How important are grades?

[LiquidMidnight]

As a matter of fact, I interviewed a girl with a 4.0 yesterday, who admitted she was unable to accept anything less than perfect. It caused her so much stress that she was unable to function in an unpredictable environment.

In business, I'd rather have someone who can fail, learn from their failure and bounce back, than someone who will be unable to make decisions with less-than-complete information.

I think, though, that you may be mixing up the cause and the effect. Did the girl maintain a 4.0 because she has a neurotic need to be perfect and control her environment or did trying to maintain a 4.0 make her unable to operate in a dynamic environment? Clearly, she articulated that she couldn't operate well in a dynamic environment, so you got the information you needed. However, I think it may be wrong to assume that a 4.0 means that everybody will not be able to think with limited information or successfully weather environmental changes. You may have learned that information from her in an interview, but it may take an assessment center to find out if other candidates can meet the challenges of a dyanamic environment.

I do agree that mantaining a 4.0 may mean sacrifices in other areas...at least in my experience. I graduated college Summa Cum Laude with a 3.93 or something like that. I spent a lot of time on school work, more so than many of my classmates. However, I knew that graduate school was a must for what I wanted to do, so I worked hard on maintaining good grades. I really didn't have time for extracirrculars, but a lot of that was because I commuted an hour and a half, one way, to campus. I did make sure that I worked a part-time job, though during the whole time, so I maintained work experience on my resume. However, my experience was different in grad school. I maintained a 4.0 in my Master's program, even taking 15 credits one semester (9 credits is considered full-time at the graduate level), and took many leadership and skill building opportunities outside of general class work that made both my resume and CV blosom.

I guess what I'm getting at with this tangent is that it's really not black and white and having a preconcieved notion about GPA, either way, can lead to bad selection decisions. I've done training on both ends: I've taught wide-eyed college students how to interview and I've instructed future HR professionals on how to validate interviews. For both groups, I emphasized that having a preconcieved notion about the person or situation without being probative of the information presented can be a fatal mistake.

 

[WyrmDL]

Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it.

What it comes down to, at the basic level, is that grades are a measurement of work ethic. At least, thats what I understand from the discussion so far.

Better safe than sorry, I think I would be a fool to skimp out on grades. Not only that, but I would like to look back at my educational days and say to myself that I don't regret working hard.

 

[SpamBot]

Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it.

What it comes down to, at the basic level, is that grades are a measurement of work ethic. At least, thats what I understand from the discussion so far.

Better safe than sorry, I think I would be a fool to skimp out on grades. Not only that, but I would like to look back at my educational days and say to myself that I don't regret working hard.

I think you have drawn the right conclusions from this discussion.

 

[wazzel]

Often times lucrative employers will use minimum grade point levels to weed out candidates. When I was looking for my first job in 95 the big oil companies would not even talk anyone with less than a 3.5 gpa. There were other field where the top tier employer would not look at you with less than that. 15 years from school, my grades mean nothing. People will hire me based on what they know about me and my work experience. Good things grades do not follow you forever. I have a 2.75 college gpa.

 

[fdeck]

At some point in all of our lives, and perhaps with great regularity, we face obstacles that can only be overcome by following the wisdom of the ages: Suck it up and do the work. Grades are a measure of how we deal with those situations.

 

[tycobb73]

Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it.

What it comes down to, at the basic level, is that grades are a measurement of work ethic. At least, thats what I understand from the discussion so far.

Better safe than sorry, I think I would be a fool to skimp out on grades. Not only that, but I would like to look back at my educational days and say to myself that I don't regret working hard.

That's what they want you to believe, but its not always true. I had a friend who got a 36 on the ACT. Never did his homework and aced everything. The teacher made homework part of the grade to get him to do it, but it didn't work. She told him once she hoped he was impotent to which he replied she hoped he could run. I lost track of him shortly after high school but last I knew he was digging holes for fence posts for $8 / hour.

I dated the top med student at Ohio State about 15 years ago. She was in her 30s, already had a pharmD and a 6 figure income. Was a member of that IQ club where it has to above 150 or something. She held down a full time job as a head pharmacist while in med school and hardly studied.

Now I graduated with my bachelors with a 3.7 but had to work my ass off to get it.