<p>^Maybe she could major in Computer Engineering? or she could do what my DS is doing majoring in Electrical Engineering with a minor in CS.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP:
Most employers have cut back on their tuition-reimbursement programs a lot. While 15-20 years ago, many companies would cover the cost of most or all of an MBA degree, those companies are pretty rare these days. I just don’t want you to mislead kids with your experiences from decades ago.</p>
<p>That said, if you have a well-paying job (and if she’s a CS or engineering major, that shouldn’t be too difficult), picking up a top-notch MBA while working is a smart path to take. You can go anywhere you want with it that you could with a FT MBA (outside of becoming an investment banker, but I wouldn’t advise that path in any case).</p>
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<p>However, if some majors or courses attract stronger students, then the same grading curve for all majors and courses may distort the information provided by the grades. Also, grading curves are best used in larger courses, since a given small course is more likely to have an unusually strong or weak group of students.</p>
<p>Re: <a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml”>http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml</a></p>
<p>That is a policy that seems to be largely ignored, despite being on the books. According to the grade distributions shown for the courses linked below, the average grade is a B for most courses, rather than B- (2.7, as suggested by the link above) for lower division courses. Some upper division courses’ average grades are B+ rather than B (the link above suggests a 2.9 for upper division courses).</p>
<p><a href=“https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/department/FL/2013/52”>https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/department/FL/2013/52</a>
<a href=“https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/department/FL/2013/53”>https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/department/FL/2013/53</a></p>
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<p>1/3 D and F grades seems like a way to have a high rate of academic probation and flunking out. Or was this a particular major where admission selectivity was low, but academic rigor was high, so it was applied to introductory courses to get weaker students to leave the major early on when they had time to choose a new major (“weeding out”)?</p>
<p>@ ucbalumnus
“However, if some majors or courses attract stronger students, then the same grading curve for all majors and courses may distort the information provided by the grades.”</p>
<p>Standardizing the curve would cause some distortion, as you pointed out, but it would be less distorted than it is now. </p>
<p>What seems to be happening currently is that the most difficult majors such as Engineering majors tend to have lower average grades than easier majors. This serves to push out weaker candidates, but significantly distorts GPAs by major. </p>
<p>So, given that this happens at many Universities, what is the purpose of the GPA? Why do schools track it and publish it as a key metric? Perhaps it is just a poor traditional measure that is too entrenched to be changed?</p>
<p>Quick post to correct comment made by Miami. CS does NOT have business classes. None. Unless you confusing MIS with CS as in another thread.</p>
<p>Much2learn- GPA’s are helpful to employers in conjunction with a transcript (which my company requires from new grads) and a pretty good understanding of different colleges. I’m not going to look at a 3.0 in Civil Engineering from Cornell and compare it to a 3.8 in Sociology from Rochester. And if I’m comparing two engineering grads from Cornell, it’s easy enough to look at the transcripts and realize that student A pushed himself outside his comfort zone (took a Russian Lit class after only one semester of Russian; took a tough philosophy sequence) whereas student B filled out the engineering classes with stuff that isn’t terribly challenging).</p>
<p>I don’t need to see a 4.0 GPA, and frankly, I’d rather hire someone, regardless of the discipline, who can jump into the deep end of the pool (since working life often requires getting handed a project which is outside of your expertise and having to figure it out). But seeing GPA’s is a helpful way to weed out the folks who majored in beer pong and minored in “taking selfies at frat parties”. Or just kids who were fundamentally lazy and couldn’t be bothered to show up at a class. Or kids who won’t challenge themselves.</p>
<p>Be careful Blossom your comment about fundamentally lazy kids could get some people in the CC crowd riled up.</p>
<p>Rile away. Fact is that the two hardest things for an employer to teach a new hire is:</p>
<p>1- Show up every day, on time (or early) whether you feel like it or not</p>
<p>2- Results matter. I don’t care if it took you five minutes or five days to complete a project as long as you proofread your report or summary, you checked all your facts, you added up all the numbers and it represents 100%, etc. Your boss doesn’t care that “it took all day and then I was too tired to proof read”.</p>
<p>Most large companies know how to teach virtually everything else. But the trend towards colleges not having classes on Fridays, or kids who think that the weekend starts at 3 pm on Thursday, has led to some “culture shock” in the working world!</p>
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Even with the transcript in hand, it may not tell the whole story of the particular candidate. There’s only so much you can get from a bunch of numbers and course listings.</p>
<p>BTW, @Much2learn, yes, I would say that keeping GPA is more due to tradition. That’s why some schools don’t really calculate a GPA for their students.</p>
<p>I know that if I am evaluating a CS major for a software job and I know the rigor at a school of certain courses that I consider essential, I’d care more about how they did in those courses than in other ones(including Russian lit).</p>
<p>Law and medical school admission people know perfectly well that average GPAs in engineering are lower than in most other fields. If they highly valued what engineering students could bring to the medical or law tables, they would give a break (or a more substantial break) in terms of GPA for engineering applicants.</p>
<p>@sorghum:</p>
<p>And med schools might.</p>
<p>At least, my understanding is that they hold everyone to the same standard on science GPA. It’s not as if an art history major who gets B’s and C’s in the science courses but A’s elsewhere to finish with a 3.7 overall GPA has an advantage over an engineer with a 3.4 GPA (in all subjects).</p>
<p>@Purple Titan,</p>
<p>Art and history majors don’t take the same level science courses that Engineering majors do. </p>
<p>Sorghum, I’ve seen the stats on med and law school admissions from MIT and there seems to be a substantial break on GPA, regardless of major, vs. what is commonly considered the “right” grades. </p>
<p>@LanaHere:</p>
<p>Med schools do have requirements on what science courses have to be taken, though. It’s not as if you can ace “Chemistry for Liberal Arts” and then have a good shot at med school without taking and doing well in Organic Chemistry.</p>
<p>Okay, I understand what you are saying,</p>
<p>But doesn’t your science GPA comes from ALL of the science classes you have taken, and not just the premed required classes: 1 yr of Biology, 1 yr O Chem etc… (I forgot the requirements).</p>
<p>@LanaHere : Yes, but I’d be pretty shocked if they don’t look through your transcript as well. They want to know if you can handle med school courses, after all, and Orgo is a key course. Does anyone know a person who got in to a US med school with all C’s in Orgo, for instance?</p>
<p>OK, I found out that there are people who get in to med school with all C’s in Orgo (dunno what else they had, though, in terms of research or grades in other classes). So if art history is easier for you and you are only interested in med school admittance, game away.</p>
<p>I see. You’re right. O Chem is a key course. </p>
<p>@PurpleTitan </p>
<p>" I found out that there are people who get in to med school with all C’s in Orgo…"</p>
<p>Do you the names of those schools? lol… That’s useful information to me.<br>
lbvs</p>