About to finish my Master's and losing my resolve

[tramar]

I'm finishing my MSc physics degree this year at a small university in Canada. It's been a tough road, and in my undergrad and graduate courses I've only been able to muster a B average. I applied to two PhD programs for the fall and so far have been rejected by one due to concerns about my GPA, and the other expressed similar concerns but let my file go through to potential supervisors and I have been unable to find one that is willing to take me on.

I also recently applied to a conference for an oral presentation and was asked to do a poster presentation instead, I assume because my abstract didn't make the cut.

It's very discouraging as I feel that I've done all of this work with nothing to show for it. I fear that because of my B average, no supervisor is going to be interested in taking me on when they have multiple applicants with better averages to choose from. It's even more frustrating because my marks don't even reflect my research potential. I did extremely well in my undergraduate thesis and will hopefully do the same for my MSc thesis. But it feels like because of my poor GPA, nobody cares.

Anyone else experienced something like this?

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think you have to ask yourself a tough question. Did you get mediocre grades because you are fundamentally incapable of doing A work? Or because you chose not to - or, perhaps more accurately, because you made decisions that led you to that outcome.

Until you know the answer to that question, I don't think you can make a realistic plan on what to do next.

I do want to point out that the odds are very small that the conference decided to place your contribution in the poster session because of your GPA.