A bust is not the end of the world. There are many ways to get where you want to be.<p>About halfway through grad school I thought I might need to move for family reasons and thus had to apply to grad schools all over again. Having completed an MS by that point and a lot more research, very strong recs from people I had worked with extensively, etc., I got into every single program I applied to (including the top one in the country). I think my undergrad GPA was probably of little interest by that point, since they had a record of grad school performance. As it turned out I didn't need to move...