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As a former employer who hired a lot of college grads, I disagree with the majority here. I checked with the colleges and spoke with department heads about anyone who had graduated from the college within the past 5 years or so, ESPECIALLY for new grads. I was pretty insistent on at least a 3.0 gpa unless they had experience, in which case I did hire one guy who had a 2.5 or so.
This was a reporter who, at the time, had 3-4 years of newspaper experience. He couldn't spell! He struggled forming a sentence! Editing his stories were like grading a 4th-grader's daily assignment! I never hired anyone again without AT LEAST a 3.0 gpa.
I know I was pickier than most employers, but there are certainly some of us who want excellence. We pay better than the others, offer better benefits, better training, etc. You've already cooked your goose for us, but there are other employers who just want the degree. It depends on the job and expectations for advancement.
It affects your first job, and that can pigeonhole you for the rest of your career. I have the highest certification available in my field, and I have a good job. If I work in the U.S. though, I am stuck in a career I don't really like. I'be tried repeatedly to break in and just get an entry level job in a field I am more interested in, and after several years no dice. I'm always told it is because that wasn't my first job out of school.
As a former employer who hired a lot of college grads, I disagree with the majority here. I checked with the colleges and spoke with department heads about anyone who had graduated from the college within the past 5 years or so, ESPECIALLY for new grads. I was pretty insistent on at least a 3.0 gpa unless they had experience, in which case I did hire one guy who had a 2.5 or so.
This was a reporter who, at the time, had 3-4 years of newspaper experience. He couldn't spell! He struggled forming a sentence! Editing his stories were like grading a 4th-grader's daily assignment! I never hired anyone again without AT LEAST a 3.0 gpa.
I know I was pickier than most employers, but there are certainly some of us who want excellence. We pay better than the others, offer better benefits, better training, etc. You've already cooked your goose for us, but there are other employers who just want the degree. It depends on the job and expectations for advancement.
Oh look, a part of the problem. Charming. But remember everyone, it's workers that are "entitled."
if you're gonna look for a job for the first time, it might give you a problem since you still don't have the working experience. but sometimes, a boss doesn't look at what you have done, some bosses looks at what you can do, they will give you a chance which depends on lets say the way you answer on the interview, factors like that. and remember that you should be confident even though your GPA is really low, since when you start to doubt yourself, you'll never have the time to build yourself again.
As a former employer who hired a lot of college grads, I disagree with the majority here. I checked with the colleges and spoke with department heads about anyone who had graduated from the college within the past 5 years or so, ESPECIALLY for new grads. I was pretty insistent on at least a 3.0 gpa unless they had experience, in which case I did hire one guy who had a 2.5 or so.
This was a reporter who, at the time, had 3-4 years of newspaper experience. He couldn't spell! He struggled forming a sentence! Editing his stories were like grading a 4th-grader's daily assignment! I never hired anyone again without AT LEAST a 3.0 gpa.
I know I was pickier than most employers, but there are certainly some of us who want excellence. We pay better than the others, offer better benefits, better training, etc. You've already cooked your goose for us, but there are other employers who just want the degree. It depends on the job and expectations for advancement.
The main problem with that approach is that you're using an arbitrary threshold that means different things in different contexts.
I'd absolutely hire someone with a 2.8 GPA in a difficult STEM subject at a top university over someone with a 3.5 in a fluffy major at Directional State University, and I'd get a better candidate almost every time. I'd be tempted to do the same even within the same school, since certain courses of study are flat out harder with rougher grading curves (and tougher competition -- when you're taking organic chemistry, you're competing against pre-med students, and when you're taking medieval poetry, you're competing against people who quit the pre-med track). Someone with a 2.5 from Harvard is still almost certainly smarter than someone with a 4.0 from Ball State, regardless of field of study.
Or, if someone had a graduate degree, I'd completely ignore undergrad. I'm not going to reject someone with a PhD in math just because her undergrad GPA was slightly below a some threshold. The PhD program already filtered out the hopeless candidates. Heck, I'd take the PhD over someone with equivalent industry experience, because if there's one thing working in industry has taught me, it's that it's a lot easier to bluff your way through the commercial world than through academia, where your work gets scrutinized in agonizing detail by people who know what they're doing.
Now, someone with just a bachelor's degree is pretty much screwed without some sort of distinction. I'm not hiring anyone at the moment, but I still get pestered fairly regularly by recent graduates who want to break into my field. Sometimes it's really just convenient to have a reason to reject them, and very few recent graduate with bachelor's degrees have done anything to make them worth noticing.
As a former employer who hired a lot of college grads, I disagree with the majority here. I checked with the colleges and spoke with department heads about anyone who had graduated from the college within the past 5 years or so, ESPECIALLY for new grads. I was pretty insistent on at least a 3.0 gpa unless they had experience, in which case I did hire one guy who had a 2.5 or so.
This was a reporter who, at the time, had 3-4 years of newspaper experience. He couldn't spell! He struggled forming a sentence! Editing his stories were like grading a 4th-grader's daily assignment! I never hired anyone again without AT LEAST a 3.0 gpa.
I know I was pickier than most employers, but there are certainly some of us who want excellence. We pay better than the others, offer better benefits, better training, etc. You've already cooked your goose for us, but there are other employers who just want the degree. It depends on the job and expectations for advancement.
I recently read an article about Rick Perry and how his college transcript was dug out and exposed to the public. Needless to say, I will be finishing college with a not so flattering GPA (low to mid 2s range) and I am not too big on telling the world about it. Now I have grown throughout college and feel that even now (upward trend GPA btw), I am not the immature guy I used to be earlier on in college. I feel that in 10 years, I will be a much more different person than I am now.
Unfortunately I know that records will show that I finished college with a not so great GPA.
So I must ask, is my unflattering college GPA that I will be graduating with going to haunt me for the rest of my life?
Also, what can I do after college, say years down the road, to maybe fix my college GPA or show to grad schools (if there comes a need for me to go to one) that I am a much better student?
Unless you're going to run for president (and even then it may not matter much), I seriously doubt that anyone will ever look at your college transcript once you're in the workforce.
Someone with a 2.5 from Harvard is still almost certainly smarter than someone with a 4.0 from Ball State, regardless of field of study.
While I would agree that those that attend schools like Harvard are, in general, incredibly smart, there are plenty of reasons an equally intelligent person might opt for a "lesser" school. Assuming that the person who barely manages to get by at Harvard will always be smarter than the person who excels at a state school is dumb.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John7777
Unless you're going to run for president (and even then it may not matter much), I seriously doubt that anyone will ever look at your college transcript once you're in the workforce.
As for GPA, I would say it depends on where you're looking. Many federal jobs, for instance, use GPA as a hiring criteria in lieu of direct experience. Many of these jobs will, in fact, request to see your college transcripts upon applying, regardless of how many years' work experience you have.
While I would agree that those that attend schools like Harvard are, in general, incredibly smart, there are plenty of reasons an equally intelligent person might opt for a "lesser" school. Assuming that the person who barely manages to get by at Harvard will always be smarter than the person who excels at a state school is dumb.
As for GPA, I would say it depends on where you're looking. Many federal jobs, for instance, use GPA as a hiring criteria in lieu of direct experience. Many of these jobs will, in fact, request to see your college transcripts upon applying, regardless of how many years' work experience you have.
I can't even agree with that. There are a lot of students at Harvard that are good at memorizing out of books, but that doesn't make them "incredibly smart". There are PLENTY of incredibly smart people at other schools as well though, so I agree with that. Over the past several years, just for an example, several students from our high school have been accepted to various Ivy's but turned them down to attend those "state directionals" because they got full rides vs having to pay $40,000 at Harvard or whatever. Oddly enough, the kids we do know at Harvard us the exact same textbooks as kids at these "lesser" schools.
It's just as much of a mistake assuming someone with a fancy name on their diploma is going to be a good employee as it is assuming someone with a lower GPA won't be a good employee.
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