I have two kiddos both studying engineering. One is at a top 20 school and the other is at a top 75 school give/or take depending on the USNews rankings for the given year. My freshman (3.3 gpa) is at the top 20 school and has found it very difficult to get a B+ in a class much less an A. In one calc class she had a “92” but ended up with a B+… the professor only gives out a certain amount of “A’s” in the class. My other student has consistently made mostly A’s (3.9)… the grading system is standard at her school, if you make a 90+ you will get an A/A+.
Will employers care that my freshman has a lower GPA… given the grading system at the school she attends? Both want to go to grad school and we never considered that getting into an elite school might actually impact that plan.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
http://www.gradeinflation.com/ suggests that elite schools tend to have more grade inflation in general, though there may be specific exceptions.
The instructor grading on a curve which resulted in 92% being a B+ made the tests (and other graded items if applicable) too easy.
However, many college instructors do not hold to the high school fixed scale of 90%/80%/70% = A/B/C, because that requires that 70% of the tests and assignments be easier problems for C students, with fewer problems to help distinguish A and B students.
Yes, I guess grading depends on the school and degree. My freshman at the top 20 school classes do not allow for extra credit or dropping the lowest quiz grade etc. While my other girl’s profs are a bit more lenient… allow dropped quiz grades, students can bring one note card into the test with formulas etc. All this making it easier to get a higher grade in the class.
Which brings me to my question will employers/summer internships look more favorably on the student with the higher GPA from the less prestigious school?
Recent NACE surveys find that, when looking at applicants who are in college, 70% of employers include a GPA screen in initial screening of resumes, and 60% of those use a 3.0 cut-off GPA. So a student with a 2.99 GPA may find significantly fewer interview offers than an otherwise similar student (e.g. same major, class level, courses taken, previous work experience) with a 3.01 GPA.
Of course, if the employers are school-elitist ones (e.g. investment banking and management consulting), they may not consider applicants from lower ranked schools at all.
A 3.3 GPA will hurt their employment prospects and grad school admissions.
Grad school admissions, maybe. Employment prospects not so much. Employers care more about what you can do and how well you do on the interview after you pass the screen.
There are plenty of engineering programs where a 3.3 will be considered a solid GPA. Hiring managers tend to get a lot of resumes from a small group of schools that they know well and will compare GPA’s within that school or group of schools. I tend to not worry about GPA too much as long as it is over 3. Interesting projects and work experience are way more important resume screens in my group. The technical interview will let us know how strong an engineer they are way more consistently than a GPA.
You need to know what the minimum GPA is for a guaranteed internship.
Don’t get caught up in that fallacy. There is no way that a Prof will write the tests such that the masses can score a 90+. Ain’t gonna happen.
Hint: a prof writes the tests over the term to achieve the grade distribution that s/he is aiming for. For example, if the first test has a 90% median, the next might have a 70% median…
@bluebayou, the OP said that her D is getting mostly A’s. Not that the masses are.
^^yeah, I get that PT, but interpreting the headline, the OP is clearly concerned that kid at the higher-ranked is getting a lower grade, AND lower-ranked school class has different grading system. In other words, the conclusion is grade deflation at higher ranked school.
My point was that the Professor (at the lower ranked school) who has a standard grading scale: 90+ = A, 80-90 = B, etc, is meaningless in the world of STEM curves…it may look and feel good…
My D is also a freshman in engineering. Depending on the cal your D took, cal 1 and 2 are both considered engineering weed outs, it might be bad for GPA.
I think the grade deflation hurts engineers less than it does pre-meds. Companies that recruit at your daughter’s top 20 school will be aware of it.
@bluebayou My D who is at the lower ranked schools’ tests are not easier per se… avg grade on exam might be 63 vs. 53 at the top 20 school. However, it is easier to receive a higher grade in the class because of the ability to drop quiz grades, bringing in notecards for the test etc. D at lower ranked school studies extremely hard and definitely is above the curve, but my other D would probably be in the same situation had she picked the lower ranked school… if that makes sense.
The “weed-out” courses only “fail” a few kids at the top 20 school, but most will make low B’s or C’s in the classes… whereas in high school these were the kids making the A’s.
I guess I was not concerned about grading differences because the higher ranked school “keeps” most of its freshman… retention rate is in the high 90’s.
Not studying engineering, but majoring in economics my son graduated “with general honors” at UChicago. An overall GPA of 3.25, for all courses, not the major was required. Each major had their own requirements for honors in the discipline. It may involve a research project or paper. (When I studied at Reed every student had to write a thesis.)
Employers, recruiters may look past the specifics of GPA’s, especially if they know the grading scale is difficult for a particular college or program. But they do want to see signs of distinction and special skills. When my son interviewed at a major accounting/financial services firm his senior year, he reported that he was being awarded general honors (his GPA was above 3.5). But they asked him about his GPA, his SAT’s (!), and his LSAT score (!). They were looking for quantifiable signs of distinction. He had been a champion debater in high school. “What does that mean for us?” the interviewer asked. My son answered: “I can read a very complex analytic article in 20 minutes and write a summary of it in 5 minutes that will be very accurate.” He got the job.
That’s a distinction without a difference; the math is the same. (hint: in general, tests would be easier if students did not have the ability to bring in note cards, or drop their lowest score.)
Ugh, I hate that. It makes no sense.
If you want to evaluate which school has the greater degree of grade inflation/deflation, you need to look at multiple students in multiple classes, not just how one professor grades or whether one student struggles to get A’s in intro classes with low grade distributions. As a general rule, colleges with a larger portion of stellar students tend to give a larger portion of ‘A’ grades. A similar principle often apples to specific classes. Honors/accelerated type versions of specific classes with a greater portion of stellar students often give out a larger portion of ‘A’ grades than the standard version of those classes. Similarly the freshmen general math/science classes that are taken by students in a variety of majors often have lower grade distributions than upper level major-specific engineering classes. Of course there are many exceptions, both at the school level and at the individual class level.
90-100% = A, 80-89% = B, … is a typical HS scale. It can be appropriate in HS classes that have simple regurgitation learning, such that if you make an effort, you are expected to get almost every question correct. In many cases, college STEM classes have more challenging questions that require more complex thought where you aren’t expected to get nearly every question correct. For example, my freshman year chem class at a HYPSM college had exams in which the median exam grade was ~35% and the max score in the class of ~100 was under 90%. He didn’t fail most of the class and give nobody A’s with a 90+% = A scale. Instead exam grades of more than ~50% were A’s.
Most engineering employers focus on whether you can do the job well, not whether you have a 3.x GPA instead of a 3.y. Whether they believe you can do the job well is more dependent on things like having a degree in the desired engineering field, having experience doing something similar/relevant in a work environment, and how well you do in interviews, which often emphasize solving technical problems/questions, but also measure things like how well you communicate and function with the team. Again there is a minority with different hiring practices. One of the guys that interviewed me at a SV company wanted to see a copy of my full transcript, which he discussed with me during the interview, asking about grades in specific classes (only asked about engineering classes, not freshmen classes).
I think the answer to OP’s question depends on the average GPA of that school for engineering students. What is the cut off for Dean’s list, graduation honors, etc? In some schools, intro engineering or weed out classes are purposely hard. And once you got out of those classes, your GPA might improve. D has upperclassman friends who have managed almost 4.0 after disaster 1st semester on premed or engineering.
There is also a dimension of big fish, small fish. It is easier to get higher GPA when one goes to a lower ranked school. DH loves to say to D…“MIT used the same CS books as other colleges, but the students, depth and requirements are totally different.”
The grade distribution is often totally different at colleges where you are a big fish or small fish. For example, gradeinflation.com mentions the average GPA at Stanford was 3.6 in 2011. It’s notably higher today. The site indicates that during the same year, the average GPA at the nearby San Jose State was 2.9. Is it easier to get an ‘A’ (or meet the common 3.0 GPA resume filter) as a small fish at a college where the median grade is ‘A/A-’?. Or as a big fish at a college where the median grade is ‘B’?