Alright, a little Sunday topic to pick our brains.
Based on your experience, what is the ideal GPA?
Basically, if you had absolute control over your GPA, what would you like it to be?
Do consider possible factors (job opportunities, further academia options, self pride etc) and weigh them based on your preferences.
I dont think the answer is 4.00, as we have basically established that a 4.00 does go on to hurt certain chances (or maybe devalue the value of the degree a bit).
I also think that we have established that GPA does matter (especially in engineering), so the answer cant be “whatever, it is doesnt matter.”
@bodangles, companies would like to see people who excel academically and still have time for extra-curriculars. While I definitely think a 4.0 is the ideal GPA, there is the risk that someone with a 4.0 hasn’t ever done anything other than study. That’s an issue which can easily be cleared up by placing one’s activities on a resume. I believe 4.0 is the ideal GPA, but with engineering, generally you’re ok if you have above a 3.0.
All else being equal, the person with a 4.0 is in better shape than the person with a 3.5. I don’t know how you can really argue any different.
At any rate, the risk of someone with a 4.0 being antisocial isn’t likely to be appreciably different than someone with a 3.5 and those issues will be obvious in an interview if there is a difference.
How do you know what other people do with their time? I have a 4.0 after finishing three semesters in engineering and participate in a couple clubs and have logged over 90 hours of volunteering at the local animal shelter, for whom I am also a social media admin.
4.0. Yes, someone who has a 4.0 might have problems, but the same is true of anyone. Quite frankly, someone able to get A’s in not only all their core courses but also all their gym classes and humanities is pretty danged impressive. If some of them stare at their feet and mumble a lot, I’ve got lots of B and C and D students who do the same.
At schools where A+ grades are possible, there may be the occasional student who graduates with an engineering degree with more A+ grades than A grades (which are the lowest grades) without grade-grubbing behavior*, but still is a perfectly sociable person who does plenty of things other than study all the time.
*Grade-grubbing behavior = taking the lightest possible course loads, choosing the easiest possible courses that fulfill major and breadth requirements, repeating known-from-high-school material that they got an easy 5 on the AP test on, taking humanities and social studies courses passed / not-passed, etc…
Back to the original question: 4.0 is better than 3.5, but probably only slightly better for post-graduate employment, since few employers are likely to have new-graduate-interview-cut-off GPAs higher than 3.5. It is commonly believed that the most common cut-off GPA for new graduate interviews is 3.0; if true, the difference between 2.99 and 3.01 is huge compared the difference that 0.02 would otherwise make.
4.0 since it implies you have mastery of your entire undergraduate study. ABET accreditation is a must, that eliminates any “cake-walk” watered down programs.
Would rather not have to help my new hires figure out why F=ma or how to convert units in their equations.
I even think the idea of too nerdy is overblown. The engineering world needs lot of nerdy or even out right non-social people to sit in their cubicles and get a lot of work done. 25% social people going to meetings and wanting to be managers is more than enough. 25% of people who don’t like any engineering calculations is probably enough, otherwise there would be more people tracking metrics on spreadsheets than actual people doing something that those metrics reflect.
No industry really needs anti-social hostile people … but if they sit quietly in their cubicles and don’t bring weapons to work … that could almost work.
Somewhat tongue in cheek, but really engineering is a lot of quiet work in cubicles, just like the quiet work you do to get your degree. A 4.0 also implies you take pride in getting the right answer, not the almost right answer, and can plow through a lot of work in say 18x7 hours a week 126 … so we can count on your plowing through a lot of work in 40 hours too. You can understand what the professor wants on question 3A, so therefore will do what your manager has asked for (and the extra credit problem).
Looking at the chart again, above a 3.0 GPA, the effects of a higher GPA are diminishing. (3.0 needed for employer cutoffs). Using an average of the two lines given, and a linear interpolation of the >3.0 portion of the graph it leads us to:
The ideal GPA of 3.44 (just shy of 3.5) for a student who wants to MAXIMIZE extracurricular actives, and MINIMIZE GPA. Since work and leadership experience are valued higher than GPA, you would be better off spending that time interning, working, or involved with extracurricular activities instead of trying to get higher than a 3.44
That analysis only holds if one knows the incremental workload for each additional 0.01 of GPA, how much that amount of time can be redeployed to those other activities, and how much return on time spent on those other activities you gain.
It is possible that some students will find a point of diminishing returns. For example, a student may be able to get a 3.1 with a moderate amount of work and a 3.6 with a little more work, but getting a 3.7 or higher may require that student to put in a lot more work. I.e. that particular student may find a GPA around 3.6 to be the point of diminishing returns for additional work. So if a student has a point of diminishing returns, and the time can be put to some other useful activity instead, that can be something to consider in allocating one’s time. Of course, diminishing returns can also apply to time spent on other activities as well.
I just tried to work as hard as I could in order to get the best grades possible. I ended up with a 3.8+ GPA, which was good enough for a fellowship to grad school. I had plenty of time for partying, oops, I mean extracurricular activities.
That is basing your academic career and the start of your professional career on one very specific, not very inclusive chart from a magazine. The chart in question only says that after ~3.34 (by my reading, terrible chart btw) your chance of getting an internship rises more slowly than it did in the region immediately before. It does not tell you how well those internships paid, or if they were interesting, or if they were at places you actually wanted to work, or if they led to job offers, and it certainly doesn’t tell you the incremental cost of raising your GPA to any particular level or the benefits obtained by letting it slide.
Personally, I liked having a >3.8 GPA. It meant that instead of looking for research opportunities, they literally came looking for me. It meant that when I went to pay my tuition, I found out that scholarships had materialized out of nowhere to pay for all my expenses and then some. And it meant that when I went and handed out applications at job fairs, they looked at my resume and scheduled me for interviews on the spot. I don’t feel that I particularly sacrificed anything to have that GPA, but I think in retrospect think that I would have given up a lot of extracurricular activities to get the benefits I received in and out of college.
And I should note that I my unusual academic career gave me great contrast, a period during which my extracurricular activities were extensive and my GPA was poor. I didn’t give up partying with great friends or going to football games, I still did all that. I gave up watching reruns of MASH for the 17th time or trying to beat my fastest time on minesweeper. Well worth it.
To get an engineering job, you are almost always going to need a 3.0+ to be considered. If your GPA is less than a 3.0 or you don’t put it on your resume, your resume will more than likely end up in the trash before it gets reviewed carefully.
