If you were the employer who would you hire? honestly?

Career Opportunities & Internships
21

<p>I have done a lot of hiring over the years.</p>

<p>The OP’s post just demonstrates unfamiliarity with the real world. Employers hire people, not GPAs. </p>

<p>If an employer is interviewing a candidate, it’s already clear that the school passes muster. The Ivy schools, other than for a few employment sectors, don’t get nearly the advantage that most students think they will. Employers are not going to look down on a student who went to their state flagship–why would they? They do not know the reasons behind a student’s choice to go there. Family finances? Family tradition? Desire to go to a large school?</p>

<p>What an employer is going to look at is what a student achieved while in school. Grades certainly are important–but only to pass an initial screen. The vast majority of employers are not going to nit-pick over which student got a 3.66 and which got a 3.72. What they will be concerned about is what the student will bring to the job other than the ability to study for tests. The employer also will be looking to see how the applicant will fit the culture of the company.</p>

<p>Did the student do nothing but study on campus? What skills did the student develop while on campus? For example, what kind of jobs/internships did the student hold–and what did the student do/learn in those positions? What kind of extracurriculars did the student engage in, and, again, what did the student do/learn?</p>

<p>For example, I interviewed a young woman who chaired a campus wide dance marathon for a particular charity. We were able to discuss at length what she had done with respect to planning, working with people, creating/leading teams, dealing with a budget, seeking donations, how she had dealt with setbacks, public speaking…and the road she had taken to get to the point where she had been asked to chair the event.</p>

<p>She had a 3.3- 3.4 from a large midwestern campus. </p>

<p>I hired her on the spot. She had a lot of experience that would transition well in to the real world of work. And in addition, she had developed the kind of moxie that you don’t get in a study carrel. I have kept tabs on her over the years, and she is doing wonderfully well.</p>

<p>The students the OP posited could not be “the same”</p>

22

<p>Seems everybody is just too technical.</p>

<p>Alright, if anybody sees this. If you were the admissions officer or whatever at Princeton Graduate school, who would you accept to a physics graduate program?</p>

<p>again GPA is the ONLY thing that sets them apart.</p>

23

<p>“GPA is the ONLY thing that sets them apart.”</p>

<p>It simply isn’t. Especially at grad school, where a key factor is “whom I want to do research with”.</p>

24

<p>If everything is equal, incl interview, except the name of the college and college gpa, what does it matter? You aren’t hiring them to be students. Either you toss a coin or there are other factors in play.</p>

<p>But, aha, this is in college admissions & search. </p>

<p>Ok, now I see your 129 post- this IS about admissions. Short answer: it doesn’t work that way.</p>

25

<p>I know employers who will not hire from HYP. I am not an employer, so I do not know anything about that. But the Harvard GPA of a 3.4 would by like someone barely scratching a 3.0 at UMD. So, the Harvard one on this list would not likely get an interview compared to the others. And the job would matter too. Do I need someone who can make wealthy connections? Or do I need a scientist or engineer? Harvard guy probably has rich friends/connections. But other than that, you gave the Harvard guy such a low GPA for being at THE school known for the most grade inflation in the world.</p>

26

<p>

The one who fits best with my lab and my research goals.</p>

27

<p>It sounds like you are trying to pick a school based on which one will help you get a job. This depends on what you want to do. If I were picking from that list, it would be Stanford. Stanford is a good all around school with a top name. And people still take Stanford people seriously. Most of this board is from the NE. But when you get away from the NE and especially when get in to more science and medical fields, Ivy League tend to not excite us.</p>

28

<p>But maybe that job doesn’t need the Stanford seriousness. Maybe it needs another trait. or maybe they have 3 S people and need another perspective. And agree, grad school is about the research goals and how they fit the program you apply to. Not just goals, but how you show promise based on your actual relevant experiences. </p>

29

<p>Basically anyone that thinks they’re going to get the job simply because they went to an Ivy League or got a high GPA in college is not going to get the job, at least not the job they think they’re going to get. Bill Gates once saw former classmate begging on the street. On the other hand, I knew a guy that was studying at our local community college and is now working for Microsoft (and I mean actually working, not doing janitorial or the like). You get the job based on how you present yourself to the interviewer, not solely based on your academic credentials. I know several people who didn’t go to a prestigious university and are working as entrepreneurs, hiring Ivy League grads to work for them!
As for your question, I really can’t answer it without more information. The same internships and extracurriculars? I can confidently say that’s never the case. Even within similar internships and extracurriculars, there are different levels of performances. I’d check in with people they’ve worked with and see how they performed on the task. Did they show leadership? Were they hard-working? And so forth. Don’t forget the interview as well. A person can graduate with flying colors from a prestigious institution and yet still lack the fundamental people skills needed for the job. Do GPAs matter? Of course! Do they matter most? Absolutely not! I may be no college expert (as indicated by my username), but I do know for a fact that often the ones that look best on paper are never the ones most qualified for the job.</p>

30

<p>"Seems everybody is just too technical.</p>

<p>Alright, if anybody sees this. If you were the admissions officer or whatever at Princeton Graduate school, who would you accept to a physics graduate program?</p>

<p>again GPA is the ONLY thing that sets them apart. "</p>

<p>Same answer:
it would be based on whether I wanted to work with them, what type of physics work or research they have done so far, and whether I saw a spark in them.</p>

<p>Your question might apply only to a situation if someone was applying to a top law school straight out of undergrad? (I’m guessing because I didn’t go to law school). Don’t know of other situations where it might apply. Wouldn’t even apply to business school or med school because everyone’s supporting or relevant ECs are so different.</p>

31

<p>The person from Georgetown. /thread</p>

32

<p>The flawed assumption behind a lot of thinking here is that the more “prestigious” the school, the more automatic the hire. NOT SO in spades. Where you went to school can matter but in ways many do not consider:

  1. You “only” went to Wittenberg University. So did the interviewer. HIRED
  2. You went to Yale. Interviewer went to Ball State and thinks that you’ll be an untrainable know-it-all NOT HIRED
  3. You went to University of Michigan. Interviewer went to Ohio State and is a football fan. NOT HIRED
    etc.</p>
33

<p>Another flawed assumption is that the interviews are equal. I don’t think I ever conducted an interview I evaluated as equal. Everything from first impression, appearance, tone, makeup or no makeup, etc. will differentiate the candidate’s interview from others. </p>

<p>I interviewed a provider years ago who I thought had a very bad interview. He was what I called, “country”!! He had a thick country accent, avoided eye contact, arrived in a shirt with no tie or jacket, slouched at the table, attended a local mediocre college, and probably did many other things that were not helpful for his consideration. But my group was desperate and we needed a provider. He was average on paper, other than his interview. Well, three years later, he is a STAR! He’s been a star from day one. He is very introverted and within the last year has blossomed into a great communicator. We would have lost a great provider if we used rigid standards of prestige, grades, interviews, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I am always impressed by someone who went to an Ivy college. But that doesn’t mean I will hire them.</p>

34

<p>Being an HYP grad can cut both ways in an interview. On the one hand, if your resume is in the ballpark you almost always get the interview. On the other hand, some interviewers have their ‘guard up’ when talking to an Ivy grad, “…tell me about a time when you have experienced humility”</p>

<p>It seems everyone has a preconceived notion about HYP. Sometimes that works in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t.</p>

35

<p>"…tell me about a time when you have experienced humility"
A follow-up to that actual interview question. Don’t answer with, “I felt humility as soon as I walked in here and realized I was going to try and self myself to some middle-manager from Directional State U wearing a JC Penney blazer” </p>

36

<p>Regarding an earlier post
"Alright, if anybody sees this. If you were the admissions officer or whatever at Princeton Graduate school, who would you accept to a physics graduate program?</p>

<p>again GPA is the ONLY thing that sets them apart."</p>

<p>As someone who was accepted to Harvard physics with a fellowship for the top applicants a few weeks ago, I will tell you this is absolutely false. Letters and research experience are what sets you apart. As for grades, admissions does not really care about your GPA as a number, they want to see how you did in your individual courses and if you challenged yourself. They care much more how you did in upper level courses than in freshman year.</p>

<p>Going to a top college helps you in grad admissions by giving you better research opportunities, the possibility of having very well known and respected recommenders, a great and challenging undergraduate education, and many times the possibility of taking graduate classes. However, people from unknown colleges can get many of these experiences too (often in the summer through REUs), they just need to look harder. They can do just as well if not better in admissions that kids from Ivies. </p>

<p>In my personal experience, the top and other good students from Ivies can easily get into top ten programs. However, the kids who are below average do not fare nearly as well. I know two people in my year who had trouble getting into ANY schools.</p>

<p>Same is true for most jobs, with the exception of finance which highly values prestige. Honestly I feel this is very questionable and causes a lot of great people to get overlooked. Many brilliant kids will opt to go to state schools these days since private schools are so unaffordable, many times even with financial aid.</p>

37

<p>OP, some people just can’t bring themselves to answer hypothetical questions. If you ask them if they had absolutely no options other than A or B, they will answer that they would somehow choose C, or that they would somehow get other information you didn’t provide.</p>

<p>But I will play the game. Personally, I would choose the Yale grad, because I myself am a Yale grad, and 3.5 is a perfectly good GPA from Yale. If you took Yale out of the equation, I’d probably pick Stanford, because I think 3.5 is a good GPA from there as well, and Stanford is a great school. Without knowing any other information at all, there’s no way to know what that 3.9 from Maryland represents.</p>

<p>To flesh this out a bit: if college and GPA is the only information I am going to have, in this case GPA doesn’t tell me much. These are all good GPAs. Even the Harvard GPA probably represents an excellent student, even though the GPA may be below average–for Harvard. So I would be left to consider how I view those schools. I know that Harvard, Yale, and Stanford recruit and enroll excellent students. This is also true for Georgetown and UCLA, but slightly less true, and it’s somewhat less true for Maryland.</p>

<p>As others have helpfully pointed out, all other things are never really equal. But so what? It’s a game, right?</p>

38

<p>Hunt,</p>

<p>if you had to choose between:</p>

<p>sldfkhjasdfkdsjflkas</p>

<p>ldkfjsdlkgfjsdlk</p>

<p>sdflkjsdlgksjfdg</p>

<p>saldkfgajgkjas;dfkg</p>

<p>lasdigjaldkgjal;dkg</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>lasdgkhjaligjalg</p>

<p>Which would you choose?
This question is about on par with the one posed by OP.</p>

<p>The hypothetical is meaningless and everyone can clearly see why the OP is asking it, but the hypothetical posed by the OP does not answer the question actually being pursued by the OP, and that’s why people aren’t answering it within the frame he’s provided.</p>

39

<p>It’s interesting that people can read the OP’s mind, but can’t answer a hypothetical question. You could say that you’d randomly pick one if faced with that decision, I suppose. Is that what you’d really do? Would your answer be different if a Brown grad had been one of the choices?</p>

<p>And to answer your question, I’d choose</p>

<p>sldfkhjasdfkdsjflkas</p>

<p>ldkfjsdlkgfjsdlk</p>

<p>sdflkjsdlgksjfdg</p>

<p>saldkfgajgkjas;dfkg</p>

<p>lasdigjaldkgjal;dkg</p>

<p>because there are so many more letters. You did say “between,” right?</p>

40

<p>you’re right, i should have said “among.”</p>

<p>No, my answer of “I would choose the person who interviewed the best” or “I would choose the person who fit my lab’s goals the most” would still have been my answers to OP’s hypotheticals regardless of whether there was a Brown grad. I would not randomly choose one. </p>

<p>And yes, I have been on this forum long enough that often I can tell people’s intentions when commonly discussed questions pop up week after week (such as how much does a school’s brand name matter). Since my goal in posting here is to answer people’s questions and help them better understand things, answering an ill informed and thus poorly created hypothetical does not accomplish that goal. I would rather point out why it’s a bad hypothetical and give the answer that provides the most helpful information. If I wanted to select options in a meaningless hypothetical game I would go here: <a href=“http://yourather.com”>http://yourather.com</a></p>