<p>My son just finished his Junior year. He seems to work really hard, but his grades don't show
it. His gpa is 2.5. He is staying on campus this summer to work with a professor doing research. Is it worth it for him to go back next year to finish his degree? Will he ever find a job with that kind of gpa? I think grad school is definitely out. I don't understand the problem, he is very smart and like I said he seems to work hard. I hope that working with the professor will light a fire under his *** but it may be too late already.</p>
<p>Most jobs dont care AT ALL what your sons GPA was as long as he had the degree - especially from CMU.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine’s dad is in HR at several large companies, and for the most selective jobs - and especially ones where personality are required - he has been known to throw out resumes that list college GPA, because in most cases its seen as pretentious. </p>
<p>All your son’s resume/CV has to say is “B.S. in ECE - Carnegie Mellon University”. No need at all to put a GPA down, it will NOT affect his job hunt.</p>
<p>The idea of pulling him out of a top engineering school because his grades aren’t great is…well, don’t do it. In fact, the reason his grades are low is possibly because of the extremely good nature of the ECE program at CMU. He isn’t at the top of the class, but that doesn’t mean he wont leave CMU extremely competitive in his field.</p>
<p>Is there a reason he isn’t doing an internship this summer? That can really help in the job search.</p>
<p>I think it would be a terrible mistake to pull him now. If he weren’t working hard…well, I’d still say let him finish. Grades are just one part of the picture. Employers will look at the whole package…what else did he do in his four years? What do his professors think of him? Is he a team player? How does he interview? You’d be able to list what activities and experiences might be attractive to a recruiter…such as the research (presumably) your son might do this summer.</p>
<p>Gpa matters for the first job, that’s it. It doesn’t always correlate to job performance in the long run. It may keep him from interviewing at certain companies…there are plenty of other places out there (hopefully we’ll be coming out of this recession in a year). And, it’s not like he’s failing. B/C student in one of the top ECE programs is respectable.</p>
<p>He didn’t have an internship lined up because he procastinated, was busy with school work and is very involved with his fraternity which had a booth in the carnival. That is part of the problem with his gpa, every spring he spends a couple of weeks working on the booth.</p>
<p>Your comments have been very helpful. I will try to have a better and more supportive attitude. Thanks.</p>
<p>CMU is also an extremely difficult school (which ECE being one of the more difficult majors) and it isn’t that generous in terms of grades. I don’t see what the worry is. As it’s been said above, all his resume needs to show is that he has a degree in ECE from Carnegie Mellon and that, without bothering with the GPA (which I’ll agree is pretentious to employers in a lot of cases), will look pretty fantastic. It’s been said that a CMU student can calculate their Harvard GPA by adding a .8 to their CMU GPA. So your son would have a 3.3 at Harvard. Except I’d imagine Harvard would be kind of useless in ECE.</p>
<p>Pulling him out of school would not be the wisest decision, and I don’t believe you can add .8 to your GPA. (Yes, CMU does have grade inflation)</p>
<p>There are kids in CMU ECE department with 4.0, and they’re taking some of the hardest classes, they are not smarter beyond reason, but they are consistently hard working.</p>
<p>I think you need to look at your kid’s behavior more. </p>
<p>Buggy and Booth takes a lot of time, and although it’s “worth” it, I don’t see why a junior like him can’t let the pledges do most of the dirty work. Also, it’s in Spring semester, so during the fall he should do better. </p>
<p>If he has the passion to work on booth and buggy, he should be spending that on Academics.</p>
<p>You need a 3.0 to go for an IMB (integrated Master’s and Bachelor’s), which would be the best choice for him. IMB is for students not going into the PhD level, but to work in the industry. Also, if you get the master’s with a better grade, on your resume, you can just write down your master’s QPA and wipe the slate clean.</p>
<p>To do this I think he should consider taking lighter loads (and do better in these classes), and doing a 5th year, taking classes he did bad on over again (talk to Kurt Larsen), taking classes that he received AP credit on (which should be an “easy A”), kissing the professor’s ass, and everything you can do for 3.0.</p>
<p>Assuming you take similar course load, you would need 4.5 to get a 3.0 (which is impossible - cmu does 4, 3, 2, 1 scale)
(2.5<em>6 + X</em>2 = 3.0*8) </p>
<p>Assuminng you take similar course load, but stay undergraduate and take more semesters,
(2.5<em>6 + X</em>4 = 3.0*10)
he would need 3.75.</p>
<p>It’s not going to be easy, but tell him how important this is. He’s going to say that members in his frat will be able to land him jobs, but for major corporations, the alumni wouldn’t be old enough to land him a full time job right away.</p>
<p>As for internships, Susan Farrington still sends out emails for internships, which he gets.
IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO GET AN INTERNSHIP - you’ll just have to look for smaller companies, local companies. </p>
<p>alternate case scenario: Take O/S (or Comp Arc - a practical class that could be utilized in real world, and that you can talk about in an interview), and 24 units of P/E classes (or go part time), get an A, and write that on your resume.</p>
<p>Additional semesters with repeat or easier classes may raise his gpa, but it costs me $23,000 per semester. No thanks. Also, isn’t there a requirement to graduate within a certain number of semesters? I have talked to him about taking an easier course load but
being 21, I think he sees me as a nagging mother. He listens to his fraternity brothers more than anyone. I guess we will suck it up and let him graduate, it’s just really hard to watch.
Hoping that the research experience this summer will go well.</p>
<p>You know, life is short and he’s pretty lucky that he’ll be graduating with a phenomenal degree from a highly respected college–and had a great time doing it. Maybe he hasn’t lived up to expectations, but it sounds like he’s a good kid-I’d be proud of the things he has accomplished. Yes, that is a low gpa, but he still has time to raise it a bit. In the 25 years I’ve been out of college, working for several different companies-I haven’t had one single employer ask me my gpa. Maybe the first employer will ask him about it, but after that-it’s all his skills, job experience and personality. I would not take him out of CMU for his last year if he’s happy.</p>
<p>I’ve been nagging my kid every year about his high school grades…never good enough (well, because they really weren’t), never working hard enough (he really wasn’t). But he still managed to get into CMU and had some great high school internships too. And I’ll probably be nagging him all the way through CMU to get his grades up…and it’s all futile because we really have no control anyways.</p>
<p>After being out of school for 22 years, I want to go back and get a mfa. The only glitch is that my GPA is not very strong. Will this keep me out. I’m in great need of some advice. Can’t belive I’m going back at 46. But I’m been told that it’s never too late to go back.</p>
<p>And this time around I going after my passion.</p>
<p>caroways, if you want more of a response you should start a new thread. However at 46 your life accomplishments are likely to count for much more than your GPA.</p>