The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

What I know: Cumulative gpa must remain above a 3.0, or at a 3.0.

What I do not know: How important is gpa for applicants? Do they count overall gpa or just the grades that are relevant to my major? Since the average gpa for applicants is a 3.7/3.6, should you just not apply if it's below it?

And to recipients: how competitive is this programme? What was your experience?

Hi-
I got past the semifinalist round which looks at GPA.
My GPA is a 4.0 so I don't know how much that helps you.
I transferred from a community college and did not have a GPA at the college I will be graduating from when I applied.
Apparently that did not make a difference, although I was worried about it.
Good Luck!

Guest234123 wrote:What I know: Cumulative gpa must remain above a 3.0, or at a 3.0.

What I do not know: How important is gpa for applicants? Do they count overall gpa or just the grades that are relevant to my major? Since the average gpa for applicants is a 3.7/3.6, should you just not apply if it's below it?

And to recipients: how competitive is this programme? What was your experience?

I am a semifinalist and when I applied I had a 3.5 GPA and after the last semester I sent my updated transcript which is now a 3.4. GPA is probably important, but they won't just ignore applicants with a GPA lower than 3.6/7.

I had something like a 3.2 - the grading rubric type thing is somewhere on this forum, you're disqualified under 3 otherwise it's fair game. If you're applying for an undergrad scholarship your GPA is a much bigger portion of your selection, if you're applying for a grad school scholarship your research/experience portion is bigger. (i.e. GPA is 30% vs. 15% type thing)

Keep in mind the fact that the average GPA is around 3.7 means that plenty of people (but surely less than half) have been accepted who were below 3.7. I'm in the semifinalist round right now with a 3.66 in Physics for reference, and since I was right around average I'm relying on other factors to help me stand out. From what I've read acceptance is also going to come down to facility needs, DoD budget, and project experience/essays/letters of rec, though like the last post stated GPA is a bigger factor when most haven't had as much time in undergrad to get research projects under their belt as with grad apps.

Is your GPA college or high school?

I had a 3.3 college GPA in engineering courses. I think the strong background in leadership and club activity was a motivating factor for my approval though. It isn't all about grades, they look for different things.