A student who shall aspire to earn such scholarship, or who harbor the ambition to get into some fine grad school should know that grades do play a part to fall into the zone, in whatever percentage that be. If one aspires to have the best bite at the pie, every loose screw has to be tightened for the "best shot." However, notwithstanding some inevitable exceptions, I am more or less comfortable "suggesting" that, "based of the information/reviews the universities themselves provide for "public" viewing on their website," most graduate school do not have 'fixed' GPA requirement. All they present is the "mean," the average of all the accepted applicants. The same applies to GMAT and GRE. How much of these can be offset by experience and other extra-curricular roles of some merit; not to mention recommendations, are vague but "significant." Thus, making it "more" of an art than science. Having said that, it does not hurt to have two warm coats in the winter now, eh'! One or the other shall keep us warm, and to top if off, it is more appealing. My argument is, it's grades do not matter, is does. But it is overrated. IndisGuise:) P.S: Does University of Wisconsin Madison [Electrical Engineering] really have 3.85 as GPA criterion? Random audit showed entirely different information which significantly differed from the above statement. - For the internship in business field at AT & T stands at 3.5. (Source: AT&T website.)