<p>It's pathetic what this world has come to, but since our society has turned students into robots labeled with a number called GPA, we have seemingly become just that...a GPA...not a person. I don't care if you have a 3.0 or a 4.0...there really isn't much difference. 3.0 and above is good and above average no matter what anyone says. There are no jobs that require you have a certain GPA in life. Those who think GPA is everything are sadly mistaken and it's sad to see their humanity fly out the window. Not everyone is asian with a 5.0 GPA (don't even know how that's possible) and the President of the United States. There is no difference between the degrees from name brand schools like Princeton and say Marist or Providence College, 2 very respected schools on the upswing. All it does is make people say oh wow Harvard or oh wow Princeton here's a pat on the back! Pick the school that's right for you, not the school that you think you would sound cool and important going to. Most people on this site disgust me. Get-a-life. Most people go to college and get jobs regardless of the name on the degree. Some just pay 50k a year for a name they've heard of which is moronic.</p>
<p>Um, grades don’t matter for getting jobs? Seriously, have you ever heard of doctors, lawyers, wall street, banking, business, etc…</p>
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<li>Student at Marist College who feels bitter about being looked down upon</li>
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<p>No they don’t matter unless you flunked out of school. Tell me specifically what you’re referring to because it’s BS. Yes you have to pass specific tests for the jobs you mentioned, but there is no cut off GPA for any of them. Go stroke your GPA and lose your humanity like everyone else.</p>
<p>Looked down upon? Bill O’Reilly went here, we are mentioned as one of the best schools in the nation year in and year out, and we are one of the top 50 most selective in the nation. IBM has a partnership with a bad school huh? Doubt it. Ever heard of Marist Poll? All major news networks use it. Learn a bit before you talk.</p>
<p>^There is an unspoken rule that to get into med school and become a doctor, you have to have a 3.5 GPA AT LEAST in college. So, no, a 3.0 and a 4.0 is not the same there.</p>
<p>But I agree, go to a college that fits you. Although I think many people here (including me) lie when they say prestige is not at all a factor. Puh-leasee.</p>
<p>EDIT : Bill O Relly?? HAHA you make me laugh. I now see this is probably a joke post.</p>
<p>While your GPA and college are not the sole drivers of your future success, they play a large role. In a field like banking, for instance, you will not get an interview unless you attend certain schools and have a high GPA (above 3.5). Professional schools (good law, medicine, and business programs) and graduate schools will not accept a student with a low GPA.</p>
<p>Burdell you are a moron. No job says hey we only want employers that went to A, B, or C universities! Think of how dumb that sounds. Graduate schools is not a JOB. Read what I wrote. And Bill O’Reilly may not be the most lovable due to his radical political stance, no one can regret that he is very smart.</p>
<p>I love how you people rush to the defense of the whole “GPA = EVERYTHING!” construct. It’s people like you that are ruining your lives stressing out over how high a number is on a sheet of paper with your name on it. 3.0 and above = successful. Graduate schools more times than not have a 3.0 cutoff implying that 3.0 is solid which it is. You don’t need a 4.0 to go to graduate school.</p>
<p>RedFox11 excellent comment, and good thing you criticized G.P.Brundell. He said it was illegal for me to go to Georgia Tech for having a 3.0 GPA, can you believe this person? I got deffered at GT, but I very well agree with you. I got into NYU-Poly (#7 best paying degree in the nation better than #thirty something for GT by paycale.com ) which is my dream school and on top of that I got into Purdue for Chemical Engineering which is 1000x better than GT (Plus at both schools I got great scholarships for taking the IB Diploma Program and for my SAT scores), but thanks for that enlightening commentary, I concur with your ideas. I work a part time at McD’s and I see that the managers making 50,000+ either flunked high school or barely graduated. So I mean jobs don’t look at grades, but this G.P.Brundell says they are faculty at GT and they still can’t read your comment right, hmm… Anyways good comment…</p>
<p>Well at least we can all be prestigious managers at 5-star McDonald’s.</p>
<p>“I know I’m early (soph. in undergraduate college), but I’ve began doing some research on some schools that offer either Social Psychology or General Psychology at the Master’s level. So far I compiled a list of schools that offer what I’m looking for. They include NYU, Marshall, West Virginia, Boston U., Wake Forest, Villanova, Penn State, Boston College, Rutgers, Michigan State and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I haven’t taken the GRE’s yet, but figure to graduate with around a 3.2-3.3 GPA. Based on the GPA, what schools would you say I have a more realistic shot at, because I know some of them are over my head, but I will take my chances anyway. I really like West Virginia, but don’t want to get my heart set on it just to be disappointed. Any help would be great!”</p>
<p>You acknowledge that GPA matters, and acknowledge that grad schools consider it highly, yet HERE you try to convince everyone that a 3.0+ is the same as a 4.0?</p>
<p>@HYPhoper No, I mean that most jobs out there do not look at GPA until you get into Professional Fields… But anyways I do realize that GPA is important, and I just am pointing out the fallacies of GPBrundell’s comments</p>
<p>I would have to agree with you to some extent.
some people here do lie about their grades, but a lot of them don’t.
furthermore, a lot of people here think grades are everything, they’re not and most top universities put well rounded students ahead of somebody with a really high number in one category.</p>
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<p>To get a job with Goldman Sachs, you must attend a target school or they will not interview you. Not every school is a target school. Also, to be interviewed at a target school, you will need to meet the 3.5 GPA cutoff. </p>
<p>Many, many employers have a 3.0 cutoff below which they are not permitted by HR to hire. A few companies have a 2.5 cutoff or a 3.25 cutoff. Regardless, GPA will impact your interviews. </p>
<p>Are GPA and college everything? No, they’ll just get you interviews. For your first job. That first job and salary will impact your career heavily for the first 5 years, then at a decreasing rate over the following 10 years as you gain more and more experience. But regardless, 15 years of impact over a 40 year career is significant. </p>
<p>Think about it rationally: if every school and every GPA resulted in roughly the same job and roughly the same salary, why do Harvard English majors make so much relative to CSUN English majors? </p>
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<p>The Board of Regents has laws regarding the minimum qualifications to attend different public schools based on Freshman Index. If your Freshman Index (combination of GPA and test scores) fall below a certain threshold (based on school), you cannot be admitted, even if you’re the top QB recruit in the country or the child of the sitting US president. Here is a basic explanation: <a href=“https://www.gacollege411.org/College_Planning/Prepare_for_College/Entrance_Requirements/USG_College_Entrance_Requirements/Freshman_Student/Accredited_High_School_Student/Freshman_Index_Requirements.aspx[/url]”>https://www.gacollege411.org/College_Planning/Prepare_for_College/Entrance_Requirements/USG_College_Entrance_Requirements/Freshman_Student/Accredited_High_School_Student/Freshman_Index_Requirements.aspx</a></p>
<p>My point wasn’t to make you feel bad, but to make a statement because you asked for a “chance”. There’s no reason to waste the money on an application if you the school cannot admit you. Regardless, I’m glad you found other options that you will enjoy.</p>
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<p>Everyone looks at your GPA and many have HR imposed cut-offs. Usually, if you meet the cut-off, going substantially higher doesn’t mean much, and it comes down to interview skills and work experience. I’ve turn down 5.0 MIT engineers and have hired 3.0 Texas A&M engineers on many occasions. However, a 2.9 UC-Berkeley engineer wouldn’t even get an interview. HR wouldn’t allow it (and would overrule a hiring decision if I did interview him). A Cal State Fullerton student also wouldn’t get a job, even with a 4.0 GPA, simply because we didn’t go to their school.</p>
<p>So college matters to the extent that employers visit and target that school. GPA matters to the extent that you meet the minimum GPA cutoff (the major cut offs are 3.5 and 3.0, there are a few companies at 2.5, 3.25, and 3.75).</p>
<p>Now, does GPA and school control your future? It depends. For something like investment banking and business consulting, it completely matters. If you go to a non-target school for the major banks, or earn a GPA below their cut-off, you’re simply shut out of the field. For other careers (for example, chemical engineering), your career and GPA matter entirely for your first job, then impact your career at a decreasing rate for about 10 years. For example, go to a good school and earn a good GPA, and you could work for Exxon out of school and earn a decent salary. Graduate from a bad school and earn a low GPA, and you’ll work for a small local company at a lower salary. Five years later, when you’re interviewing for a job at the next company, people will be more impressed with the Exxon experience than with the small local company experience, plus your reference salary from Exxon will be higher leading to a higher salary at the new company.</p>
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<p>Graduate schools often do pay you a salary as an employee, but…</p>
<p>You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth, here. First of all, I agree that an exact GPA is meaningless. A 3.24 GPA does not inherently make you a better candidate (for a job, grad school, etc.) than a 3.21 GPA. On the other hand, as you point out, being out of a range can impact you. A 2.99 GPA student applying for a graduate school with a hard 3.00 cutoff will not get in, while a 3.01 GPA might.</p>
<p>This issue of cut-offs is complicated by how much they vary. A traditional employer might set it at 3.0. A non-traditional employer (e.g. banking) might set it at 3.5. A top law school, med school, or business school is going to want to see something in the 3.5-3.7+ range depending on scores, major, and school. And graduate schools (above third tier) will not have 3.0 cutoffs. Most want to see much higher scores.</p>
<p>The point is: if you and I graduate and everything else is he same except you have a 3.8 GPA and I have a 3.3 GPA, you have more companies, career paths, graduate, and professional schools open to you. If you and I both graduate with a 3.5 GPA and you went to Harvard and I went to Ohio State and we both have the same high LSAT score, you can get into Harvard Law and I can’t. You can get your foot in the door at a hedge fund and I can’t. GPA and college do impact your career.</p>
<p>Yes MrRedFox…i agree with you. Firstly truly many lie here about their grades. I mean how can a person get a full 100 ~4.0! ok Maths, phy, chem, bio…yeah 100 is possible but what about English and the rest humanities subject…surely you can never get a hundred on that.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen anyone here claim to have a 100 GPA. There have been plenty of people with 4.0 unweighted GPAs, but that’s different and entirely possible. You may disbelieve in the kids who post 4.6, 4.7+ GPAs–I’m assuming you’re exaggerating with the 5.0 thing–but these kids do exist. I happen to know several of them. The people who post on CC may be lying about their resumes, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that there are very accomplished high school students out there. </p>
<p>I’ve also gotten a 100 in an English class–there is this thing called “extra credit.” And this other thing called “the teacher loved me.” It’s hardly impossible.</p>
<p>At some schools:</p>
<p>Honors, Pre-IB, Gifted, Accelerated, Advanced, etc = +1 to GPA (5.0/4.0)
AP, IB, College Courses = +2 to GPA (6.0/4.0)</p>
<p>For schools that weight like that, a 5.0+ is actually pretty frequent. Is a 5.1 at that school better than a 4.2 at a school that weights differently? That depends on the school, and illustrates why weighted GPAs are not all that valuable. It’s better to look at the unweighted GPA and the AP/IB courses taken.</p>
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<p>Do many people lie on here? Who cares? If someone lists their GPA as a 3.9 UW and it’s really a 3.4 UW, then they’re going to get a poor chance.</p>
<p>Some studies show that students who lie about their grades by saying they are better than they really are, “exaggeration here reflects positive goals for the future, and we have found that those goals tend to be realized”,says Richard H. Gramzow, a psychologist at the University of Southampton in England.</p>
<p>I’m crossing my fingers that this is a joke.</p>