Grades obviously do matter. However, here's a post arguing the other side, that grades don't matter. I assure you grades do matter if you want to get a job at Goldman Sachs and eventually make $400,000 a year working 90+ hours a week!
For all those who didn't perform well in college, don't want to perform well in college, aren't willing to go back to grad school to give yourself a second chance, and like to make excuses for not trying harder, you're in for a real treat!
It's clear from the comments in my article “Examples of Good Resumes That Get Jobs,” your GPA doesn't matter. As someone who has participated in the hiring of dozens of individuals all these years, I've got it all wrong and I'm glad you called me out on it.
I'd like to think of myself as a very flexible person who sees both sides of the equation. Hence, in this post, I want to highlight why your GPA doesn't matter at all, and why you should feel confident in never putting your GPA on your resume. Working hard is overrated and employers are certainly looking for as many C and B students out there as they are A students.
Why Grades Don't Matter For Getting Ahead
1) You are special. You have done many award winning things that have brought you accolade. You started a game changing business or are a virtuoso violinist. In the world of millions, you do not believe there are also people with great grades that can also do great things. People need to recognize you for who you are. You are unwilling to conform by getting good grades.
2) You learn for the love of learning. What's most important is that you absorb the material you are learning and put it to good use. You don't feel you have to justify your learning by getting good grades. You do not believe it is possible to learn for the love of learning and also get good grades.
3) You believe experience matters most. College is a great time to experiment new things and meet new people. You believe people who get good grades are incapable of experiencing college in its “purest” form.
4) You believe grades are not a barometer for success. Once you get into the school of your choice after high school, that's all that matters. Once you have that good school on your resume, you believe your employer will not use grades to differentiate you from your thousands of other classmates.
5) You believe life is too short to get good grades. Why bother studying hard and standing above your competition when there are great shows to watch and places to see? Life is too short to work hard and give yourself the best chance possible to pursue what you want to do. Prestige matter more than grades!
Five More Reasons Why Grades Don't Matter
6) You believe there will be people out there in great positions who will empathize with you. After all, people stick together and look out for their own. There will be people in charge of hiring who did poorly in college. You don't want to risk hurting this potential bond by doing well yourself.
7) You believe in equality. It doesn't matter if someone got a 4.0 GPA, attended 6 more years in medical school, and works 80 hour daily shifts. You believe you also deserve to make $500,000 a year, provide a luxurious life for your family, and receive the same accolades. Both of you are human and deserve to be treated equally.
8) You are not American. Apparently, it is very rare for other countries except for the United States (questionable too, hence this post) who use grades as one determinant of whether you will be a hard working, good hire or not.
9) You are already very wealthy. Grades mean nothing because you can always work for your parents company, live off your trust fund, live off your spouse, or get a trust fund job.
10) You believe that only the best organizations care about high performers. If your organization isn't one of the “top 10%”, then your company must not care about choosing the best people for the job.
Even More Reasons Why Grades Don't Matter
12) You believe there is no correlation with good grades, effort and quality of life. You believe most of the cool kids in school who got poor grades will do great. There is example after example of very successful people who did poorly in school.
You don't believe there is a correlation between education and a good life. Undoubtedly, most of the successful people you see in this world didn't have good grades. You are a “C” student who deserves an “A” lifestyle!
13) You believe as a student looking for a job, you know more than the person who is looking to hire you. As you a student, you have years of experience hiring, firing, and building a team. As a result, your beliefs about the unimportance of grades trumps the hiring manager's beliefs of the importance of grades. After all, you are special and are not delusional.
14) You believe it is easier to re-invent the wheel than accepting one of many variables that indicate performance. You'd rather make your own tennis racquet than buy one from the store, or program your own website than use one of the thousands of customizable templates.
15) You don't care if your doctor did poorly at a no-name med school. All doctors are the same when it comes to performing life saving surgery, so long as they passed the medical exam. Besides, he's a nice guy.
Related: Why Get A Job When You Have A Private School Degree
Even More Reasons Why Grades Don't Matter For Making Money
16) Since grades don't matter, you don't believe where you went to school matters either. There isn't a correlation with the most successful people and the schools they attended. If you had a choice, you'd rather go to Chico State than Harvard because grades don't matter getting into school, and therefore schools don't matter.
17) You believe posting your GPA takes up too much space on your resume. 3.3/4.0 takes up seven spaces, which is crucial real estate where you could be writing how great you are.
18) You believe the best way to achieve economic progress is through Socialism. Socialism is when there is no personal responsibility and no reward for hard work. You are willing to help your 2.0 GPA classmate who parties all night by giving her 1.0 of your 4.0 GPA so both of you can have a chance with your 3.0s. As a result, everybody will eventually stop working hard in order to gain benefits from others, and tremendous progress will be made.
19) You've read the best personal finance book today. Since you've already picked up the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Buy This, Not That, you have the education and wisdom to do well in life. You're smart enough to spend ~$20 for the best wealth and life education in the world. If you do, grades really don't matter because you'll be wealthier than most of your peers who don't read!
19) The economy is so hot all you need is a pulse and you can get a job. The situation is exactly like the housing boom where anybody who could sign their name could get a loan. Good credit is meaningless for banks since they've done so well these past three years, just like good grades are meaningless for employers.
Let's Change The Perception That Grades Matter!
After listing all the reasons why grades don't matter, let's start a movement and change perception! It is much easier to change the perception of the thousands of firms, than focus on improving ourselves. Wait a minute, it's actually easier to wear shoes than carpet the world. But whatever.
Forget about studying hard or going back to grad school to give ourselves a second chance. We are special and the world must see who we are! Thanks to the war on merit, we no longer have to work as hard to get ahead. We can get ahead based on our identity and being a kind person!
And if you really believe grades don't matter, then you might as well start your own business (tutorial guide) and see what you can do on your own. There's nothing more genuine than creating something from nothing and eating what you kill.
Heck, you could even create a simple blog like this one and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in your underwear. You'll be surprised at how much money you can make online despite having terrible grades!
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For more nuanced personal finance content, join 60,000+ others and sign up for the free Financial Samurai newsletter. Financial Samurai is one of the largest independently-owned personal finance sites that started in 2009. Grades don’t matter for life success if you are knowledgeable about money.
in defence of socialism, capitalism could adopt some social aspects of it, like taxing billionaries
to level up the field a bit
True. Nobody needs billions, especially with so many people hurting.
Related post: Surviving And Thriving The War Against Merit
Interesting how so many people with poor grades get all defensive and make excuses for their lack of work ethic.
The world is brutally competitive. Nobody cares about your excuses. If you want to waste your money on college and your time in high school, then go for it!
“When you murder someone’s heart and soul to feed your ego and have no remorse, you are a monster.” -Shakespeare’s Raven 2
Congratulations FS, you’ve officially become a monster – hence the extreme comments.
Personally, I’m happily working at one of the top six major Hollywood studios in project management. I interned with them in college, and I studied engineering at a Public Ivy – think Berkeley or UVA. My GPA was 2.7 when I got that internship. Granted, I got there by working my ass off place at an international competition (where I felt like I could actually prove my skills) but nonetheless, they sent out my resume with that GPA and I still got 9 interviews.
My sibling works at FAANG (hint: not Netflix) and got into a competitive program that only takes 15 engineering graduates out of 5k applicants. Their GPA was 2.9 – they were asked about it during interviews, and they were upfront that their degree was rigorously difficult. Also noting though that they had two relevant internships and a lot of org leadership. No connections either.
On the flip side, my roommate studied a competitive STEM major and had a 3.99 GPA. They couldn’t get any experience, and they still remain unemployed after years of graduating. Also, I saw *so* many college honor students cheat on assignments by using Chegg or even pay for someone to take their exam for them. Even worse, I made A’s in shit classes where no one learned anything but then made B’s or C’s in classes where I worked my butt off.
Needless to say, from my own experiences, it was our personal skills (competitions and extracurriculars) that gave us opportunities. We definitely don’t think we’re special, but the reality for us was that we genuinely didn’t let our GPA’s define us. Plus executives I know always value character, work ethic, and humility more importantly than GPA.
I read your other articles, and this was a related link, so I was just curious about your thoughts on this. What a disappointing read. Tone be damned, you’re just malicious and cruel here. You should’ve just written that the school system fucking sucks, but if you pass your classes or use your school’s resources, this will help anyways… at least, until the education system gets better. Disgusting.
With such great personal skills, why are you swearing and sound so angry?
If you are happy that you made it with poor grades, shouldn’t you be happy instead of calling me a monster and getting all fired up?
You are free to recommend your children slack off in school and get poor grades if you wish. Everything is rational in the end. We do what makes us happy.
And if something is really bothering you, go to its source to fix it.
Agree. The guy has some serious issues.
If he was happy at his job, his financial situation, and his life, he wouldn’t be so bitter.
You’ve got mental problems. Expect to hit a ceiling real soon in your career.
Love the sarcastic article, but would appreciate one for people who knows that it matters and have no choice but to work around it.
I’m not sure what people are smoking to say GPA doesn’t matter. Like experience helps for sure, like that is how I got my current job despite the C GPA, but it also helps I went to an Ivy League so even if I don’t put my GPA on my resume, there will be hiring managers that will assume certain positive characteristics in addition to applicable job experience.
But let’s be real, a poor GPA always comes back to bite you in the a** unless mummy and daddy is there to save your a**. When I graduated with a poor GPA I assumed I would never want to go to graduate school and just go the route of networking and leveraging experience and riding whatever the Ivy League name can get me. Unfortunately, I did not account for my questioning my current career path or ever wanting to further my education. Now, because of my GPA, I can’t even take a nondegree course at the university I graduated from because my GPA is too low. I would need to take 60+ credits to try to level out my undergraduate GPA to a B.
There is always a way around a poor GPA, but it is always going to be a more difficult path than just having worked for the good GPA in the first place. It will always be the more expensive, timing consuming, arbitrary/luck dependent, and/or disheartening path– A goal that could have been done in 5 years turns into 10 years, your peers often younger than you and not having the same familial obstacles and pressures. Whether it be paying more money on extra courses to eventually get into a mediocre/midlevel Master’s degree to eventually get into the actual midlevel/prestigious program you want.
GPA always matters because it will always limit your opportunities.
P.S. Did not appreciate the negative tone you tagged onto socialism. Everyone should be entitled to food, clean water, shelter, and healthcare. I am not a proponent of universal income, but the role of capitalism is in luxury commodities (clothes, travel, plastic surgery, nice homes, etc). As people, the minimum is never enough. We are motivated to want what we can’t have, so capitalism is natural and will always be around. As a society, we need a level of socialism in place. Even if that means taking a larger share from those who earn a lot because their life IS NOT on the line nor is their luxurious lifestyle, while someone having a warm home during the winter or getting their prescription insulin IS on the line. Once someone makes a certain amount it is easy to keep getting richer via passive income; the hard work already paid off once a person reaches a certain income bracket and being taxed on the superfluous income that comes after that is not a bad thing. We should be at a point in human history to value everyone’s life and recognize we have enough resources to keep people from starving and dying from easily treated/preventable illnesses.
With an Ivy League degree and the job, curious to know what brought you to this article? Is it because you dislike your job? I’d love to know more about your story. Thanks
I just returned to school after a hiatus and am making sure that I understand course material 100% so that I can be successful in my field when I finish. I’m studying accounting.
That being said, missing points, because I can’t read my instructor’s mind, makes me think As are bullshit. If I learn the material to an exceedingly high level, I just don’t care about an arbitrary point system that I have no control over. I’m not getting Cs. I’m just not going to lose my mind trying to please every self-important instructor who wants to find ways to dock points for the heck of it, but can’t spell my name correctly in an email. I had someone not accept an assignment that was already graded online for 100%, because it was posted 3 minutes past the due date. Yeah, it was technically late, but for so many reasons it makes me feel like saying Fuck you to the grading system and focusing on taking my knowledge learned to my future career.
I can understand if the author is responding to students who aren’t trying or aren’t finding the right tools to succeed, but he comes off like a real pompous a-hole. I dropped out of college when I was 27, and am going to finish grad school by the time I’m 45, and I’m never going to look down on anyone for different educational paths than my own.
Don’t be a lazy f.
Maybe you’re the idiot for wasting your time and money dropping out at 27? If you’re going to do something, follow through. Otherwise, why bother?
Be smarter. You only have one life to live.
I think the world is a big place. In my opinion GPA doesn’t matter that much if you have developed other skills. Me personally I was awful at school dropped out at 19 and starting setting up businesses. Eventually I started buying small distressed debt heavy companies and fixed them. Find the problem get rid of dead-weight and keep cashflow. Then after a few years I would sell them. I also made a lot of money out of Dublin’s recent property boom. I have a net worth of around €46 million. I always tell my kids that a job should only be temporary and if you really wan’t to become wealthy you go your own way. Just my .002. I’m a big fan of the rest of your posts though. I get my kids to read them. Good stuff
.002 should be .02
Apparently sometime between $.02 and a net worth of around €46 million, you stop remembering how many cents are in a unit of currency.
Competing for grades in high school school seems like a joke. I know many people that did mediocre in high school and college but make 150-200k by 30. GPa’s do not really mean shit when it comes to making money over the long haul.
How did you do? And are you making multiple six figures now? Thx
Allow me to ask, you are 4.0-GPA-ultra-cum-laude and you only managed to create this website?
Sorry to tell you: GPA does not matter as much as you think.
It is useful for the first job you will get. Once you got some experience or achieve things from a different angle, GPA is useless.
Ask Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Louis Pasteur which where their GPAs.
You’re correct. I could probably do better, but I’m an underachiever creating this site part-time while I worked in banking for 13 years.
Check out how much professional bloggers can actually make. I think you’ll be surprised.
May I ask what you do?
How is it that you’ve never heard of marginal utility? The main weaknesses in your post stem from your failure to specify the difference between “GPA doesn’t matter to me because if I slack off and/or have medical crises, I’ll still pull down a 3.7 and go on to a very good next step” and “GPA doesn’t matter because 2.0 or 4.0, you’re still able to put it on your résumé/CV, and 5 years later, it’s considered gauche to leave that number there.”
Very cool. Glad you’re revisiting this post. How did you land on it? And are you struggling with finding new work due to you GPA?
Nope, I got into a top-tier program that pays me well in part because of my GPA but I was trying to find an actual economic analysis of the marginal value of grade points to support a point I wanted to make about paying more rent if it makes undergrad easier, but landed on a Strawman argument list instead
Got it. Feel free to make your own argument. Once you become an adult and independent person, the infatuation with grades doesn’t matter anymore. It should stop. It’s all about what you can do now to create more value. Look forward, not backwards.
If I am to believe the writing on the Internet, your background qualifies you to make a more detailed and nuanced argument, thus my disappointment to see the same finblog tropes replicated here. Is it worth pushing yourself to an uncomfortable level or into less-pleasant situations in order to earn better grades at a harder/more prestigious program? Yes, if your goals are measured in dollars and cents and your talents are not going to get you there. Does hard work and persistence pay off as or more reliably as talent? Sure, unless you really are an outlier, and most people aren’t (by definition) so it’s a better plan. Is that all true even for the 1% and the .01% and so on? Also yes, but these arguments completely neglect circumstances beyond that person’s control, and the book Outliers shows that luck, as much or more than talent or effort, is a determining factor on whether you land near the top of your target or scrape by the bottom, if that target is ambitious enough to depend on being the “striver” for 4-24 years straight without interruption.
I totally agree that luck plays the majority part in building and outsized net worth.
See: https://www.financialsamurai.com/your-wealth-is-mostly-due-to-luck-be-thankful/
I find your stupidity kind of ironic. You think that GPA matters LMAO. My father didn’t even go to high school and has a top job in a top company and will probably, in the very near future, make more than 6 figures. Experience trumps GPA. Connections trump GPA. GPA is important to get into a good university. After your first job whatever university you went to doesn’t matter either. In Europe, homeschool GPA doesn’t even matter to get into a lot of universities because they have entrance exams. You think that intelligence and GPA have any correlation. I know plenty of people with good grades who couldn’t figure something out themselves if their life depended on it. School only tests for memorization skills and how good you are at conforming to whatever bullshit they want from you. Common sense, deductive/ critical thinking, and plenty of other very very useful traits are filtered out in most school systems. You are hiding your own stupidity by saying you are better than everyone because you have a good GPA. Congrats on the GPA. No one cares. You are so aggressive towards the people who disagree, it is hilarious. Also, you mentioned the only profession where what school you went to might matte. You are correct, in medicine school might be important. When it comes to literally any other job, experience trumps GPA and school. Just because someone isn’t good at studying subjects they don’t give a shit about, doesn’t mean that they won’t be good at a job that is suited to them. Your ignorance about the types of intelligence shows your lack thereof.
Why so angry with name calling? Are you saying you got terrible grades and are now a success? What is it that you do? Most people who are satisfied with what they have respond normally. What happened to you?
Wow, truly awesome. Another delusional mental patient going about on the Internet like he’s something so grad,. I’m tlking about you John
How come so many smart people can’t figure out the earth is cooking?
[…] really come until I had a mentor who entered my life sometime in the 6th grade. At the time I had a 1.33 GPA and my school performance didn’t really get much attention at home. However, the new mentor held […]
Great way to say you’re better than anyone else–stuff it in a blog on the internet! I have a suggestion for your next post–“I have more money & an ivy league education, all my readers can f&$% off.” Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can see the true motives behind this post, John.
100% agree. A lot of the people commenting have stated just an opinion and then boasted about how great they are and what sets them apart from everyone else. These are people who have to say something rather than have something to say. Which makes both statements likely false. A university is a safe environment where you can test and push the limits of what are able to learn and can apply without the consequences of screwing up in real life. For example you have the materials and direction to master how to successfully hedge bets on futures without any working capital. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow. The grades your earn are a testament to how well you mastered your area of study/expertise. Probably the biggest issue is that those who flunked their entrance exams just don’t understand or are smart enough to understand what sets a graduate apart from the factory laborer.
These are the most useless comments that I have ever seen on any website. Nothing but anecdotes; “My sister did this and therefore the world is like that”. Please read some research articles on the factors that predict success. These articles study thousands or millions of people to determine the weights of diverse factors.
In job interviews, you must somehow demonstrate that you are better suited for the position than the other candidates. A high GPA in a tough major from a top school says a lot of good things about your intelligence, willingness to learn and determination. Someone without that qualification will have to be quite a salesperson to sell himself in an interview.
High yes, 4.0 vs 3.9 vs 3.7… maybe? It depends on how much you know about effective career advancement, which is still “what you know” and not “who you know” but still, between 70-85% of jobs are filled via networking rather than through anything like the “apply for jobs through a portal” approach where GPA is most important.
LOVE this Blog. Pretty much captures the essence of my financial success and other successes in my life of 49 years.
In general, grades do not matter, but there are some conditions on that statement.
Grades might have a bearing in the short term right after college or grad school, since for manny fresh-out students that is all they have on their resume to speak of. Grades might also mean a bit more for certain fields, like medicine and engineering or if you want to be a college professor. That said, once in the workforce as a professional, the bearing grades has on one’s future success is nearly zero. I have been an engineer (I have M.S. plus some PhD work) for 27 years and NO ONE has ever asked about my grades or what college I went to. It simply does not matter at age 49. It did matter first getting hired. Here is interesting thing: in high school I was a total flop at bottom 10% of my class (duh), in college I got exactly a 3.0 in Electronics Engineering (I worked my way through college and paid for it 100% on my own after two years in the U.S. Army), after working for several years, I got my master degree from Johns Hopkins with a 4.0 and then tinkered with a PhD (still in it a bit). I worked my butt off for that 4.0 MS degree, and in hindsight, I think I wasted my time. I could have easily sailed by with a 2.0 or and NO ONE would know the difference. Getting good grades is admirable, but what is valuable in a career is your ability to communicate, get along with people, influence others, your business acumen, and so on. The value proposition is on the credential itself (like a Ph.D.) but there is little value in the GPA you managed to pull off (a PhD is a PhD regardless if you squeaked by with a 3.0 or with a shiny 4.0 – no one cares but you). Now, there are some careers, especially early on, where you really need to learn the technical details, and grades are probably a good measure of your mastery of certain cutting edge skills (genome research, particle physics, etc.) and there grades might be more important. I know a lot of folks that are geniuses on paper but dumber than a post in the real world. BTW: I love education and have amassed several thousand hours worth of training through work in my career – all good stuff, I learned a lot, continue to grow a lot, and NO ONE cares about the grade. On my design teams I’ll take a C student that can put together a good presentation and think quick on their feed than an A student that hasn’t got a clue where to start. My favorite saying is “perfection is the enemy of good enough.”
But, between us, I still tell my daughter that grades are important, because on some level they are a reflection of you. Grades might be an indicator of your ability to focus, indicate a strong sense of self-worth, and reflect your ability to make a commitment. But I also teach my daughter about all the things that make or break a person in REAL LIFE – things like personal finance, health, relationships, time management, leadership, parenting, standing up for yourself, being proactive and assertive, continuing education (sharpen the saw!), etc. Those are the skills that no 4.0 B.S. degree will ever teach you and are exactly the reasons why so many people have mediocre lives. So, grades are important depending on how you interpret them and how you apply them. Once in the workforce, however, you are just another person with a degree.
I just graduated my bachelor with 2.9 GPA and I am dying to do my master.
I have my own reason why my GPA is low. No one actually would care to listen and always tell me to stop giving excuse.
My family is poor and every place i went to ask for scholarship tell me i need at least a GPA of 3.0
Now i feel like grade doesnt matter only if you can fund yourself.
Can I ask what were your reasons for why your GPA was a 2.9?
3.0 really is an important level.
Trust me, u re nuts when u say grades don’t matter. Come on!!! People must and has to study their busts off in order to go to good universities. Just with certificates might increase ur chances to be applied to a better universities but that doesn’t mean getting bs ll give u chances to go to good universities. Plus not everyone are born with silver spoon in their mouth
Guess you can’t tell sarcasm.
Analytical skills are very important!
I can relate to Ivy, Sam & John Doe…think of the small percentage of people who work their butts off and still can’t pull off a decent GPA…also it’s ok to fail Beethoven was told that he was not good enough and almost everyone here now know who he is, all great people have to struggle & have failed look at Bill Gates & Steve Jobs grades don’t matter if you don’t have a creative, innovative minds & excellent person to person skills and relationships. You can gain the world and still lose everything. I really think getting good grades is supeficial and does not give an idea of the true worth of a person as an asset to an organisation.
Begin Rant:
You imply that my life’s sole purpose is to work for someone else in a job deemed respectable by the institutions and to have a high income. This is false. This type of thinking is derived from consumer fetishism. When you understand this you will begin to see that most of your cute little grades are worthless. I honestly hope every 4.0 student gets the job of their dreams so that they can devote their existence to sitting in an office so they can get that cute little bmw brand car. I hope they work so hard that they stay at their desk 18 hours a day never to experience any other aspects of life. I hope they consume all their cutely branded “diet” granola bars at their desk to off put their diabetes due to obesity due to being a cubicle monkey. I hope they work so long that they never have time to develop relationships with their family consequently to be married 3 times. I hope they buy their large house, cars, boats, televisions, i mean heck double size everything and let them buy it and be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt never to truly own anything they have. I hope they can never sleep at night or do basic human functions like running a mile because they developed an ideology that their head is separate from the body and that the body is an unnecessary organism getting in the way of making money. This is the american dream! Who doesn’t want it??? Live it up guys!!!
Or they can slack off at school, get bad grades, limit their choices and be bitter for the rest of their lives.
Get good grades to have choices, which includes slacking off if you so choose. Otherwise you’ll turn into someone full of regret for not trying harder while s/he still had the energy.
Read: https://www.financialsamurai.com/2013/05/27/why-not-just-try-harder-to-get-ahead-the-effort-vs-talent-debate/
Obviously, your reply and the original post are examples of extreme stereotype. It’s almost needless to say that anyone can be “full of regret” and for any reason. Believe it or not, many physicians regret their choices to enter medicine.
I would completely agree with Paul. However, as a physician of 33 years and a veteran of Operation Bright Star I could say I don’t regret entering medicine as I regret the state of my life currently.
I would say its not all about money as a substitute for happiness. Get this fallacy out of your head now. Life is so precious and yet we collectively throw it away every second. Yes if you can comment on this blog you probably are in the 3% of the world population that can take a few minutes out of their 80 hour work week. Wake up and live a little.
I suggest you all watch the 1976 film “Network”. It held true then and it holds true now.
Life goes by way to fast on this pale blue dot. Enjoy life for yourself and not for the acceptance of others. Who are secretly or not so secretly wishing for your downfall simply to get a moment of joy from your suffering. This is the real human condition. Always will be.
Hey, read the book of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) in the bible, might shake your head a little bit.
Yours truly,
Your average 2.5-GPA loser who lived and worked jobs related to his profession in 4 different countries.
What was the reason why you did so poorly in school? Wouldn’t it have been better to get a higher GPA to give yourself more options in life?
Hard work requires no skill. Just effort.
I know many Ivy Leaguers who are booksmart yet lack wisdom, historical context, or critical thinking. College is a data point. If someone has a great GPA and in conversation and action yield above average results, great. But to rely on that as the singular data point that matters disregards other life experiences.
While others were graduating college, I had a lot of personal family issues to contend with. Learned a lot in the process, many of it health and gerontology included, that my peers did not have to deal with until recent years. My grades took a hit as a result. As a matter fact, I ended up viewing grades as a rather artificial construct.
As you yourself have noted, grit and effort matters more than talent. And that is what I noted as well. The shit I had to go through in life mattered a lot more than the grades I got. And to those that get hung up on grades, I am fairly confident they also had a pretty sheltered and well-to-do life at their parents expense that allows them to see the world through so rose tinted lenses.
I was excited about reading this until it hit me that this was satire. Grades do matter yes. In most cases grades should matter, but I was still hoping this wasn’t going to be a satire…
A little about myself:
I am an Undergrad Engineering student (Electrical, Computer, Bio-Medical and Neural) at an unnamed University (Globally within the top 50 universities). I work hard in school. I do research. I study all the time. I have a 2.7 GPA. I don’t like putting my GPA on resumes because it is easy for recruiters to think “Oh, she doesn’t know anything” instead of thinking “Oh, she doesn’t take exams well.”
I think the research that I do proves what I am capable of. I think the extracurricular activities and the course projects I have worked on prove what I am capable of. I think the fact that I go to the school that I go to says a lot! None of that matters when they see 2.7.
I’ve gone to job fair after job fair, and it hurts when employers hand you your resume back.
Yes, I realize my scenario probably isn’t typical everywhere, but at my school it is. The semester I got my first D was the semester I decided to get 8 hrs of sleep 4 nights a week, and try to eat at least 2 meals everyday (rather than skip these things to study). Goodness knows I have no social life! My schedule before then involved classes from 10 am – 4 pm, and homework from 4 pm – 4 am. I would get 5 hrs of sleep if I was lucky, before I started again.
At my school many students develop depression or eating disorders from the stress of the courses. Learning and getting the grade is more important than their personal health and well-being, and for what? A world-renowned education, a vast array of knowledge, and the inability to have anyone take you seriously. When given the chance they surpass expectations, but their “grades” keep opportunities from coming their way.
Again, I acknowledge that we are not the majority, but nonetheless I feel that when the advice, “the grades don’t matter” or “grades should matter” are given they should be given in context. My grades neither reflect what I know, nor how hard I work. Truly they say: “Ivy doesn’t take exams well. Ivy’s professors like asking obscure questions that will likely not be useful in the real world. Ivy should eat better/sleep more.” The other 99% of the resume says: “Certainly Ivy can do the work,” but the GPA speaks slanders my name loudly.
Ivy,
Everything is relative. Maybe a 2.6 GPA is OK compared to a 3.8 GPA from Boston University, but the potential employer isn’t going to hire everyone from MIT. You are competing against fellow people at MIT who have good to great grades.
It’s once you get into the school that matters. Let’s try even harder and get the GPA above 3.0. Many firms have 3.0 cut offs.
Good luck.
9) You are already very wealthy. Grades mean nothing because you can always work for your parents company, live off your trust fund, or live off your spouse.
What is this, a satire? Some of us are killing ourselves over our GPAs precisely because we are unwealthy and we cannot fall back on our families. GPAs aren’t the end all be all of an application. But they help us stand out against competition.
Exactly.
And yes, this is a satirical response from a college student who hasnt tested the labor market yet who told me grades don’t matter.
Of course grades matter!
Sorry to bump this so late, but it is a great subject. As one who spent decades telling others (and myself) that grades were not important, trying to change others’ perceptions of less-than-best academic performance, and all the while believing I was “special”, please allow me to say…I was wrong. And kidding nobody. Grades are important. People will tolerate one’s piffle while attempting to make the opposite case, but consider it time wasted in the interest of politeness and avoiding a no-win confrontation.
btw, dig the ‘Light Bulb’ idea, but believe that concept is already a mature implementation; it is known by another name – Civil Service.
Thanks for your thoughts JC. I don’t really care what people’s grades are, so long as they show a good attitude and a willingess to work hard. But, when folks start arguing that grades don’t matter to younger folks who are in HS or college, that’s when I have to step up. It’s better to have good grades and more options, all else being equal.
@Mike Hunt
Mike, I have a student who is actually conducting a science fair project here in San Diego, on this topic: Do grades matter? or, specifically: Do student’s with good grades earn more in their life time. He is having a heck of a time speaking with people who have done research and have documented studies. Poor kid, he’s put in numerous hours and can’t find someone to talk with about his project. He has a great idea, and some ideas to test his hypothesis, but really needs a mentor. If you or someone else reading this post could offer my student some guidance and advice, I could have you communicate with him, through me. Please drop me an email: mrsg9064@aol.com Thanks everybody!
Elaine,
Have your student read this post and share his thoughts!
Grades do matter, bc of the many more opportunities that arise.
Financial Samurai,
Does it make you made when people with poor grades at college earn more money that you?
I am waiting for your sarcastic reply.
Peace.
Not at all. The world is full of money. More power to people who slack off and make it big!
Ok I think the problem with grades is that, we are raised in a society that promotes to just chase the grade. Get the grade for the sake of just getting, and never stop to think what your doing. I think it would be great if some people just watched the first four mins of this video “Public “Education” has become indoctrination and distraction”. I’m not saying grades are a bad thing but what I do think is how we get them is the more important thing.