what’s considered a good college gpa for top grad schools?

Hi Mitra,

Thank you for the question. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. The requirements for acceptance into a graduate program vary greatly from school to school and program to program. Your best option is look at each school and program to see what criteria they require. Of course, it's always a good idea to speak with schools directly. A friend of mine had an undergraduate GPA that was lower than what the school listed on its acceptance criteria. He spoke with an admissions advisor and, in short, was able to gain conditional admittance into the program because he had strong professional experience.

Acceptance into graduate school is rarely ever about "one thing" such as one's GPA. It's usually holistic meaning that schools will look at a variety of factors to make an admissions decision: GPA, work experience, standardized test scores (such as the GRE, GMAT, etc), volunteer experience, and on the list goes.