Anyone know a current or recent Ivy League student with a low college GPA?
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Anonymous
| Grade inflation is rampant but kids still screw up. If you don’t have wealthy family connections, what do Ivy students at the bottom quartile of their class do career-wise? GPA in the 2.0 to 2.99 range. |
Anonymous
| If someone got themselves to the Ivy League in the first place, the presumption is they had something highly suggestive from high school that indicated true intellectual promise. Yes, I have seen some kids show up in the Ivy League and simply fall flat. IMO, what matters is the ability to turn things around and rally back. That can be done. A 2.00 - 2.99 can be dealt with. It’s typically a 3 part equation: deep reflection (on what went wrong), a game plan to turn things around, and finally evidence that they staged a comeback and that it’s sustainable long term (life lessons they will carry with them). The most common pattern I’ve seen is some sort of ennui is the heart of the problem, either they were doing all that hard work for someone else (typically parents) in high school and college and the motivation was never intrinsic to self. They show up in the Ivy League school and wonder “why the hell am I even here/why does this actually matter”? They take some random courses and don’t really distinguish themselves or worse yet just totally disconnect from their environment and miss classes/assignments and get a few C’s for the first time in their lives. Maybe there’s some substance abuse and random romantic relationships. Two years in they are looking at a sub 3.0 GPA; internships cannot happen; the trajectory seems hopeless. But, it isn’t. Deep reflection about who they are and what they really want is what turns this around. I’ve seen people in the Ivy League do a dramatic mid-course correction and they show up in places like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and various hedge funds and big tech. They demonstrate huge self-awareness and have evidence/a track record of a massive personal turnaround that is quite useful in most high caliber environments. Having said that, honest and deep reflection is really hard work and most people never move past this. |
Anonymous
| It happens all the time. People get so wrapped up in college admissions- sending their kids to subpar public high schools because it will be easier to stand out and get in to HYP than from a competitive private, but once they get there, they can’t keep up. Or maybe they didn’t have a choice about where they went to high school and were the smartest person at a bad school and got in that way. Their job prospects are no better than if they gone to a crap school. Just getting into an Ivy does not guarantee your future. You still have to do well. |
Anonymous
Happens all the time, does it? Did you miss the lots-o-As article about Yale? |
Anonymous
Yale takes students who are in the top percentile on all metrics. I actually think that 20% of them NOT getting As is surprising. |
Anonymous
Mhm |
Anonymous
| Honestly, I don't think their GPA matters in the least when they graduate and are seeking employment. A lot of employers (like me) wouldn't care. There are loads of reasons for lower grades in college, including having to work and pay your own way, etc. If grad school is on the horizon, that might be a different story. However, I got into grad school with pretty average undergrad grades, but I attended when I was 29 and had an interesting career in the works. |
Anonymous
| No such thing as a low GPA at the Ivies. Just show up and throw up during finals week and you're good to go with an A. |
Anonymous
|
Yes, I know people in this boat. Some had parents that were paying but would only pay for a certain major and the kid couldn’t emancipate to take out loans. Others had a medical hardship before their school’s recent reform of their leave policy.
In all of these cases, they were able to get jobs just fine but mostly outside of the on-campus recruiting pipeline, since many of those recruiting opportunities require a certain GPA. So they obviously weren’t going to Google or investment banking, but were able to break into other industries just fine. All of them are currently in professional school and got there by doing post-bac classes to show academic ability and dedication to their graduate school plans. It doesn’t need to be a formal, full-time post-bac program, either. Evening classes at NYU and Columbia were what one grad I know did and they even got their employer to reimburse tuition! |
Anonymous
| Jeremy Lin had a 3.1 GPA at Harvard. But he was also a college athlete and an Econ major, so he probably was still motivated. But I get the impression 3.1 is really low for Harvard. |
Anonymous
| You just don't put your GPA on your resume. Once you are one year into a job, it's totally irrelevant. |
Anonymous
I would assume a graduating GPA in that range at an Ivy is bottom 5% of the class, not bottom 25%. Anyone know for sure? |
Anonymous
This!! It doesn’t matter at all. One must get an interview, GPA is not a requirement for that, and then blow them away with their personality. It’s very straight forward. Many companies will just hire HYP, because they are HYP - not that many ambitious HYP people aspire to be a cog in a corporate wheel, but this is what happens to them. |
Anonymous
| What the hell does your college gpa matter if you don’t plan to go to a competitive masters program? As long as you graduate you get your degree. Of it is from an Ivy than your already ahead, if you picked a major wisely. I never put my gpa on my resume and I got a job after college… |
Anonymous
| Bad post. 2.0.-2.99 is absurdly high range. 2.99 is a B average, which is fine. 2.0 is a C average, which is basically failing in the modern scale. |