USMA GPA, jobs and graduate school apps

1337BeachedWhale1337

1337BeachedWhale1337

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After I've graduated from USMA(assuming I do indeed graduate), if I decide to apply to graduate school or look for a civilian job, what GPA will be looked at to decide if I am a qualified applicant? Will they look at just my academic GPA? Or will they look at my total GPA which includes classes like boxing and military science?
 
Your transcript will not differentiate. Your GPA will include all classes. The transcript does not break out "purely academic" GPA vs. your overall GPA/CPA. Where are you sitting right now?
 
scoutpilot said:
Your transcript will not differentiate. Your GPA will include all classes. The transcript does not break out "purely academic" GPA vs. your overall GPA/CPA. Where are you sitting right now?
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I think things may have changed a bit since you were at USMA. Now transcripts have several GPAs, a physical one, a military one, an academic one, and a total GPA.

I haven't finished my final exams yet, but if I end up keeping the same grades in all of my classes I will have a 3.9 academic GPA and a 3.8 total GPA.
 
1337BeachedWhale1337 said:
I think things may have changed a bit since you were at USMA. Now transcripts have several GPAs, a physical one, a military one, an academic one, and a total GPA.

I haven't finished my final exams yet, but if I end up keeping the same grades in all of my classes I will have a 3.9 academic GPA and a 3.8 total GPA.
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You're confusing your semester reports with your transcripts. I received a fresh copy of my transcripts this year, and they generate them upon request. We always had separate GPAs on our semester reports. The problem is that no other colleges do that, so USMA transcripts conform to the standard style of reporting term GPA (Cur) and Cumulative GPA (Cum).
 
scoutpilot said:
You're confusing your semester reports with your transcripts. I received a fresh copy of my transcripts this year, and they generate them upon request. We always had separate GPAs on our semester reports. The problem is that no other colleges do that, so USMA transcripts conform to the standard style of reporting term GPA (Cur) and Cumulative GPA (Cum).
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I see, thanks for the explanation. That is most unfortunate, for me at least.
 
scoutpilot said:
I'm sure you'll be fine. What's your cum avg?
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Well, I'm a Plebe so my cumulative avg is the same as my current semester avg. I doubt I'll be able to sustain a 3.8 since a lot of the classes I took this semester were easy core classes that everyone has to take. If I had to guess, I'd say I'll finish with somewhere between a 3.4-3.7.
 
Don't sweat it. Your resume will matter much more when applying to school than your grades. And you never know. My best semester GPA was the last semester of Firstie year. And I'll most likely be at Harvard next year, so you don't need to worry. The thing that will matter most will be doing well at whatever tasks you have ahead of you, being a good leader, and always taking care of the people who take care of you. The rest will sort itself out.

PM me if you have any other questions/concerns.
 
scoutpilot said:
Don't sweat it. Your resume will matter much more when applying to school than your grades. And you never know. My best semester GPA was the last semester of Firstie year. And I'll most likely be at Harvard next year, so you don't need to worry. The thing that will matter most will be doing well at whatever tasks you have ahead of you, being a good leader, and always taking care of the people who take care of you. The rest will sort itself out.

PM me if you have any other questions/concerns.
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Are you going to grad school through ACS or some other type of Army funding? I am sooooo interested in that
 
Sydney C. said:
Curious...is that due to strictly current budget restraints?
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Manning, mostly. The Army is short on people now and they're keeping everyone in formations that they can. Unless there's a verified need for education, like going to an ORSA or USMA instructor job, it's very hard to get the Army to play ball.
 
Maybe this is an old wives tale - but the story went something like, universities look at a service academy GPA and will add a 1/2 to full point to the GPA. A service academy education has so many other distractions that a normal college student does not deal with that grad programs give a bump to the GPA. A 3.3 service academy gpa might be really worth 3.8 for another college kid. Maybe the equalizer is the grad school testing GRE, GMAT... No hard facts on this - only wroth my 2 cents.
 
So...as someone who is in the graduate school business. The urban legend about other universities adding points to the GPA is just that 'a legend.' However, everyone recognizes the difficulty of the program. We know that some of the classes don't make sense (seamanship, PE, etc.)--but when I look at your transcript and I need you to come to graduate school and be able to do stats and learn quantitative analysis, I better see some math grades at school that are a B or C and I better see GRE scores that represent what you are capable of doing compared to the rest of the grad school applicants. I will give someone from an academy the benefit of the doubt--the course load, the military load--but if the bottom line is you need a 3.0 to be competitive, you better have awesome GRE scores and great LoRs to make up for it--and you better reach out to my program director and tell him why you want to come to our school so that he can make a case for you at the admissions committee. Just graduating from a service academy does not get you in to grad school--but it definitely has the potential to make your application stand out.
 
Also, a lot of people are getting graduate school--but it has to be linked to the next job/specialty: FAO, ORSA, etc. There are LTHEP opportunities (the 70Hs in my program come that route and 70As). However, my #1 Son is on an ACS straight outta' undergrad to NPS--but that might be a branch thing.
 
DrMom said:
when I look at your transcript and I need you to come to graduate school and be able to do stats and learn quantitative analysis, I better see some math grades at school that are a B or C and I better see GRE scores that represent what you are capable of doing compared to the rest of the grad school applicants.
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Does that mean math majors are looked upon favorably for admissions purposes?
 
No. It has nothing to do with being a math major--unless you are applying for a math-related graduate program.
The difference is that whatever you major in--history, philosophy, systems engineering...you have enough math (two rigourous years)--to be eligible for consideration for a variety of graduate programs that require statistical and quantitative skills--like health research, educational research, business, health administration.

So...be sure to major in what you love and in which you can do well...and trust that you will have a robust enough transcript to be competitive for a variety of graduate programs. (The alternative is an English or History degree from State U...in which you don't have math or science...limiting your ability to pursue graduate programs that include quantitative analysis.)

I hope that helps.

However, if you like Math and are good at Math--then go for it. The world needs Math majors.
 
One of the strengths of a service academy education is that the curriculum is broad and rigorous. If you graduate with a major in one area and then decide you want to pursue graduate education in a completely different field, you can easily pickup the prerequisite courses during your time in service for many fields of study.
 
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