# Pretty Girls Get Better Grades, Study Says. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178 "2016-01-14T23:48:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/1 "2016-01-14T23:48:47Z")
Any one surprised? What is your experience? > **[Pretty Girls Get Better Grades, Study Says](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says?int=a6f909)** > > Want to succeed in school? Be better-looking. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/2 "2016-01-14T23:55:08Z")
The Smiths told us 32 years ago that Pretty Girls Make Graves. Maybe Morrissey has a speech impediment? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/3 "2016-01-14T23:57:56Z")
Someone had to do a study for this? 😕 Wasn’t it Judge Judy who wrote a book called “Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever”? One of my TAs almost got thrown out of his graduate program for very openly doing this. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/4 "2016-01-15T00:18:35Z")
Not in the least surprised. Pretty girls have great advantages in life. Nothing wrong with that, it’s great motivation for girls to pretty themselves up. I know some people think it’s unfair, probably because it is. Welcome to life. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/5 "2016-01-15T00:25:11Z")
The effect size appears to be really small. I don’t doubt that pretty girls have it better, but I’m kinda not impressed by those results. ---
**Author:** ![NeonMadman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/6 "2016-01-15T00:47:54Z")
From _The Eiger Sanction_, after a pretty student assures her professor (Dr. Jonathan Hemlock, played by Clint Eastwood) that she will do \*anything \*to get a good grade in his class: Dr. Jonathan Hemlock: Are you busy this evening? Art Student: No. Dr. Jonathan Hemlock: You live alone? Art Student: My roommate’s gone for the week. Dr. Jonathan Hemlock: Good. Then… go on home, break out the books and study your little ass off. That’s the best way to maintain a “B” average. [pause, then as she exits the room] Don’t study it \*all \*off. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/7 "2016-01-15T01:19:32Z")
The Beautiful People get all the breaks, but in the end, cancer don’t care what you look like. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/8 "2016-01-15T02:04:50Z")
Never happened in my courses. Not that I didn’t oogle the pretty girls, but I never learned their names. Classes usually too big. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/9 "2016-01-15T02:42:35Z")
I couldn’t tell you about college. In my high school, where everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew each other’s GPA, I can say absolutely not my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/10 "2016-01-15T02:52:33Z")
I was all set to say “well, maybe pretty girls are smarter than ugly ones”, but it looks like they controlled for that (it’s not completely implausible: presumably looks and intelligence are both a result of good health). Still, there are explanations besides the obvious one of professors giving them preferential treatment. Just going to office hours has a positive impact on grades. Pretty girls may be more confident and outgoing and be more likely to attend them, and be more likely to interact when they do. This effect wouldn’t appear on standardized tests or online courses. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/11 "2016-01-15T04:17:30Z")
My own experience was that, specially in lower grades (we started getting better teachers in 6th and this kind of things stopped being noticeable even with the bad teachers by 10th), the boys were likely to get better grades on account of the teachers having lower expectations for them (:smack:), but also that “presentation” (prettiness of the work presented) was more important than prettiness of the worker. It is possible that girls who were better at making their work pretty were also better at keeping themselves looking pretty. I can tell you that Adriana (also known as “she who pees cologne”), whose work was consistently lauded as having the best presentation and who consistently got higher grades than her content deserved because of how pretty everything was (I remember one instance when her content was as close to null as possible while still having something there, yet she got 100%), would never in her life have been found in a sandbox, much less making mudpies. She was a delicate flower and she painted delicate little bluebells on the margins of her reports on The Cow… ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/12 "2016-01-15T11:39:08Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > The Beautiful People get all the breaks, but in the end, cancer don’t care what you look like. True. Which means, of course, that you can be as ugly as sin and get dumped on all your life, and cancer will still be along to kick you in the nuts. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/13 "2016-01-15T12:35:51Z")
At my school it was all about the test results. I saw no preferential treatment for anyone, it was purely academic. But that was thirty years ago, in a rural High School in the arse end of nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/14 "2016-01-15T12:50:07Z")
I hate sounding like an old codger but back in my day (70s) it seemed like looks helped but weren’t a substitute for brains in getting somewhere in life; now I meet young women who seem to think being attractive is the only asset they need (and reality tv sort of bears them out). A pretty friend of mine in HS felt teachers were harder on her, not easier, to counter percieved favoritism or just push her not to be a “pretty bimbo” (Mrs. Greist, Biology). ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/15 "2016-01-15T13:00:19Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > The Beautiful People get all the breaks, but in the end, cancer don’t care what you look like. Although morbid obesity does significantly increase your cancer risk. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/16 "2016-01-15T13:47:41Z")
It might work in classes where there is a lot of subjectivity in grading, but I doubt it’ll help much in, say, chemistry or algebra. At least, I don’t think it did where I went to high school. College, too. Being pretty didn’t help me one bit with algebra. Now that I’m an aging former pretty girl, I guess I’m going to have to work harder in my Master’s course than I did for my BA 20+ years ago! ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/17 "2016-01-15T21:30:51Z")
> [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](#): > > True. Which means, of course, that you can be as ugly as sin and get dumped on all your life, and cancer will still be along to kick you in the nuts. Actually, testicular cancer is fairly rare among ugly girls. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/18 "2016-01-15T23:31:34Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > At my school it was all about the test results. I saw no preferential treatment for anyone, it was purely academic. > > But that was thirty years ago, in a rural High School in the arse end of nowhere. Unless every test you took in every subject was purely multiple choice, there would have to have been a subjective component to grading, right? Surely you wrote essays and lab reports, did oral presentations, participated in class discussions … or at least showed your work? I don’t know for sure though. I’ve been pretty deep into nowhere, but never quite made it to the arse end. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/19 "2016-01-15T23:51:57Z")
I was a TA for a while, teaching classes taken by a largely-female and notoriously dumb major. Hoo boy, the looks of surprise on their faces when they realized that pretty didn’t work on a sour, older, straight female. No, girls. You gave identical incorrect answers on that assignment and working together was most definitely not allowed. Take your F and be glad I don’t tell the dean. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178/20 "2016-01-16T00:27:50Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > The Smiths told us 32 years ago that Pretty Girls Make Graves. Maybe Morrissey has a speech impediment? Damn. I’ve been seeing the title of this thread and came in to post: So it's not just me. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretty-girls-get-better-grades-study-says/743178.md?page=2)