From Bad Grades to Straight A's: Is It Possible?

[FlyingMachine]

I wasn't looking for numbers, I was looking for "extremely uncommon" or "not that uncommon" or something of that sort. Or if there's anybody who did what I am talking about, but not for the reason that only the last year matters.

It's kind of hard to do your best or want to when you're in a deep hole (exaggerating but you know what I mean) and the payoff seems little, as it seems here. Oh well, I guess the truth hurts, or is just pretty discouraging in this case. This thread is done.

 

[mathwonk]

i am not sure what the supply and demand reference was above, but from the perspective of a graduate faculty member in math, talent is always in short supply, i.e. there are definitely NOT a lot of highly talented applicants to grad school.

indeed there are today far more scholarships and fellowships available than well qualified applicants, at many schools.

indeed even when i was at harvard i recall the sentiment being the same among faculty.

 

[Benzoate]

FlyingMachine, I think you are suffering from confirmation bias. There's an answer you want to be getting, that is, that graduate admissions committees will look highly on a student who shows improvement.

However you've already gotten your answer, and this is it: You aren't the first person to wish to improve your GPA after two years, and certainly not the first person to go through with it. A high GPA across an entire undergrad program trumps improvement, but there is no graduate admissions algorithm. High GPA? 10 points. Improvement? 5 points. Nope; you need some way to show that you are prepared for graduate level work. For some students this proof comes from their GPA, for others, standardized test scores, and for some, published independent research.

Is it common for most graduate students to have a physics GPA of 4.0 through or do most of the applicants show improvements with grades?

Do graduate committees look exclusively at your physics GPA

 

[Moonbear]

It's starting to sound like from this thread that sudden improvement between the two halves of college don't even mean much when there are people with straight A's. When admissions committees sit down and look at a transcript, I'm starting to doubt they even take the time to consider the significance of doing badly then doing absolutely well. As in, they notice that the student made a sudden improvement, but they don't think about how *extremely difficult* it must've been for the student to do (3.0 to a 4.0) when obviously anybody who got straight A's is "better" (I'm assuming most people on an admissions committee with straight-A applicants also got straight-A's themselves and wouldn't really understand how hard this is to do when you're doing dismally bad at first). It's actually a LOT harder than it sounds. But it doesn't sound like admissions committees reaaaally consider the kind of effort the student had to put into make such a change.

Nobody has answered how often this happens yet.

Because the part you're missing is that they DO consider how extremely difficult it is and the amount of hard work it takes to have maintained a straight A average throughout ALL FOUR YEARS of college, rather than just the last two. It may not have taken you any more effort in the last two years to get those As than the people who had been getting As all along, except they also put in the extra effort in the first two years rather than going to parties all the time (or else are so talented they could go to all those parties and STILL get straight As, which is even more impressive).

How often does it happen? Frequently. People goof off the first year or two of college, then grow up and realize they need to be more serious about their studies, and improve in their last two. Does it help or even matter? It depends. Every school/program has something different in mind of what they desire in their applicants, and they get different applicant pools. It certainly is better than getting straight Bs throughout, or starting out with Cs and then getting Bs, or starting out with Cs and then getting As, but how much it helps depends entirely on who else is applying at the time and what their records look like. Rarely does an entire applicant pool have exactly a 3.5 average, divided between those who got half As and half Bs throughout and those who got Bs the first two years and As the second two. Rather, there are gradations of people who get all As, mostly As, more than half As, about half As, more Bs than As, a lot of Bs and a few As, and the desperate still in denial that they don't have the grades for grad school.

The only time someone will have a distinct advantage if they got Bs and pulled up to As is if there were extenuating circumstances that explain those Bs other than they weren't trying hard enough or were trying as hard as they could but it wasn't enough. For example, going to school full time while working full time, or going to school full time while caring for a terminally ill close relative. A death of a close relative might get consideration for a bad semester.