Original URL: http://blog.minizone.com.cn/2006/12/16/gpa/

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3.1 Transcript – grades and classes
When applying to a Ph.D. program in CS, you’d like your grades in CS and Math and Engineering
classes to be at least 3.3 out of 4.0, as a rough guideline. These are not meant to be absolute
numbers. At CMU the mean GPA of students admitted is over 3.8 (even though we don’t use grades
as a criterion), however students have also been admitted with GPAs below 3.0, since research is
what matters, not grades. A GPA of 4.0 alone with no research experience will not get you into any
top CS program. Keep in mind that GPAs are evaluated in the context of the undergraduate program.
A 3.4 GPA from a top-ranked CS undergraduate program like CMU counts the same as a 3.8 or 3.9
GPA from a less well-known CS undergraduate program.
Some questions I hear frequently are “will taking extra classes make me look good” and “will
it make me look good to take advanced graduate classes?” The answer to both questions is “only
if these extra courses lead you to work on an interesting research problem.” Taking arbitrary extra
classes usually does not lead to doing more research. However, taking one or two carefully selected
graduate classes, and cutting back on other classes that semester, will often lead you to find
interesting research problems to work on.
Note: Your grades may be somewhat low – under 3.0 – because you were having a good time
in college and you may therefore be having trouble getting into a Ph.D. program. In this case, you
may want to do an MS and use the time to boost your grades and reapply after the MS.
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