Is the graduate application of a "smart but lazy" person a "duplicate" of someone who has redeemed themself?

Question

Right now, we have a seemingly "catch all" question of this sort. It reads in part, "My transcripts suck. There's no way to dress it up." A number of other questions have been linked to this as a duplicate.

But at least one of other questions showed "skewed," rather than uniformly bad grades that CAN be "dressed up," IMHO. The thrust was, "I have six years of grades. They averaged 2.0 in the first three years of undergraduate work. I "found myself" in my senior year, and my grades average 3.6 for that year, plus two years of a Masters degree. Most PhD programs require a 3.3 average to graduate, and base their admittance criteria on this fact. Given that I have good research and recommendations, how can I convince them that I'm really a 3.6 student (over the last three years) and not a 2.8 student (cumulative over six years)?

Then there was a question (left open) with the basically opposite "problem" profile to "smart but lazy," (the premise of the first question cited above). It came from hardworking "grind" who gets good grades, but whose test scores, research efforts and faculty members may call his "talents" into question.

Why was the question with the 2.0-3.6 GPA "progression" closed as a duplicate of the first one, when it was really more like the open question from the grind?

Answer 1

Your main concern seems to be this question, asked by thinking.

Originally, the question asked:

Would I have any chance to get admitted to top universities? I feel that the BSc GPA is a problem.

This was closed as a duplicate of How do you get a bad transcript past PhD admissions, which has a lot of good, general advice on how the other things thinking mentioned (such as publications and good recommendations) can help get someone with a poor academic record into a PhD program. It even has this answer, which specifically addresses how a good MSc can overcome a poor BSc record.

Some 10 months later, you seem to have edited this question so it now emphasizes the difference between the BSc and MSc grades:

Will schools likely give more weight to my MSc or BSc grades?

Now it is a duplicate of Doing bad in undergraduate but good in a masters program, which asks exactly that.

The question which you call the "grind" question is like neither of those. It asks how difficult a PhD program is compared to a MS. The apparent intent of the asker is to evaluate whether a PhD would be a good choice for him/herself. It's not even about admissions - it's about deciding whether to pursue a PhD, and it doesn't even seem related to the aforementioned questions about getting into a PhD program. There may possibly be some similarities between the askers' backgrounds or personalities, but they're not asking the same question.