What happens to the bottom 10% of the class at an elite?

[Anonymous]

All the top 10 universities have near perfect graduation rates. When a bottom decile kid earns a degree are they screwed, stuck with crummy offers, or still in the mix for high status gigs? I doubt the credential helps much if your grades are awful, but maybe I’m naive.

[Anonymous]

First, it's hard to get bad grades at an elite school due to grade inflation.

Second, if you have an HYPS degree, no one cares about your grades. I've literally never put my GPA on a resume. I wasn't advised to do so by our career office, and I find it very odd when people do it.

Basically, unless you include it on your resume, no one hiring you knows where you ranked in your class. And at least at my undergrad, the only signifier of rank was whether you were Phi Beta Kappa or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, it's hard to get bad grades at an elite school due to grade inflation.

Second, if you have an HYPS degree, no one cares about your grades. I've literally never put my GPA on a resume. I wasn't advised to do so by our career office, and I find it very odd when people do it.

Basically, unless you include it on your resume, no one hiring you knows where you ranked in your class. And at least at my undergrad, the only signifier of rank was whether you were Phi Beta Kappa or not.

All this.

Some really competitive places will ask for a transcript if you're fresh out of school. A lot won't. A degree from HYPS will open doors at a lot of places, no matter what grades you got.

[Anonymous]

The elite schools have grade DEflation. Anyone who actually has a kid there knows this. Question anyone’s advice who says otherwise. College admissions offices know this. You can find the college acceptances on their websites and social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, it's hard to get bad grades at an elite school due to grade inflation.

Second, if you have an HYPS degree, no one cares about your grades. I've literally never put my GPA on a resume. I wasn't advised to do so by our career office, and I find it very odd when people do it.

Basically, unless you include it on your resume, no one hiring you knows where you ranked in your class. And at least at my undergrad, the only signifier of rank was whether you were Phi Beta Kappa or not.

All the best internships and full time jobs during on campus recruiting at my top 20 university had gpa requirements. At top 10s, companies remove gpa requirements?

[Anonymous]

Hard to get bad grades? Um, heard of Princeton, Chicago and Cornell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The elite schools have grade DEflation. Anyone who actually has a kid there knows this. Question anyone’s advice who says otherwise. College admissions offices know this. You can find the college acceptances on their websites and social media.

Disregard. I’m on a small phone and in the wrong forum

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't go so far as to say no one cares. The top finance and consulting firms do have a minimum but if a kid is in the lowest 10% that's likely wouldn't have been an opportunity from any school. But other than that, GPA expectations for new grads are calibrated by the school's reputation for relative inflation or deflation in the area of study.

[Anonymous]

Elite firms (and, obviously, all graduate schools) do ask for transcripts. And pretty much every employer asks for at least one professor reference, so a kid needs someone who will speak highly of him.

[Anonymous]

If your last name is Bush, someday you become President, yay!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, it's hard to get bad grades at an elite school due to grade inflation.

Second, if you have an HYPS degree, no one cares about your grades. I've literally never put my GPA on a resume. I wasn't advised to do so by our career office, and I find it very odd when people do it.

Basically, unless you include it on your resume, no one hiring you knows where you ranked in your class. And at least at my undergrad, the only signifier of rank was whether you were Phi Beta Kappa or not.

All of this may be true but ...

Ivy schools found a severe case of relative deprivation which in layman's terms means kid who are use to being the smartest struggle when they are not. It all comes down to how the kids see themselves in relation to their peers. They don't get the good jobs or the good internship, etc because they get the ridiculous impression they are not as smart as they thought.

What they also found is that students who have "something else" to hold themselves in high esteem besides their grades do not suffer from relative deprivation even if they are in the bottom 10%, which brings us to holistic admissions. This is why they want the top violinist, athlete, artist.... because they may be in the bottom of the class academically (bottom of the top 1%) and they don't care because they are by far the best in their area of interest.

Sure internships might want to know the GPA but nobody gets less than a B and country club athletes get internships through their coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hard to get bad grades? Um, heard of Princeton, Chicago and Cornell?

Duke, Harvard and Brown are known for grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

If they're rich and connected, it doesn't matter. If they're regular Joe's they prob end up at a crummy job, become a teacher, or head to some third tier law school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they're rich and connected, it doesn't matter. If they're regular Joe's they prob end up at a crummy job, become a teacher, or head to some third tier law school.

Or they decide to live some place other than NYC, DC, LA, SV/SF and get a good job or open a small business, find housing they can afford, work reasonable hours and maybe even choose to live near family. Their kids still qualify as legacies and won’t experience college admissions as an arms race.

Ever stop and look at the quality of life that comes with these “elite” jobs you covet? $$ w/o time, chronic insecurity. It cracks me up that people who aspire to these jobs look down on teaching.

[Anonymous]

Success in life doesn't depend on your undergrad GPA or the school you went to. I thought everybody knew that by now.

Any person's success will depend on

1) Their mindset and attitude
2) Their ability to think critically
3) Their able to communicate well
4) Their work ethic
5) Their willingness to retool and keep their skills updated

So where the bottom 10% land up will depend on whether they possess these qualities. If they do, they will do well. IF they don't they will drop to the bottom of the barrel and since you can't tell who possesses these traits just by looking at their transcripts, this question is ultimately unanswerable.