Poor GPA

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DrDarth
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:14 am

Poor GPA

Post by DrDarth » Mon Nov 15, 2021 12:06 pm

I am a sophomore currently in my 3rd semester. I am a 5 years integrated MSc student from India in a top IIT.
In my freshman year, I had a CGPA of 8.96/10. (Don't know how it's converted to 4 point scale). My current semester isn't going too well. I had one C in Engg Mech in my second semester and will get a C in Probability and Stats this semester. I did not realize the importance of grades and being stuck at home due to COVID, I had lost all motivation to study. I always wanted to get into a top 5 US school for Physics PhD.
I know that it's years away but looking at the GPAs on this forum, I feel very dejected. I am confident that I can pull my GPA up to 9.3 ~ 9.4 by by final year but will my poor current Grades put me out of a chance even for a PhD say at MIT. I know this question seems very immature and stupid.
Also can someone estimate my 4 point GPA.

geekusprimus
Posts: 143
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2019 1:10 pm

Re: Poor GPA

Post by geekusprimus » Thu Nov 18, 2021 3:00 pm

truthchannel wrote:
Thu Nov 18, 2021 11:49 am
Even a 10/10 GPA will be rejected from MIT easily
I don't see why you stand a chance in getting into US top schools :lol:
Why are you going around posting this crap? Five posts, and they're all put-downs on other people's odds. Are you a troll? Are you bitter that you didn't get into your preferred institution? Are you hoping to discourage enough people from applying to lift your own application in the process? It's just rude.
know that it's years away but looking at the GPAs on this forum, I feel very dejected. I am confident that I can pull my GPA up to 9.3 ~ 9.4 by by final year but will my poor current Grades put me out of a chance even for a PhD say at MIT. I know this question seems very immature and stupid.
OP, there's a lot of time to lift up your grades. Obviously higher grades are better, but most committees put the most weight on your upper-division physics and math courses. When I was preparing to apply for schools, I met a dean for graduate education at UT Austin who flat out said, "I don't care if you got an F in French." A couple of schools I applied to didn't even ask for anything beyond my last two years.

Additionally, converting a GPA from an Indian 10-point scale to a US 4-point scale is less straightforward than it seems. I'm not completely familiar with how grading there works, but I know that a direct conversion typically underestimates what the actual 4-point GPA would be because the cutoffs are very different. What I see online says that a raw score of 60-100 in an Indian class generally corresponds to an A in a US class. I can't speak to how accurate that is, and your question would be better posed by officials at your university and schools you end up applying to.

Lastly, I'd recommend spending very little time on these forums until you're closer to applying for precisely the reasons you mentioned. All you need to know in the meantime is this: work hard in your classes and get quality research experience. Your grades and your classwork are absolutely important, but they're not a substitute for good research and letters of recommendation. Given the choice between an applicant with two years of research experience and good grades (but nothing special, no grad classes, etc.) compared with one who has perfect grades and took graduate courses in QFT, GR, and stat mech but minimal research experience, it doesn't take much more than a look across the forum to see that the student with quality research is going to get into more schools and better schools than the second.



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