As an interesting aside, my kid who attends a school known for grade deflation hasn’t even been asked her GPA during internship interviews. It isn’t on her resume, and she is on her fourth interview with one company (c’mon already!) and 2nd with another, and no one has asked. I figured it would come up… but they aren’t even asking that (let alone about course rigor).
@intparent, that’s encouraging, but it is for internships rather than jobs.
I had originally thought that once accepted to college, my son could forget about the SAT (which a couple of years ago was a frenzied topic among his classmates), but I have since learned that they are asked about on job interviews. He did fine, and it’s a positive for him, but I was surprised. His one online internship application asked for the scores, but iirc, not the GPA.
Reading this far, brings back memories of my son’s and his cohort’s senior year a few years ago.
For those pursuing Consulting or Finance-- GPA/resume seemed to get them the initial on-campus interview… BUT, it was interviewing skills or past experience, like summer internships that were crucial to get an offer.
Those who had successful internships that they liked, regardless of industry, generally ended up working there after graduation.
For Grad School, it was the typical combo- GPA, Research experience
For positions that required Quantitative Analytical Skills, experience seemed more important than GPA.
One data point: In my son’s case, he wanted work that involved scientific programming. His resume is like a CV, no GPA (only Dean’s List semesters), that clearly highlight his skills and accomplishments. His computer skills are totally self-taught. He applied to a handful of places. And, is very fortunate to be doing very interesting work at a research center affiliated with major universities and their medical centers.
Perhaps, even more so for LACs, reputation of the undergraduate institution or specific academic department, can have an unexpected benefit.
Reflecting back, simplest answer to the OP’s question:
A more “rigorous” path is probably better long-term; the student will most likely benefit more, beyond just employment upon graduation.
@intparent. The reason why your daughter is not asked for her GPA is because she attends Harvey Mudd (highly respected engineering/CS school)…outside of Stanford, Caltech, and Berkeley in California…Mudders are respected almost as much in the world of tech, engineering, and CS…and most of the companies that are familiar with these schools rarely ask for grades or GPA if you state you are CS/engineering/tech major because they know that GPAs are pretty irrelevant…companies know graduates from these schools know their stuff at the highest level…
…some of the smartest CS/engineering students at those schools could care less about their GPAs…they’re busy focused on certain creative personal projects and such…
…and the top companies and early startups that are recruiting are well aware of this…
Never heard of any job or internship out here asking college student interns or new graduates for SAT scores. Perhaps that is more common in the northeast, or with particular types of employers?
Maybe if one is applying in fall of frosh year, high school stuff like high school GPA and SAT scores may be asked for by employers who care about the applicant’s academic record, but once a college student has built up a college record, wouldn’t employers who care ask about that instead?
I was asked for my SAT score 25 years ago when I applied for a job with one of the big consulting firms.
@ucbalumnus,
Job Hunting? Dig Up Those Old SAT Scores
Employers Still Want Candidates’ Test Results—Sometimes Decades Later
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395220334268350
ETA: my wife recently applied to the same company as my son did. She is in her mid 50s. She was not asked for her SATs 
Hmmm, the usual suspects of elitist consulting and finance…
Of course, score inflation due to the rescaling and the increased tendency to take the test multiple times and do lots of test preparation may have the effect (intended or unintended) of disadvantaging older applicants. The same goes for asking for GPAs.
Companies like that being ageist??? Perish the thought.
Btw, I saw that it was the usual suspects, but we don’t know that less elitist companies don’t also do it. It might just reflect the WSJ’s writer’s elitism 
Sort of. Obviously, this is just an anecdotal impression. Law school admissions at most --though not all–law schools is 80-90% about two numbers: LSAT and GPA. (Some would say it’s 100% about those two numbers except for URM status, residency at some law schools, legacy at some law schools, and work experience at some law schools.) Most people think LSAT is the more important. Nonetheless, GPA is very important. The general consenus is that most law schools care a lot more about GPA than rigor. This may be due to the fact that the GPAs of their students play an important role in the US News rankings of law schools.
At a few very top law schools, notably Yale and Stanford, rigor is important. I’m sure there are other exceptions as well. But generally speaking, most law schools seem to care a lot more about GPA than rigor.
At Yale Law, a 3.8 UG GPA would put you in the bottom quarter of the class. At Harvard Law, the 25th percentile for UG GPA is 3.75.
It’s actually quite a bit easier to get into law schools now than it was about 10 years ago. Still the system forces kids to obsess about GPA.
This is a very timely anecdote for part of this discussion. I just received a text from my son who aced his compsci midterm that he took earlier this week. I think that he was pretty excited because normally I never hear about his grades. He actually sent me a picture of his grade. That was the good news. The other news was that he took a music history midterm today that he said was “absolutely brutal”. My son is majoring in compsci and music. I am sure most people would look at the two course names and automatically assume that the compsci class was the more difficult of the two. You just never know…
I’m sure that a lot of CS majors would consider music courses to be very difficult if they had to do anything other than listen to music (i.e. courses other than specially designed “gut” courses for non-majors that may be present at some schools).
My youngest son is a freshmen. His hardest class last term was in classics…roman literature. The prof was brutal, the reading copious, analytical papers due nearly every week. He did well in it because it played to his strengths & he worked very hard. This semester he’s taking a physics cosmology course meant for non-majors to fulfill science requirement. It’s taught by one of the leading cosmologists in the US & it’s breaking son’s back. He hopes to get at least a B in it. But conceptually, it’s hard. I told him last weekend, he should have opted for the chemistry course for non-scientists that emphasized writing papers & was known for easier grading. His response: I’d rather take something I’m interested in learning than be driven by my GPA. My oldest son has done the same, for better or worse. He’s a neuro concentrator who could have taken the physics classes meant for pre-meds rather than for engineers, but took the latter bc he felt the former wouldn’t challenge him enough. Took a grade hit doing that, which I hope won’t hurt him when he applies to PhD programs.
It’s a sad commentary that some of the smartest kids in the country who are at institutions with leading academics are opting to protect their gpa rather than challenge themselves, especially when paying $240,000 for their educations. I can’t fault the kids but I do blame the professional & grad schools, and perhaps even some employers, for creating this environment. Something is really wrong with this picture. And I really hope that my kids who have bucked the trend land on their feet with grad school & professionally. Reading this thread has me worried for them in that regard but it’s also pointed out to me that somehow I have two kids who really care about their education above all else. I respect them for that.
Did not read past the first few posts- felt the need to comment on an early OP post. My medical school was pass /fail for all of our courses- no gpa. Residencies are ungraded as well. Board exams and licensing exams are likewise P/F. Since there are so many very qualified undergrads applying to medical schools the gpa is important there (but more weight given to some schools than others- eg flagship over others). Everyone admitted to medical school is expected to be able to be a proficient physician.
How difficult any class is depends on one’s background knowledge, interest and ability.
I wouldn’t worry about graduate schools. From what I can figure out, it’s really just a problem for those who want to go on to law school, and, to a lesser extent, med school.
jonri - You might be right that it’s less of a problem for graduate schools than law or med schools. To be honest, I’m not sure anymore. Here’s a post from romanigypsieyes in the “TA and Essay grading” thread from just a few days ago:
Of course, this is a top-5 Ph.D. program, and I’m not sure whether the GPA is just for history courses or overall. But the fact that 3.83 was one of the lowest applicant GPAs is kinda scary to me. I’m sure the PhD admissions committee pays lots of attention to recommendations and research statements, but it seems hard to deny that they’re using GPA as a strong filter or cutoff as well.
The OP’s son is saying that his friends are paying lots of attention to their GPAs to make sure they are in the 3.9X range. When I was in school 30 years ago the only people who had 3.9X college GPAs were obsessives who studied 16 hours a day. I think the message is that times have changed since many parents were in school, and parents should look at actual recent data before relying too much on what they think they know. I’m not saying I like the current system, but it seems to be a reality.
Other posters have said not to worry about achieving a high GPA because this is only needed for law school, med school, finance, consulting, and now grad school. Well, that probably accounts for 50% of Yale graduates’ career plans. I’m sure lots of sought-after companies in other industries might try to restrict their hiring to those in the top 1/2 of the GPA distribution too. I wouldn’t be that quick to dismiss current students’ concerns as overblown. Look at the data.
-del
@al2simon, I guess my hope is that employers (and grad schools) would look at applicants in a holistic way more similar to what got DS accepted to Yale in the first place. He had no hooks and there clearly were higher GPAs than his that were not accepted.
I will encourage him that IF he majors in CS, he should combine it with a strong second major. It is probably not a bad idea regardless; before CS he was looking at Econ and Math.
@IxnayBob - As parents, all we can do is worry, advise, and try to help our kids make new mistakes instead of the ones we made And I’m sure your son will do just fine in the grand scheme of things, but of course we’re all trying to give our children the best advice we can to make things a little easier for them.
The analogy to college admissions that you made is what’s sort of scary though. Even though Yale reviewed his application holistically, statistically it’s a good bet that he was in the tippy top of his high school GPA-wise and SAT-wise. The advantage of being at Yale is that he’ll have lots of opportunities, but a disadvantage is that the bar gets raised (as it should). But if he’s a CS major and ends up in the top 1/3-1/2 of the GPA distribution for CS majors I don’t think he’ll have many problems GPA-wise. It’d be different if he was gunning for a top law school.
Another thing to look into - I would check into the pros and cons of a double major versus another way to take classes or gain experience in another field of interest. In my experience, there’s often a disconnect between how employers view things and how students view them. For example, (not at Yale) students sometimes kill themselves to get a minor because they think it will help in the job search, but I personally don’t think they help very much on the job market. Your mileage may vary of course. But if he’s got a second area that he loves then pursuing it sounds like it would be great. You’re only in college once.
Good luck to your son, and I hope he enjoys his time at Yale !
@al2simon,
Thanks for your thoughtful and careful reply. When you have to cull through a lot of applicants, you have to exclude many so I totally understand.
I review highly competive medical fellowship apps so I know of what u speak. Funny, I ignore the GPA because the candidates have been vetted so far down the line, but go instead for essays or other interests that speak to me.
The problem with yale seems to be that the environment and peer pressure encourages grade protection. Our n=2 of @ixnaybob and my kid are examples of kids who start off wanting to take classes to broaden their horizons, but then eventually get peer pressured to change to grade protectors…just in case they decide to change to a different starting career or decide to go to B school in the future. It’s a little bit sad.