How important are grades ?

[Aanish]

So guys I am currently in the second year of an engineering course and got my first year grade point to be a 7.92/10. Now from what most people tell me thats pretty average. Though is average enough ? You see the course I am in now is quite tough and many people struggle to get a better grade than I have. I know that its quite obvious that what I need to do is study harder but if I do so I might not be able to focus so much on building up my creative portfolio or resume becuase getting a good score really requires everything of you. I asked a friend of mine who is already studying in the US and he said that the admissions office gets so many applications that they dont think twice before rejecting someone if they feel the applicant cant match their acadamic standards . So even though I will work on improving my grade I just wanted to have a clear picture of how much priority do I give to my grades and how much I give to doing the actual film related stuff ?

 

[Zeno]

At the grad school level in a film mfa program your statement of purpose, portfolio, and prompts are far more important. I was told this by an administrator at Columbia University. If your grades are not as great, the aforementioned has to be even better. You should definitely be networking here and getting feedback on them too.

 

[Patrick Clement]

I am a 3.9 GPA student and still got into a Ivy League Grad Program, so there's your answer.

 

[Operator]

I had a 2.58 for my first two years in community college and a 3.78 for my last two years at the four year school I transferred to and I was waitlisted for Columbia.

 

[Patrick Clement]

I had a 2.58 for my first two years in community college and a 3.78 for my last two years at the four year school I transferred to and I was waitlisted for Columbia.

My guess is they probably weigh grades, not as a singular determination of acceptance but against the rest of a students submission materials. I know that UCLA and USC have minimum GPA requirements. But Columbia and NYU do not.

 

[Riki Tiki Tavi]

one important thing you should factor in is that many, many, many schools weigh your junior/senior year’s gpa more than your freshman/sophomore year’s gpa. your gpa right now isn’t necessarily stellar, but if you work on improving it, you can look a lot better as an applicant — uniquely better, even, because you showed so much improvement! trust me, they’ll notice and appreciate the difference.

don’t sweat it too much, though. yes, it’s a part of the full package, and if you were applying for an m.s degree, it’d probably be a bad foot forward... but you want a film degree! so make sure to save time for your portfolio and making good connections, too!