GRE scores for quantitative and verbal sections for admitted students. But it seems they don't care about the score of Analytic Writing section. Really?  To be honest, my writing score really bumped this time. I want to know if there's a preferred score range for this section.
15870
I was reading the following article by Mathew Might.  I saw the following the paragraph  What doesn't matter GPA? I don't care if it's 2.0 or 4.0. I won't even look at it. The school you went to? I'll judge you the same whether you went to Nowhere State U or a top-ten school. Transcripts? Never seen one. GREs? Irrelevant. Where you work/worked? Unless it's a research lab, it's not important. I don't think these items have much predictive capacity as to whether or not someone can complete a Ph.D.  Is Mathew Might telling the truth? For me it's very hard believe that GPA, GRE scores and undergraduate school don't matter. I used to think that they play an extremely important role in grad school admission.
105654
I will be a second year math under-grad in September, and currently doing an internship at applied math research institute. Most probably, I will come up with a research paper at the end of the internship.  However, my interest after my bachelors is to do PhD in pure math from a top math school.My question is this:     Would the admission committee consider my current research since it is in applied math?    In addition, if anyone can suggest me some ideas on how can I bridge the gap between my paper in applied math and my interest in analysis, I would be extremely grateful.  P.S.:  is a related but different question also of mine.