6 ms·

Getting into a PhD program with a low GPA

87 points by dangoldin 17y ago

gmurphy 17y ago
This isn't an American perspective, and I know American academia is pretty different to elsewhere (wtf 7 year PhDs!) but over my life I've found that the rules for admissions into various things were usually just rough guidelines that people take way too seriously. For example, I have a Masters degree, but I never finished an undergraduate degree (I dropped out). Similarly, though less bureaucratically, there are plenty of other dropouts working here at Google leading awesome projects, despite the 'must come from a top school or have a PhD' image it has. It's cheesy, but in all such cases, I've seen that the biggest hurdle was getting over the "no you can't because you don't have X", either by trying harder, or by having someone else show you the way (or by dumb luck, in my case).
- nostrademons 17y ago
  My own story is pretty similar to the article's, except s/graduate school/Google/. I've found that people tend to discount the past pretty heavily, at least in America. Nobody cares if you were lazy five years ago, as long as you've worked hard in those five years and have a record of concrete accomplishments to show that. If you went to a community college and then finished undergrad at Harvard, people will see the Harvard degree. If you went to a state college for college and then went to MIT for grad school, people will see the MIT degree. The hard part is getting into Harvard or MIT or Google with that past record. I think the important part for that is to not let your current circumstances define you. If you've been turned down for that dream job and have to work on CRUDscreen enterprise apps to pay the bills, it's really easy to sit back and get comfortable writing CRUDscreen enterprise apps. If you want to give that dream job another try in the future, though, it's important to continue working as if you got it, either by doing your current job to the standards of the dream job, or by keeping your skills sharp with side projects outside of work. BTW, I think you were my phone-screener for Google, so maybe the article's point about having someone on the inside pulling for you has some merit.
- barrkel 17y ago
  I think the personal connections angle is often under-appreciated by those who simply see the formal rules and bureaucracy. For example, if you can get a job working at a university, that can make it a lot easier to get into a postgraduate course than if you're some stranger walking in off the street; and it can end up cheaper, or even funded through part-time work, etc. This is the de facto angle my girlfriend used to get into an economics PhD program at LSE, starting in a relatively low-level research position when getting out of the boring banking sector before the proverbial hit the fan.
  - RK 17y ago
    I've seen people who were able to enroll as non-degree grad students for a semester or two and then be admitted.
    - djcapelis 17y ago
      Unfortunately this route means you don't get any funding. Taking a research position at a university might be a better path for someone with financial constraints. But yes, I've heard of people doing this too and I can imagine it working. Professors who know you like you a lot more than professors who don't know you.
      - RK 17y ago
        It might also work to be in only one class, allowing you to still have your normal job, etc. I think the main thing would be to show the department/professor that you can cut it at the university. If you can get a research job and take class(es), you're practically a grad student already :)
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- RK 17y ago
  I agree with your comment that qualification X isn't necessarily needed, but it has it's limits of course. If you want to go into academia or a professional field such as medicine, the qualifications can be very rigid. Sometimes you can get away without a lower degree (e.g. bachelor's), but pretty much always need the terminal degree (doctorate). As far as long PhD's are concerned, I think it's a difference in funding structure and expectation from some other countries. For one thing, when you hear that someone was doing their PhD for 7 years, that almost always encompasses master's work as well, even if they weren't awarded a master's. I am most familiar with how physics grad school works in the US, where the average PhD takes 6 years. Generally students who do get a master's on the way to a PhD get it after 2-2.5 years, so they spend 3.5-4 years on their PhD by itself. Another big difference from how things are done in the US versus what I know of in European universities is the way students are funded. Most European students I know are funded by the university/government and given 3-4 years to complete their PhDs. After that, they have no more money. In the US, funding is secured by the grad students themselves by essentially being hired by a professor as a researcher or working as a teaching assistant for a professor or the department (or possibly winning a fellowship from a government agency). Often this funding is on a semester to semester basis and in principle can last indefinitely. The fundamental nature of research means that it can last a long time when external constraints, such as funding, are not in place. I think my university had a rule that you had to graduate within 12 years or so.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
sown 17y ago
I'm wondering if we're in a another bust or boom. Probably bust so I'm not eligible. :(
- RK 17y ago
  A bust is not the end of the world. There are many ways to get where you want to be. About halfway through grad school I thought I might need to move for family reasons and thus had to apply to grad schools all over again. Having completed an MS by that point and a lot more research, very strong recs from people I had worked with extensively, etc., I got into every single program I applied to (including the top one in the country). I think my undergrad GPA was probably of little interest by that point, since they had a record of grad school performance. As it turned out I didn't need to move...
- djcapelis 17y ago
  It isn't a great time, but I made it through last year with a 2.6, so if you're determined go for it.
djcapelis 17y ago
My undergraduate GPA ended up being a 2.6. I ended up admitted to 4 graduate programs this last admissions cycle. My professors apparently wrote some excellent letters of recommendation for me. I thought I'd mention that since the article (and others) mentions that it's harder to get in with a low GPA these days. This may be true, but it is still possible. Your professors should know you after you finish taking classes with them. Preferably you should also be doing research with one (or hell, more) of them. Showing a professor your research potential is the quickest way to change your letter from "smart but lazy" to "smart and hardworking, but stubbornly doesn't care about the mundane class stuff that none of us really think is that important for research anyways." As an aside: If you're interested in doing graduate work in security, please contact me. (My e-mail is listed in my profile.) We're always looking for good researchers and if you're good, we'd be interested in your application and it's possible I can poke someone on the admissions committee to make sure your app gets looked at thoroughly. Also: Apply broadly. I had success at a few programs, some ranked higher than the one I'm in. I'm where I am because I followed funding and I wanted to be near the Bay Area.
RK 17y ago
His other entry on what to put on your grad school application is pretty good as well: http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2009/12/reading-phd-applications.html http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2009/12/reading-phd-appl...
coffeemug 17y ago
I did this. I had a 2.6 undergraduate GPA. At the time my policy was to go to a class three times - for the first lecture, for the midterm, and for the final. The rest of the time I spent working on my own projects. I then went on to get a job for a couple of years, and by the time I decided to apply to grad school I was left with a 2.6 GPA and not a single professor who knew me enough to write a recommendation. So I took three of the hardest graduate CS classes I could find as a "non-matriculated student" (basically no degree, you just pay as you go for "professional" education), got a 4.0 that semester, and got each one of the three professors to write me a recommendation. Next semester, I was in grad school. I maintained 4.0 for one more semester, until it slipped to 3.9. I always proudly tell this story every time someone talks about undergraduate GPA as a predictor of anything. (Actually, I would much rather hire people with a low undergrad GPA that shot up in grad school, than a high GPA all around).
- supahfly_remix 17y ago
  I'm curious why someone would enroll in a college and yet not go to class. Sure, for frat boys who are going for "communications & alcoholism degrees" that makes sense, but for someone sincerely interested in learning it's very puzzling.
  - dustingetz 17y ago
    its what you do when you graduate high school and have no idea what you want to do with your life.
    - jey 17y ago
      Disagree vehemently. Someone who "has no idea" would get a lot more out of class than someone who knows exactly what they want to do and how to learn it. If you know what you want to do, and you already are learning it, but feel obligated to go to school (cause society tells you to), then when it comes down to the day-to-day decision of "waste time in a class learning shit you already know" vs. "hack more"... it's easy to see why the second option wins. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life (software), but I fell prey to the "college is required to succeed" dogma. I went to university for a year, spent all my time hacking and neglected the boring/redundant classes, then left after a year with a 1.7 GPA and took a coding job with a big salary. Class was a waste of time.
dagw 17y ago
I know very few PhDs how got into grad school by having good grades and sending out applications. Most professors have a certain amount of autonomy i choosing who they want as PhD students. My girlfriend for example never applied for anything. She did some work with a professor who then asked her if she'd ever considered doing a PhD, my girlfriend said it sounded interesting the professor filed in some papers and that was basically that. I know a lot of other people as well who basically got in on some variation on that theme. So if you find a professor you want to work with and that professor wants you as a PhD student then things often work themselves out.
jessriedel 17y ago
> I aced the programming classes All grad schools care about is how well you did in that particular subject (or maybe a related subject, like math). You could easily ace your programming and math classes, bomb everything else, end up with a 2.0, and get into grad school. This isn't particularly surprising.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
cloudkj 17y ago
Tangentially, how do you get into a PhD program without any academic letters of recommendation (if, for example, you've been working in industry for a few years)?
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  Pretty similar to all the other suggestions - make contact with somone in the department who works on what you want to do your PhD in. Talk to them, find out what you need to do to get them to supervise you. If they won't ask for another name. And be persistent.
  - Groxx 17y ago
    And be able to show your skillz, to catch their eye. Otherwise you're just a name that wants special attention in a (potentially) large, seething crowd.
kaffeinecoma 17y ago
... "the director of graduate admissions, a software engineer, told me he had burned some political capital to get me admitted despite my crappy GPA, that he had a lot riding on my success, that he'd gambled on me because of my work experience, and that I'd better not let him down. (That was the last time I ever talked to him. A month later, I realized I didn't want to do software engineering.)" Wow, and you're proud of that?
- kelnos 17y ago
  I don't think he claimed to be proud of it; he just noted that it happened. Sometimes that's how things go: you think you want to take one path, but then soon realize it's not the one for you. It sucks, but would it have been better if he had stuck with software engineering out of some sense of obligation to the admissions director, which would have probably made him a miserable, mediocre student?
accoleon 17y ago
I currently am finishing my Diploma in Singapore Polytechnic. I have a 3.93/4.00 GPA, and is among the top, if not the top scorer in my course. Unfortunately, I would be unable to enter a local Singaporean university due to my "O" level results. I dream of going overseas (USA) for my college studies, but due to the incompatibilities of our education system (Singapore follows the British education system), I don't think I'll get to use my diploma GPA for entry.

87 points by dangoldin 17y ago

This isn't an American perspective, and I know American academia is pretty different to elsewhere (wtf 7 year PhDs!) but over my life I've found that the rules for admissions into various things were usually just rough guidelines that people take way too seriously. For example, I have a Masters degree, but I never finished an undergraduate degree (I dropped out). Similarly, though less bureaucratically, there are plenty of other dropouts working here at Google leading awesome projects, despite the 'must come from a top school or have a PhD' image it has. It's cheesy, but in all such cases, I've seen that the biggest hurdle was getting over the "no you can't because you don't have X", either by trying harder, or by having someone else show you the way (or by dumb luck, in my case).

nostrademons 17y ago
My own story is pretty similar to the article's, except s/graduate school/Google/. I've found that people tend to discount the past pretty heavily, at least in America. Nobody cares if you were lazy five years ago, as long as you've worked hard in those five years and have a record of concrete accomplishments to show that. If you went to a community college and then finished undergrad at Harvard, people will see the Harvard degree. If you went to a state college for college and then went to MIT for grad school, people will see the MIT degree. The hard part is getting into Harvard or MIT or Google with that past record. I think the important part for that is to not let your current circumstances define you. If you've been turned down for that dream job and have to work on CRUDscreen enterprise apps to pay the bills, it's really easy to sit back and get comfortable writing CRUDscreen enterprise apps. If you want to give that dream job another try in the future, though, it's important to continue working as if you got it, either by doing your current job to the standards of the dream job, or by keeping your skills sharp with side projects outside of work. BTW, I think you were my phone-screener for Google, so maybe the article's point about having someone on the inside pulling for you has some merit.
barrkel 17y ago
I think the personal connections angle is often under-appreciated by those who simply see the formal rules and bureaucracy. For example, if you can get a job working at a university, that can make it a lot easier to get into a postgraduate course than if you're some stranger walking in off the street; and it can end up cheaper, or even funded through part-time work, etc. This is the de facto angle my girlfriend used to get into an economics PhD program at LSE, starting in a relatively low-level research position when getting out of the boring banking sector before the proverbial hit the fan.
- RK 17y ago
  I've seen people who were able to enroll as non-degree grad students for a semester or two and then be admitted.
  - djcapelis 17y ago
    Unfortunately this route means you don't get any funding. Taking a research position at a university might be a better path for someone with financial constraints. But yes, I've heard of people doing this too and I can imagine it working. Professors who know you like you a lot more than professors who don't know you.
    - RK 17y ago
      It might also work to be in only one class, allowing you to still have your normal job, etc. I think the main thing would be to show the department/professor that you can cut it at the university. If you can get a research job and take class(es), you're practically a grad student already :)
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
RK 17y ago
I agree with your comment that qualification X isn't necessarily needed, but it has it's limits of course. If you want to go into academia or a professional field such as medicine, the qualifications can be very rigid. Sometimes you can get away without a lower degree (e.g. bachelor's), but pretty much always need the terminal degree (doctorate). As far as long PhD's are concerned, I think it's a difference in funding structure and expectation from some other countries. For one thing, when you hear that someone was doing their PhD for 7 years, that almost always encompasses master's work as well, even if they weren't awarded a master's. I am most familiar with how physics grad school works in the US, where the average PhD takes 6 years. Generally students who do get a master's on the way to a PhD get it after 2-2.5 years, so they spend 3.5-4 years on their PhD by itself. Another big difference from how things are done in the US versus what I know of in European universities is the way students are funded. Most European students I know are funded by the university/government and given 3-4 years to complete their PhDs. After that, they have no more money. In the US, funding is secured by the grad students themselves by essentially being hired by a professor as a researcher or working as a teaching assistant for a professor or the department (or possibly winning a fellowship from a government agency). Often this funding is on a semester to semester basis and in principle can last indefinitely. The fundamental nature of research means that it can last a long time when external constraints, such as funding, are not in place. I think my university had a rule that you had to graduate within 12 years or so.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

sown 17y ago

I'm wondering if we're in a another bust or boom. Probably bust so I'm not eligible. :(

RK 17y ago
A bust is not the end of the world. There are many ways to get where you want to be. About halfway through grad school I thought I might need to move for family reasons and thus had to apply to grad schools all over again. Having completed an MS by that point and a lot more research, very strong recs from people I had worked with extensively, etc., I got into every single program I applied to (including the top one in the country). I think my undergrad GPA was probably of little interest by that point, since they had a record of grad school performance. As it turned out I didn't need to move...
djcapelis 17y ago
It isn't a great time, but I made it through last year with a 2.6, so if you're determined go for it.

djcapelis 17y ago

My undergraduate GPA ended up being a 2.6. I ended up admitted to 4 graduate programs this last admissions cycle. My professors apparently wrote some excellent letters of recommendation for me. I thought I'd mention that since the article (and others) mentions that it's harder to get in with a low GPA these days. This may be true, but it is still possible. Your professors should know you after you finish taking classes with them. Preferably you should also be doing research with one (or hell, more) of them. Showing a professor your research potential is the quickest way to change your letter from "smart but lazy" to "smart and hardworking, but stubbornly doesn't care about the mundane class stuff that none of us really think is that important for research anyways." As an aside: If you're interested in doing graduate work in security, please contact me. (My e-mail is listed in my profile.) We're always looking for good researchers and if you're good, we'd be interested in your application and it's possible I can poke someone on the admissions committee to make sure your app gets looked at thoroughly. Also: Apply broadly. I had success at a few programs, some ranked higher than the one I'm in. I'm where I am because I followed funding and I wanted to be near the Bay Area.

RK 17y ago

His other entry on what to put on your grad school application is pretty good as well: http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2009/12/reading-phd-applications.html http://3dpancakes.typepad.com/ernie/2009/12/reading-phd-appl...

coffeemug 17y ago

I did this. I had a 2.6 undergraduate GPA. At the time my policy was to go to a class three times - for the first lecture, for the midterm, and for the final. The rest of the time I spent working on my own projects. I then went on to get a job for a couple of years, and by the time I decided to apply to grad school I was left with a 2.6 GPA and not a single professor who knew me enough to write a recommendation. So I took three of the hardest graduate CS classes I could find as a "non-matriculated student" (basically no degree, you just pay as you go for "professional" education), got a 4.0 that semester, and got each one of the three professors to write me a recommendation. Next semester, I was in grad school. I maintained 4.0 for one more semester, until it slipped to 3.9. I always proudly tell this story every time someone talks about undergraduate GPA as a predictor of anything. (Actually, I would much rather hire people with a low undergrad GPA that shot up in grad school, than a high GPA all around).

supahfly_remix 17y ago
I'm curious why someone would enroll in a college and yet not go to class. Sure, for frat boys who are going for "communications & alcoholism degrees" that makes sense, but for someone sincerely interested in learning it's very puzzling.
- dustingetz 17y ago
  its what you do when you graduate high school and have no idea what you want to do with your life.
  - jey 17y ago
    Disagree vehemently. Someone who "has no idea" would get a lot more out of class than someone who knows exactly what they want to do and how to learn it. If you know what you want to do, and you already are learning it, but feel obligated to go to school (cause society tells you to), then when it comes down to the day-to-day decision of "waste time in a class learning shit you already know" vs. "hack more"... it's easy to see why the second option wins. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life (software), but I fell prey to the "college is required to succeed" dogma. I went to university for a year, spent all my time hacking and neglected the boring/redundant classes, then left after a year with a 1.7 GPA and took a coding job with a big salary. Class was a waste of time.

dagw 17y ago

I know very few PhDs how got into grad school by having good grades and sending out applications. Most professors have a certain amount of autonomy i choosing who they want as PhD students. My girlfriend for example never applied for anything. She did some work with a professor who then asked her if she'd ever considered doing a PhD, my girlfriend said it sounded interesting the professor filed in some papers and that was basically that. I know a lot of other people as well who basically got in on some variation on that theme. So if you find a professor you want to work with and that professor wants you as a PhD student then things often work themselves out.

jessriedel 17y ago

> I aced the programming classes All grad schools care about is how well you did in that particular subject (or maybe a related subject, like math). You could easily ace your programming and math classes, bomb everything else, end up with a 2.0, and get into grad school. This isn't particularly surprising.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

cloudkj 17y ago

Tangentially, how do you get into a PhD program without any academic letters of recommendation (if, for example, you've been working in industry for a few years)?

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Pretty similar to all the other suggestions - make contact with somone in the department who works on what you want to do your PhD in. Talk to them, find out what you need to do to get them to supervise you. If they won't ask for another name. And be persistent.
- Groxx 17y ago
  And be able to show your skillz, to catch their eye. Otherwise you're just a name that wants special attention in a (potentially) large, seething crowd.

kaffeinecoma 17y ago

... "the director of graduate admissions, a software engineer, told me he had burned some political capital to get me admitted despite my crappy GPA, that he had a lot riding on my success, that he'd gambled on me because of my work experience, and that I'd better not let him down. (That was the last time I ever talked to him. A month later, I realized I didn't want to do software engineering.)" Wow, and you're proud of that?

kelnos 17y ago
I don't think he claimed to be proud of it; he just noted that it happened. Sometimes that's how things go: you think you want to take one path, but then soon realize it's not the one for you. It sucks, but would it have been better if he had stuck with software engineering out of some sense of obligation to the admissions director, which would have probably made him a miserable, mediocre student?

accoleon 17y ago

I currently am finishing my Diploma in Singapore Polytechnic. I have a 3.93/4.00 GPA, and is among the top, if not the top scorer in my course. Unfortunately, I would be unable to enter a local Singaporean university due to my "O" level results. I dream of going overseas (USA) for my college studies, but due to the incompatibilities of our education system (Singapore follows the British education system), I don't think I'll get to use my diploma GPA for entry.