<p>Agreed. From my observations of how previous employers hired employees and from what I heard from some HR colleagues, it’s mainly used to find who are most likely to be endowed with decent work-ethic, capable of learning quickly, being able to get up to speed and function with little/no handholding from supervisors/higher management, etc. </p>
<p>Cumulative college GPAs below 3.0 tend to signal to most of them that some of those qualities…especially work ethic and being able to function with minimal supervision may be seriously lacking. A few have came to this conclusion from being burned by such college grads in the past. </p>
<p>While ECs can enhance one’s chances, it’s rare it’ll save someone with a low GPA in the companies I’ve worked in. </p>
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<p>This is something even those on the engineering/business exec side of my extended family would agree with. Only thing is their SAT threshold would be much lower than 1800 when converting from the pre-1995 SAT scale. </p>
<p>As far as they were concerned, the only business degree anyone with some measure of intelligence, decent work ethic, and sense of initiative needs is an MBA after spending at least 2 years in the workforce. </p>
<p>This skepticism also extended to one medium-sized financial company I worked for where they had a policy of only hiring undergrad b-school majors from elite programs like Wharton, NYU-Stern, Berkeley’s Haas, UMich’s Ross, UVA McIntire, etc. Granted, some of that had to do with the fact they were burned by hiring ugrad b-school majors from lower-tiered b-schools who had issues with basic math and written communication skills from what I heard from those who were in a position to hire.</p>
<p>I think it’s a fair question whether there may be some critical mass of kids who commonly wear really expensive stuff at a particular school such that those who can’t keep up might feel marginalized. I don’t know about GWU, but I can say that this is certainly not the case at Yale, even though there are plenty of rich kids. The majority of kids are pretty scruffy-looking, or at least casual.</p>
<p>My daughter’s very frugal (we have to encourage her to spend money on things to make her life easier) and yet she has some of the “nice things” that apparently bother people in the GWU-type of situation. Just goes to show – the appellation of “throws money around” can’t be linked to what one actually has. One could be careful with money and save up for a nice purchase, or prefer buying one “good” to many “just ok.”</p>
<p>Agree, PG. The “nice things” my daughter has are things we have bought for her, because we want to and can. For instance, Uggs, because they are better than the knockoffs. A Northface backpack, because they’ll take it back if it falls apart. It’s hard to judge a person by their “cover” sometimes.</p>
<p>Your view of your D is very similar to perceptions my parent’s, older relatives, and even some hardcore techie friends have about my spending habits. </p>
<p>Granted, my hardcore techie friends are the types to spend themselves into debt for the latest/greatest computers/tech gadgets whereas I only buy stuff when I feel I actually need it and to use my computers for way more than 5+ years. </p>
<p>It’s one reason why I’ve ended up accumulating a nice collection of older, yet still usable computer in good condition to the point I’ve been giving computers away to those in need or selling them off at low-cost(notebooks) over the last decade to maintain adequate space in my apartment. </p>
<p>That and I’ve been very lucky on the free section of CL. </p>
<p>Got plenty of free computers off CL…including a supposedly broken intel imac this past week. Previous owner even left a retail version of Snow Leopard DVD in the optical drive though I didn’t know about it until I took it out of the thoroughly taped makeshift box, popped in a spare hard drive, and booted up the DVD to start the Snow Leopard installation. :)</p>
<p>About two thirds of bachelor’s degrees in the US are granted in pre-professional majors that attempt to teach material relevant for a student’s goal first job (whether the student actually gets such a job is another story, as some such majors, like video game design, are likely more popular among students than the major-exclusive job opportunities that exist for them).</p>
<p>Also, even many liberal arts majors are chosen for pre-professional reasons.</p>