Would you let your child remain away at university if they were only earning a 2.0-2.5 gpa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid graduated from one of the big 3 private schools in the DMV with a 2.8 GPA. He attended UVA on a partial athletic scholarship and graduated with a 2.1 GPA in accounting major two years ago. He got his first job through a Sidwell alumni, who played the same sport and graduated twenty years ago, for 90K/yr with bonus. He just got promoted to director of sale with a salary of 300k/yr. Networking is 100 times more important than grade.

ah..meritocracy at work. /s Clearly, you don't need that much brain power for sales jobs. I'm glad he's not doing anyone's accounting.

You sound bitter.

And you miss her point.

And sales jobs are hard to do and hard to keep, so if he doesn't perform it will be on him. Also, sales jobs are where the money for everyone else's salaries come from, and why most CEOs are promoted from revenue lines.

So, in addition to bitter, you sound ignorant.

I would hate to be in sales. I'm in high tech, so no, not bitter.

Sales jobs are hard in that it takes a lot effort, but not necessarily smarts. There would be nothing to sell if someone hadn't made the widget or service. That takes some smarts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid graduated from one of the big 3 private schools in the DMV with a 2.8 GPA. He attended UVA on a partial athletic scholarship and graduated with a 2.1 GPA in accounting major two years ago. He got his first job through a Sidwell alumni, who played the same sport and graduated twenty years ago, for 90K/yr with bonus. He just got promoted to director of sale with a salary of 300k/yr. Networking is 100 times more important than grade.

ah..meritocracy at work. /s Clearly, you don't need that much brain power for sales jobs. I'm glad he's not doing anyone's accounting.

You sound bitter.

And you miss her point.

And sales jobs are hard to do and hard to keep, so if he doesn't perform it will be on him. Also, sales jobs are where the money for everyone else's salaries come from, and why most CEOs are promoted from revenue lines.

So, in addition to bitter, you sound ignorant.

I would hate to be in sales. I'm in high tech, so no, not bitter.

Sales jobs are hard in that it takes a lot effort, but not necessarily smarts. There would be nothing to sell if someone hadn't made the widget or service. That takes some smarts.

Doubling down on the ignorant, I see.

FYI I am in tech too, and have been for my entire 30+ year career, 20+ as a startup CEO, and you can't work where I do with that attitude. It's not a smarts contest. Our engineers are the smartest people I have ever known -- and they are smart enough to know without good salespeople they don't eat because they can't do that very hard job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"My child GETS that we have an unwritten contract: I will write checks for four years (that represent decades of hard work on my part), because she is mature and responsible enough to make good use of my investment. I am not underwriting Animal House antics. What kind of employees (and spouses) will your kids be if you don't hold them accountable now????"

They will be employees and spouses who got the Animal House antics out of their systems and chose a better path.

That is to say they will be intrinsically motivated employees and spouses rather than extrinsically motivated robots who some day might figure out they have free will.

People who have to be held accountable by someone else have a fairly low ceiling on how far they will get.

Agree.

Agree 100% with this. I was looking for a response like this.

I crashed and burned my freshman year of college after always making straight As at a challenging private high school and playing a varsity/club sport all 4 years of high school. Honestly, I was burnt out before I even went to college and I had no idea how to handle the independence and less structured days when I got there, and I was way more focused on making friends and having fun. Ended up with something like a 2.5 GPA my first semester, even failed another class later on. Still had a great time the rest of college and graduated with a 3.2. I figured it out myself, grew up, had a job the summer after I graduated through the career center (with zero help from my parents or family friend network), never moved home, and haven't ever looked back. I am an excellent employee and was a manager at my firm by age 27. My parents never once threatened to bring me home (and I was far away, paying out of state tuition at WM), and I'm so glad they let me figure my sh-t out. And I fully launched the day I graduated and moved here, despite that 2.5 first semester.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cs get degrees... and then most frequently dead-end jobs in the service industry. You don't need a sociology degree to serve up latte art. I recall reading most boomerang kids who move back home to leech off parents graduated with sub-3.0 GPAs.

I am willing to bet more people working in the service industry make a lot more than you think with their C degrees and better yet many of those in the service industry are burnt out A students who lived under their parents watchful eyes and finally cracked.

BTW my husbands C average created a nice sized company that employs about 100 people so i guess he should have worked harder in school, maybe he would employ 200

[Anonymous]

Bill Gates didn't even graduate from college and he's worth like 100 billion!

I'm sorry, you people acting as if college performance doesn't matter sound ignorant as hell and deluded. Also, stop citing anecdotes, period, let alone from 30 years ago. Times have changed - nobody gives an $80,000 salary and a pension to every diploma mill grad with a pulse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:C's get degrees.

This. One of my kids graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA. Another one of my kids graduated (barely) with a 2.2. They both got degrees. They both have good jobs. Cs get degrees.

+1. Why do colleges even grade classes anymore? Nobody cares about GPA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:C's get degrees.

This. One of my kids graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA. Another one of my kids graduated (barely) with a 2.2. They both got degrees. They both have good jobs. Cs get degrees.

+1. Why do colleges even grade classes anymore? Nobody cares about GPA.

Grads schools surely do. And first job employers.

[Anonymous]

Love the guy who claims it is actually character-building to screw up in college, and that it means you will go further than the “robots” who are responsible.

Interesting Fairytale. My child does not work hard for me, she works hard because she has figured out for herself that it is the path to HER goal.

For those if you whose path to success was low grades and vomiting over toilets... I am happy that you got your life together eventually. But do not try to claim that makes kids of your ilk superior . What a self-serving take on your own spotty biography.

Bet it really would amuse your siblings and poor parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid graduated from one of the big 3 private schools in the DMV with a 2.8 GPA. He attended UVA on a partial athletic scholarship and graduated with a 2.1 GPA in accounting major two years ago. He got his first job through a Sidwell alumni, who played the same sport and graduated twenty years ago, for 90K/yr with bonus. He just got promoted to director of sale with a salary of 300k/yr. Networking is 100 times more important than grade.

ah..meritocracy at work. /s Clearly, you don't need that much brain power for sales jobs. I'm glad he's not doing anyone's accounting.

You sound bitter.

And you miss her point.

And sales jobs are hard to do and hard to keep, so if he doesn't perform it will be on him. Also, sales jobs are where the money for everyone else's salaries come from, and why most CEOs are promoted from revenue lines.

So, in addition to bitter, you sound ignorant.

I would hate to be in sales. I'm in high tech, so no, not bitter.

Sales jobs are hard in that it takes a lot effort, but not necessarily smarts. There would be nothing to sell if someone hadn't made the widget or service. That takes some smarts.

Doubling down on the ignorant, I see.

FYI I am in tech too, and have been for my entire 30+ year career, 20+ as a startup CEO, and you can't work where I do with that attitude. It's not a smarts contest. Our engineers are the smartest people I have ever known -- and they are smart enough to know without good salespeople they don't eat because they can't do that very hard job.

I see you have reading comprehension issues. I never stated that sales was not necessary. I stated that you don't need much smarts to be in sales, and you don't. You need charisma, and looks help, too. You can't work where I do with the lack of reading comprehension issues. Oh, and the company I work for would NEVER hire someone with a 2.0 GPA, *ever*, and this is highly regarded high tech company in the Bay Area.

[Anonymous]

This is a sad debate. Try to be okay with who you are and what you do. Not duke it out online with some anonymous poster

[Anonymous]

This was my husband, OP. He just didn’t take undergrad seriously. He’s good with people and networked well, and went on to get a decent job with security clearance, then got into a good grad program based on professional recs and good GRE score. He’s now bringing home more than most people who had 4.0s. Your kid’s GPA may close a few doors, but not having a degree will close a lot more. Just make sure your kid graduates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was my husband, OP. He just didn’t take undergrad seriously. He’s good with people and networked well, and went on to get a decent job with security clearance, then got into a good grad program based on professional recs and good GRE score. He’s now bringing home more than most people who had 4.0s. Your kid’s GPA may close a few doors, but not having a degree will close a lot more. Just make sure your kid graduates.

+1- Well said

[Anonymous]

"Love the guy who claims it is actually character-building to screw up in college, and that it means you will go further than the “robots” who are responsible.

Interesting Fairytale. My child does not work hard for me, she works hard because she has figured out for herself that it is the path to HER goal.

For those if you whose path to success was low grades and vomiting over toilets... I am happy that you got your life together eventually. But do not try to claim that makes kids of your ilk superior . What a self-serving take on your own spotty biography.

Bet it really would amuse your siblings and poor parents."

We're not superior but we're not inferior either. That is the point. My parents screwed up much worse than I ever did.

You claim your daughter has figured it out for herself, good for her. I hope she is right. I certainly thought I was even in November of my first 1.0 semester.

We're trying to tell you that lots of people that think they know the path to their goal are wrong. At that point, they may screw up for a year or two but then pull things together.

I remember my grad advisor tried to accuse me of not being responsible because I only worked 75 hours the week before I gave a practice talk he didn't like.

His threat was, "What are you going to do if you flunk out?" I calmly told him I'd already flunked out twice and that I knew exactly how to handle it.

Because I knew how to handle flunking out, I took bigger risks and ended up with bigger rewards.

It's not the path for everyone but slow and steady is not the only way to win the race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I see you have reading comprehension issues. I never stated that sales was not necessary. I stated that you don't need much smarts to be in sales, and you don't. You need charisma, and looks help, too. You can't work where I do with the lack of reading comprehension issues. Oh, and the company I work for would NEVER hire someone with a 2.0 GPA, *ever*, and this is highly regarded high tech company in the Bay Area.

Lol OK now I know you are not real and just trolling. No one is this stupid for real. You got me.

[Anonymous]

Above a 2.0 stays at college. Zero bearing on life later. It's true C's get degrees. Hard work, internships get jobs. While over a 3.0 might open more doors in the beginning, 2 years later doesn't matter at all. There are also plenty of grad schools out there for lower than 3.0 gpa's. Many kids have gpa's in college lower than they did in high school. Some kids school is not for them but work is. As long as they are behaving in a productive way, ie attending class, not partying too much and joining things towards their end goal I'd leave them at college.