My mom graduated with a really high GPA, and my aunt got through by the skin of her teeth. 30 years later, my aunt has the better job.
My mom graduated with a really high GPA, and my aunt got through by the skin of her teeth. 30 years later, my aunt has the better job.
Nothing wrong with being a real hard worker but just not very smart. You can still excel at a lot of professions.
new to real world wrote:
I agree with the above post. I graduated in May 2008 with just above a 3.0 from a state school. I landed my dream job two months after graduation and was NEVER asked my GPA.
Often times GPAs are overrated anyway. EQ is often a better indicator than IQ when it comes to how successful someone will be in life. If you have a perfect GPA and are a social retard and can’t work with people you may have problems. If you have a less than perfect GPA but have a great personality and common sense you can go a long way.
This kind of opinion in the world always cracks me up. What makes people always assume that the people with bad grades (and YES, a 2.9 in Biology is bad -- especially if one poster is right and it is in the bottom 20 or 5%) are the ones who have the great "soft skills"?
Unless you are in marketing or PR or non-technical sales, I don't think your personality is even that relevant. I don't think grades are always a reflection of people's intelligence or success potential ... but face it, there is a reason that they give them. They are a reflection of your long-term pattern of achievement (as in FOUR YEARS). I will say that if I was looking at two candidates and BOTH went to the same or similar schools and one had a 2.9 and one had a 3.5, if I coudln't meet them I would bet on the 3.5 student every time -- all else being equal.
Sometimes the consequences of your behaviors catch up with you. A low GPA will often prevent you from getting into on-campus interview schedules. I spent 5-6 years coordinating on-campus interviews for one of the top 10 U.S. Corporations. Based on our specific degree requirements, we would get 500+ resumes from the placement office at the University of Michigan. It would be a wonderful world if we could have read through every resume they had on file, it just isn't a practical reality. We could only fill 50% of our schedules with invited students, so we had to select ~50 students for those invitations. There are going to be different filters used to establish an interview schedule and GPA is one of them.
In the end, GPA isn't going to be the determining factor in who gets hired. However, it does allow a reasonable filter on selecting students that will rise to the challenge placed before them. If they can't get at least a 3.2, they probably didn't apply themselves to the challenge at hand - their college courses. A person who only works hard on topics they find interesting isn't the person you typically want to hire. You want a person who is willing to apply themselves to whatever challenge they face.
Once you filter out all the low GPA students, then we started looking at stated career interests and related work experience or student projects (Solar Racer, etc.) related to their stated career goals. Leadership roles were important, but became a negative if they didn't do anything innovative in those roles - lead, follow, or get out of the way!
We would still have plenty of candidates that had great marks in all of these categories. Ultimately, the recruiting team would have to answer the question "Among these candidates, who would I want to work with?" Soft skills of the candidates became crucial at this stage. Has the candidate demonstrated passion in their work/projects and during the interview? Do they approach things with a positive outlook? Do they naturally complement teammates/co-workers? Do their responses to questions reflect the ability to listen and discern the facts important to the speaker? How do they deal with failures - do they seek to place blame or are they able to learn from such experiences and explain how they would do things differenly if faced with a similar situation again?
Are GPA's important? Yep. Will they get you a job? Nope.
To the OP:
* If you have a low GPA due to unusual challenges (death in the family, serious illnesses or disabilities, financial challenges requiring significant work hours while attending school, etc.), personally place your resume in the hands of the person that can make a decision on giving you an interview. Figure you have about 2 minutes to give them a compelling reason to give you that interview despite your low GPA.
* If you have a low GPA because you were a slacker, don't expect much. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. This is where your history catches up with you.
darkness wrote:
I will say that if I was looking at two candidates and BOTH went to the same or similar schools and one had a 2.9 and one had a 3.5, if I coudln't meet them I would bet on the 3.5 student every time -- all else being equal.
But what if the 2.9 person is a pleasure to interact with in interview, knows a lot about the position he's applying for, seems to have it together, and the 3.5 can't make eye contact, speaks in a whisper, etc.
You can't hide a small brain with a big mouth, but being an effective communicator can go a long way when trying to impress people you'll eventually have to work with.
You have to get the interview first in order to demonstrate these other skills and a low GPA makes getting that interview much tougher.
themanontherun wrote:
darkness wrote:I will say that if I was looking at two candidates and BOTH went to the same or similar schools and one had a 2.9 and one had a 3.5, if I coudln't meet them I would bet on the 3.5 student every time -- all else being equal.
But what if the 2.9 person is a pleasure to interact with in interview, knows a lot about the position he's applying for, seems to have it together, and the 3.5 can't make eye contact, speaks in a whisper, etc.
You can't hide a small brain with a big mouth, but being an effective communicator can go a long way when trying to impress people you'll eventually have to work with.
I agree completely. I don't think that grades are someone's measure as a person, or an employee. And I was saying that I would choose the person with better grades IF I COULD NOT see them.
Read it through again, you might be jumping to a conclusion that isn't even addressed in my post. All I was saying is that some people act as if you got good grades in college or HS and made an effort to make the Dean's List that you automatically look like/act like a retard and the below-average student is always some kind of polished-Big-Man-on-Campus sophisticate. There is no reason to believe that. While it is sometimes true ... to read it on here you can't even interact with others if you cared about grades.
You guys talking about rampant grade inflation at Ivies like it's easier to make the grade at Princeton than at tough ol' Big State U are ridiculous. I'll admit that a few dolts slip into Ivies and top-10 schools, but for every one of them, there are thousands at state school (hence the giant weed-out classes). Almost anyone who can hack a B at a top school could skate with As at state school.
Darkness wrote, "I will say that if I was looking at two candidates and BOTH went to the same or similar schools and one had a 2.9 and one had a 3.5, if I coudln't meet them I would bet on the 3.5 student every time -- all else being equal."
I agree with you here, but how would you know what their GPA in college was? Unless you are talking about grad school and not a regular job.
My point is, the prospective employer can always ask, but it's been my experience that they never do.
However, it's been 15 years since I graduated, so I won't pretent to know how entry level jobs are obtained these days.
Does anyone have experiences where you were asked you GPA at an interview?
never seen a gpa requirement on a job application. once you graduate and your not going to grad/medical school/law school your gpa is meaningless. about half of letsrun posters are college kids and need to justify their low/high gpas. a bit of advice guys, work less in school and work harder meeting professors to use their connections and getting to know other students who may link you to a job because your gpa will not get you anywhere
no and no wrote:
The problem with that is that the bottom these days is a lot crappier.
Junior...you have NO idea what you are talking about.
in the late 70s you had Phds in hard sciences taking jobs as receptionists...
All that matters now for an employer is getting people who can be trained, and contribute to the business. Who gives a flying F@#K about grades and where you went to school? If you are hiring somebody w/ no experience, they are WORTHLESS to the business, and have to learn. So attitude is everything.
The days of "well educated" candidates w/ no experience getting their poles smoked in order that they might deign to work at firm X are long gone.
If anything, the field more heavily favors a person w/ a decent attitude and poor grades. They want a break, and will be grateful and loyal for it.
Look what 15-20yrs of Ivy league education was wrought on Wall Street.....
True story:
A European Investment bank was opening an office here in Taipei. The head of IT for the bank needed a head of IT for the securities group. As the head of trading, I would have to work closely w/ this new hire, but of course was not consulted.
They hired a guy who was #1 in his Masters program in EE from Taiwan Natl. University.
To be #1 in EE at a NE Asian university means you 1) are extremely smart and 2) you have the ability to work your balls off.
Should have been perfect, right?
Wrong....securities markets are EXTREMELY time sensitive. "Pretty good" is good enough. But this guy wanted every connection and every module to work in a way that HE believed to be perfect.
Bottom line - he didn't last 9 months. He was much better suited to IC design (which he is doing very well now).
Grades.mean.nothing
Would you rather hire somebody w/ 5yr experience and no degree, or somebody w/ no experience and a >3.5 from a top-shelf school? If you have ever MANAGED people (and their output), the choice is obvious....
Off the Grid wrote:
The problem with that is that the bottom these days is a lot crappier.
Junior...you have NO idea what you are talking about.
in the late 70s you had Phds in hard sciences taking jobs as receptionists...
[/quote]
The wages and benefits those underemployed PhDs had were better than what they'd get these days.
speedy da turtle wrote:
never seen a gpa requirement on a job application. once you graduate and your not going to grad/medical school/law school your gpa is meaningless. about half of letsrun posters are college kids and need to justify their low/high gpas. a bit of advice guys, work less in school and work harder meeting professors to use their connections and getting to know other students who may link you to a job because your gpa will not get you anywhere
What are you guys talking about? How have you have never seen a GPA requirement on a job application? Within the past five years, many companies have created online job applications websites. When I was applying for jobs two years ago, almost all of these companies' websites said stuff like, "Don't apply unless you have a 3.2 or above," or "minimum GPA of 3.0." Also, all of the online applications asked me for my undergraduate GPA. While I agree college students should spend time making connections to get a job, having a strong GPA will also help.
I had a 2.75 at graduation. I got a pretty good job exactly one day after commencement. Of course some of the best jobs out there (Lockheed Martin, etc) would not look at me because of my GPA, but it turned out for the better. I like my job way better, and I am a whole lot more successful than I probably would have been at one of the premier jobs everybody was fighting for.
You have a degree, you'll get a job. Believe it or not, a lot of employers are looking for the right people, not the best GPA. Show some personality in the interview, you'll be fine.
That would be "it's" not easy. Hope those "easy A" humanities classes served you well.Any by the way, why do you think you're competing against other students for a grade?
At an Ivy wrote:
I don't understand how you say grade inflation is rampant in the Ivies. I'm at one now, and my classes (math and science) are all curved to a B or a B-. Meaning a 2.7-3.0 is "average". Sure there are some humanities classes that are an easy A, but my degree only requires 4 of them.
When you have a class full of really bright people and you are competing against them to get a grade, believe me its not easy.
I will put two qualifiers on my advice
#1 from Canada didn't need a GRE exam
#2 doing my masters in poli-sci
but I would echo what most people are saying, my undergrad marks had some definite gaffs, gaps and straight up stupidity in them, however, my last 2 years the marks took a sudden up swing in consistancy/score and my letters of reference were awesome. I really knew the professor's and they seemed to like me. That being said I applied to 4 different schools got turned down by 1 right off the hop and have been accepted to two others as of right now with funding available at both, the last school is still out to lunch probably due to their incredible incompetence. So I would say as long as your willing to go wherever the offer is and maybe even accept that you will not get funding you should be alright as long as you apply to every school you can think of.. the more the better. I got accepted at two schools which I thought were way out of my league but they seemed to have seen something in the letter's of reference.
If your only looking to work, grades may not be all that important at all. Just try hard and see what happens.
Cheers
DeezelRunner wrote:
2.9 is a B... SUCK IT UP AND DON"T BE WORRIED! damn this world kills me with the stupid pressures people put on f***ing grades
anyone who gives a shit about what they're doing can get above a 2.9 in school.
potential employers don't have much of substance to go on other than college GPA for new graduates.
they aren't going to be fighting over a guy who didn't give a shit about school.
For grad school it might be an issue if you want to go to another Ivy. For a job don't worry about it. Some employers ask for GPA but I have never seen one actually verify it. You would have to get that info for them because the school would not be allowed to release your records without your permission.
Er... wrote:
That would be "it's" not easy. Hope those "easy A" humanities classes served you well.
Any by the way, why do you think you're competing against other students for a grade?
As he said, his math/sci classes are curved to a B/B- average. The scores you make on tests don't matter, all that matters is where your average ranks in the class lineup at semester's end.
Of course, you could expect that your grades and where you stack up in the class are related (the straight-A guys will probably be in the top, etc), but if your entire class averages an A- in his scenario, the lowest of those are getting bumped down below the B/B- level to correct the average.