How much does grad school offset a poor GPA?

[LedZepp]

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All other things being equal, how much will a Master of Science (MS) degree in an non-biomedical field offset a poor undergrad GPA?

I understand that GPA and MCAT scores are considered independent from ECs so please don’t flame me for this - I’m just attempting to get a quantifiable idea about how highly admissions value an MS degree. For simplicity, you can answer in the context of a 3.2 GPA and an MS in environmental science. Any thoughts/opinions/estimates would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DRIN]

I had a friend who was a borderline candidate last year with an MS in Computer Science with 20 rejections, 0 interviews.

 

[redlight]

grad schools are generally known for grade inflation

med schools consider undergrad coursework when evaluating applicants and don't really factor in grad work on the same level.

you need to nail the mcat obviously

but consider an smp, or taking more ugrad courses to bump up the cgpa/sgpa

 

[Bernoull]

Short answer, it helps if ur grad gpa is high. To what degree varies by program of study and Med Schoo, I've been calling all da school I'm applyin to they all evaluate ur entire academic record and a high grad gpa helps. One school averages out ur undergrad n grad gpa, if da former is <3.0. Just call da schools ur inteested in n get da info from da horse's mouth.

 

[Chemdude]

Short answer, it helps if ur grad gpa is high. To what degree varies by program of study and Med Schoo, I've been calling all da school I'm applyin to they all evaluate ur entire academic record and a high grad gpa helps. One school averages out ur undergrad n grad gpa, if da former is <3.0. Just call da schools ur inteested in n get da info from da horse's mouth.

lol 👍

 

[2010houston]

It really seems like the grad GPA is considered almost not at all, with the exception of SMP degrees. There's a lot of stuff in the nontrad forum about this - I think a couple of QofQuimica's stickys specifically address this issue. But sadly, I think the short answer is that it's not particularly highly valued, and does not in general "make up" for a low uGPA.

 

[Generic Student]

The admissions people I spoke to advised rather than doing a Master's, take more undergraduate classes to show an upward trend in your GPA. They said that graduate classes were not terribly difficult and it wasn't impressive to make an A in grad school.

 

[schrizto]

Also since the MS is in environmental science, probably doesn't help much either.

I agree that it's usually easier to get better grades in a master's degree as opposed to undergraduate.