How important are grades in college?

I currently have a 3.94 GPA, which is pretty good. But i am realizing, what does it matter? A higher GPA will help you get into graduate school or the specific undergraduate program you want to get into, but then what? can’t a little ingenuity get you past those limitations?

For example, at IU bloomington you need a 3.4 GPA to get into a specific bachelors program. But at IU east, anyone with a 2.0 GPA can get into the same program (there are 8 IU campuses in indiana). Same with graduate school. Some graduate schools require a 3.5, some let you in with a 2.5.

I don’t know if i’m ranting or what. I just feel ‘addicted’ to making A’s and i fear this will cause burnout or that i am just wasting my time. I am already accepted into the undergrad program i want to be in and i don’t know if i want to go to graduate school.

In the end i, like the people who made C+'s, will have a piece of paper with my name on it that will help me get my foot in the door of potential employers.

Yes and no. I think that the schools reputation can be more important than your individual grades once you graduate. Whats better, a 2.5 from Harvard or a 3.9 from Generic State U? It can be important during campus recruiting since you are competing against a dozen people all from the same school. Also, some companies offer highly competitive programs like 2 year management training or I-banking analyst programs that can really accelerate your career. These are often highly competitive as well.

But unlike those people, you may have something more: if you’re making the effort necessary to earn A’s, then you’re probably learning more than they are (or at least learning the value of hard work).

It’s what you learn that counts. Grades will help for grad school, and with a few companies that recruit straight out of university. I guarantee after a year or two or work, no one will care what your GPA was - probably not even yourself.

Keep in mind too that some employers will be prejudiced against someone with too high of grades. It implies that you’re too smart (eg it came naturally) or too obsessive, and that you won’t make a good employee.

Eh, I think that’s overly optimistic. Our company has been recruiting some people, and those applicants who can boast of high grades have a definite advantage – even if they’ve been out of school for years.

I would agree with JThunder - your high GPA will give you a great advantage when it comes to finding a job.

Keep up the good work!

Perhaps employers at a mediocre company. Do you really want a job where being “too smart” is a liability?

Grades don’t matter a “year or two after graduation” only if you develop practical work experience in that year or two that outweighs your GPA. Keep in mind that having a 3.9 will open up oportunities that someone with a 2.0 may not get. So while the 3.9 guy is working in a top company, gaining valuable experience, someone with a 2.0 might just be fileing in some cubicle, working alongside other drones patting themselves on the back because they got such a great job even with their poor grades.

Number-chasing for the sake of number-chasing is something I’ve never understood, and I’ll admit that I’ve always looked down a little on people who seemed to care nothing about learning but everything about what their GPA was. It’s possible to make decent grades without actually learning much, and such a person will be in much worse shape in life than someone with the same GPA who learned more. Of course, if you’re really working hard and paying attention in your classes you’re far more likely to make good grades than bad ones. I think a student’s GPA has value as a reflection of a student’s hard work, ability, and learning, but the less accurate the reflection the less significance the GPA has.

As best as I can tell, your GPA in and of itself as opposed to your GPA as a reflection of your experience is important primarily in dealing with the school administration. If it’s too low, they’ll take away your scholarships or even throw you out. If it’s high, they’ll be a lot more willing to help you out with financial problems or to bend the rules for you if you find yourself in some sort of jam.

Other factors besides top grades are important, but keep in mind that even if you currently have no plans for grad school, you may change your mind a few years down the line. (I did.) Some grad programs are insanely competitive, especially if there aren’t many programs in the field you chose, to the extent that very small variations among applicants can make all the difference in grad admissions, and even more so for funding. In fields where funding is extremely competitive (liberal arts, etc.), a fellowship can mean the difference between coming out debt-free vs. tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Besides, I believe that academic effort of any sort is rarely wasted.

Eva Luna, M.A. in the extremely practical field of Russian & East European Studies

I actually addressed this in my Master’s Thesis many years ago. Although my interest was focused on the recent graduates from the Department of Advertising at the University of Texas, my secondary research covered many disciplines. For the most part researchers have had a pretty hard time finding strong correlations between academic success and professional success. Academic success is generally measured by GPA or some kind of percentile ranking. Professional success is measured by income, rate of income advancement, professional reputation by peers, and job satisfaction.

One might expect little correlation to be found in and artsy-craftsy field like advertising, but for engineers? If I recall correctly, one study of engineers found little difference between the 1st, 3rd and 4th quartiles but found a sharp spike in the 2nd quartile. That’s encouraging news for all us B students.

Based on my own observations the one area where academic achievement really matters is in – surprise, surprise – academia. Colleges are, after all, in the business of selling degrees, so they are going to emphasize the whole academic arena more. If you are trying to get into a special program or a teaching job, they’re going to look at your GPA. Hell, even if you apply for a janitor’s position they’re going to look at your GPA.

I’ll be quite honest here. Except for gaining admission into certain postgraduate programs, they’re totally irrelevant.

Since I joined the working world by having a degree has helped me a LOT. Having a degree makes it easier to get jobs, get qualifications, and it impresses people. And the stuff I learned has helped me a lot, too. But the specific MARKS I got have never once been an issue. Nobody cares what your GPA was, and anyone who brags about it would be considered a humongous bozo.

It may be that some employers, as msmith claims, care about your GPA. This might be especially true in insular, specialized professionals like medicine and the law. But I have personally never witnessed it; the question ends at what degree/diploma you have. I’ve never once heard of GPA coming up in a job interview or application process, ever.

It would be difficult for me to argue this since my grades did, in fact, suck in engineering school and yet I managed to go on to a decent business school as well as a high-paying job with a large, well respected company.

I can tell you this though. Having poor grades did make it a lot harder to find a job than it had to be.

I know a guy who went to IU, and graduated with a 4.0 GPA in math. he then got a graduate degree in computer science. He started working for $21 an hour at a software coding business.

When the business folded, he took all the customers who he used to code for, and he started free lancing for them. He made $110k last year for doing the same work he did before.

my point is it wouldn’t matter if he got a 3.0, 2.0 or 4.0, it was his good business sense and courage that made him succeed, not his GPA.

Aren’t things like good personal communication skills, fiscal responsibility, business sensibility, intrapersonal motivation skills etc. what i should really be focusing my energy on learning/obtaining? I’m not going to drop my GPA, i just think that this isn’t what is really important.

If you’re anything like me, your addiction to making A’s (some call it perfectionism, some, compulsion) will not go away, so what difference does it make? Would you really feel happy if all of a sudden you were getting B’s and C’s?

Maybe good grades are a waste of time, and maybe they’re not. It depends which job you end up desiring. Good grades say to employers a number of things: you’re smart, capable, a hard worker. And if you haven’t even started college yet, how do you know that you’re definitely not going to graduate school? There is much time for changes of mind, and it’s best to keep your options open.

Hey, look at me! This is my first post!

My grades were terrible, but the job i have now rules and pays very well for my degree level. i admit i am somewhat lucky (it took 6 months after graduation to get this job) and I will probably have a harder time getting into certain grad schools, but my work experience will help counter that. grades just show you can regurgitate what the professor tells you. i know several 4.0 gpa people who can’t even do their own laundry. Like i’d hire those people to run DNA samples. Luck and having actual knowledge as opposed to spitting out facts without understanding them will take you much farther than a few grade decimal points.
on a side note, thanks to Japanse, i now have a 4.0! (ignore the fact it was my only class last semester, i’m gonna milk this for all i can!)

FWIW the Federal Government sometimes has a streamlined application process, called the Outstanding Scholar Program, if your undergrad GPA is 3.5 or higher. (You also can’t have taken more than 10% pass-fail classes.) It gets you out of the Civil Service exam for some positions.

The dumb part is that they apparently decided to count my 26 semester hours of AP credits as pass/fail classes (I had average scores of 4.5 on the exams, which is good enough to get redit anywhere I’ve ever heard of, including Harvard). So it actually counted against me, and I didn’t qualify, even though I otherwise qualified.

Most career counseling books I’ve seen advise you to include your GPA on your resume if it’s good (say 3.0 or above).

And welcome to the board, mr. avery brooks!

my point exactly. Personal competence is obviously more important than a GPA, but it isn’t really a trait that is encouraged or rewarded the way a GPA is.

Well, I’ve witnessed it. I landed my current job partly due to my GPA – despite the fact that it’s been years since I graduated.

When looking for jobs, you need to catch a prospective employer’s attention. You need to distinguish your resume from those of dozens of other applicants. Having a high GPA is one such way, especially if you call attention to this fact. To say that it doesn’t matter is, I think, a tad naive.

My college GPA was a 3.34. Good, but not stratospheric, right? Well, at my university it was high enough to qualify as “honors” (actually, it was a hundreths of a point away from “high honors”). And that was fine by me.

I’m in grad school now, and I had no problems whatsoever getting fellowships and plush positions (for instance, I don’t have to teach). First of all, I had a degree from a school with a reputation for being “hard” and thus “good”. Secondly, I had outstanding letters of recommendation, a strong essay on my application, two years research experience, and excellent GRE scores. Even if I hadn’t graduated with honors, I don’t think I would have had a problem getting into grad school. My particular area of interest isn’t very competitive, however. Also my school has always been “hungry” for English-speaking graduate students.

If you are aiming for professional school, having high marks are very essential. But even still, I would try to do something about your obsession with As. You are going to encounter classes that are pretty tough in college, where you will be grateful for Cs and Bs. Professors HATE students who care more about getting an A than getting the material down. No matter what you do, NEVER go to a professor and say, “I REALLLLY need an A in this class!” This is a sure-fire way to piss off your instructor.