Can a Low GPA Be Overcome for Graduate School in Astrophysics?

[kjata090]

Okay so I know I don't have much to work with but here we go:
My goal is to apply to Graduate school in Astrophysics more or less Cosmology.

I should mention that I transferred from IU after my first semester, which I aced my courses at while I was there for a semester.

Okay so my current GPA overall is a 3.1 at Purdue Univ.
last two terms is a 2.9
Note: that my GPA isn't entirely Physics. a lot of my last two terms involved CS courses for my applied degree, although I do consider myself good at programming our school has a hard CS program. I kinda regret it now because if not for those CS courses my GPA would have stayed in the 3.4-3.6 area. Don't get me wrong I can program good, it was the more advance architecture/structures part of CS I couldn't quite get the hang of, so trying to make a webcrawler/websearch and google maps was kind of beyond my reach at the time.

I do have Research Experience. I worked at Los Alamos National Lab in a Cosmology group, and worked on a project and finishing it up by the end of the month so that it will most likely be published with me as second author. Now working with a professor at my school for the summer/fall. Not sure how working at Govt. Lab will effect my app, its no famous university but it is still quite reputable I think.

I am sure I can get two good recs from my mentor at LANL and Prof I am working with. The 3rd rec I am sure I can find a prof to get me a positive one, otherwise I may be able to get another from another from LANL.

As of right now I do have a PGRE/GRE score but I know they aren't good because of circumstances, hence the reason why I am retaking it. And I know that on the next try I can do well on it.

So assuming I can do well on my tests, do you think I have a decent chance in the good schools despite my minimal GPA? Especially if I can get good recs and maybe a published work in the field I attend to work in? I know that I have to do good on these tests to make up for my GPA, that's a given, but do you think that will be enough to make up for it?

Any advice to improve my chances?

 

[CaptainQuaser]

Completely depends on where you apply. Some schools are hard up to grad students, and will accept people with relatively low GPA's as long as they have good reference letters and experiment experience.
However, lots of school may be forced to reject you if your GPA is under 3.0. My advice would be if you really want to go to grad schools, find some that you are interested in, email some profs, and ask them if its worth applying.