Anonymous wrote: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.

Au sullying will
Banking did
Med school wants high goals, so does law school and most top of discipline grad programs
If your grades are Meh, it better be because you were a super athlete or out saving the world when missing class.

Anonymous wrote:They become Republican candidates for President.

So hey we still haven't seen Obama's grades. Just sayin'

I didn’t think it made any difference where you went to school until I saw what happened to my DC who goes to an IVy. He’s a junior with a 3.8 GPA and a URM with strong ECs including internships. He literally has been approached by 30 or 40 companies who want to talk to him. He has interviewed with three and as tentative job offers from all three. I understand that high achieving URM candidates are widely recruited but I really doubt he would get this much attention if you went to a state flagship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think about the stats of the kids who get into HYPS now. No matter how you slice it, the “bottom 10%” are probably going to still be impressive. There’s also no reason why these kids aren’t capable of earning at least Bs. So the GPA isn’t really a great indicator of whether they are going to fit in.

Athletes, z list, and some underrepresented tend to be made fun of by the top kids. There's definitely an obvious bottom of the class that many overachievers feel don't belong there. Overachievers aren't shy about sharing their opinion in this regard.

This is so much bullshit. No clear (or single) hierarchy. If there were, it wouldn’t be based on grades. Kids who come in with highest grades aren’t inherently kids who emerge with highest GPAs. There are a few brilliant/exceptionally talented people (but typically brilliant/exceptionally talented (or recognized as such) in one field) and lots of competent/ambitious people, probably sorted out more through aggressiveness/self-promotion than by GPAs. Exception would be law and med school admissions. Lots of kids whose success will be through other means — wealth, connections. Kids with the highest grades are hardly “the elite” at these schools. Maybe among rich, connected, reasonably good-looking (white? male?) douchebags, the ones with the highest GPAs consider themselves Masters of the Universe, but that’s hardly hegemonic and it’s attributable more to wealth/entitlement than GPA.

I was probably one with a GPA around 3.0. It just mattered where I went and whether any faculty would vouch for me. Terribly unfair, but I had a choice of DC jobs with prestige nonprofits who would not consider non-Ivy grads. After enough good work, near perfect test scores and a couple calls from my boss and from my college adviser, grad school funding was a snap. With a lot more maturity than my undergrad years, I got the second Ivy degree with a 4.0. The difference between an Ivy and other colleges is that the safety net can be pretty cushy.

Anonymous wrote: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.

I'd like to agree with you, but I haven't been considered for many jobs simply because my college GPA was less than a 3.0. Many government agencies and private firms insist on at least a 3.0 GPA. I'm even unable to apply to grad school. So it actually does affect one's success.

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.

Many places ask for transcripts, along with resumes. How do you get around that?

" Athletes, z list, and some underrepresented tend to be made fun of by the top kids. There's definitely an obvious bottom of the class that many overachievers feel don't belong there. Overachievers aren't shy about sharing their opinion in this regard.

Only the a-holes. I went to one of these schools and no one I knew was spending any time sitting in judgment or gossiping about anyone else’s grades."

I once tried to explain this on here. It's not that they are a-holes, although they might be, it is that they are 2nd tier, ambitious and know they are not 1st tier and never will be. What separates the true top of the heap, is leadership, vision and internal motivation. They have no time to think about such things because they are so engrossed in what they are doing they don't notice the bottom of the class. They understand that they got into grad school not because of their 4.0 at Harvard but because on top of their 4.0 they also published a paper in Nature.

The 2nd tier with their 3.9s think they are almost as good as the 4.0s. They may be in that some 4.0s that they hang around with are also in the 2nd tier. They only managed a 4.0 by grade grubbing and taking a slightly easier set of classes and/or by not bothering to take the time to polish up their work and publish it in a 3rd rate journal. These 2nd tier ambitious people are the ones who make fun of the 3rd tier at the bottom of the Ivy classes. They do this because they know there is nothing they can do to become first tier and they are unhappy about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:any company worth working for will ask for you gpa/transcript.

also, low gpa -> no reputable grad school of any sort

Exactly.

My brother got into HBS with a 3.0 from Berkeley. Don’t know whether than confirms or rebuts your claim, LOL!

what century was this?

people can get into hbs today with a 3.0 from a berkeley tier school if they have a compelling story.

hls and the medical school, and phd programs are different but hbs and hks have more flexiblity

Yes, that was way I made the comment about confirms vs rebut. As an undergrad, the B-school looked like a joke compared to the law school, med school or PhD programs.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I don't know. I went to Stanford and have a STEM degree. No one has ever asked for my GPA except the grad schools I applied to.

They become Republican candidates for President.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:any company worth working for will ask for you gpa/transcript.

also, low gpa -> no reputable grad school of any sort

Exactly.

My brother got into HBS with a 3.0 from Berkeley. Don’t know whether than confirms or rebuts your claim, LOL!

what century was this?

people can get into hbs today with a 3.0 from a berkeley tier school if they have a compelling story.

hls and the medical school, and phd programs are different but hbs and hks have more flexiblity

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

when did you go through recruiting at HYPS?

even at H, the banks and consulting firms ask for gpa during resume drops. there are def cut offs for initial screenings

NP, I also landed a wall street job/investment banking after graduation and did not disclose my GPA or class ranking. HR didn't ask for a transcript. This was the late 90s so maybe it is different now.

you answered your own question. experience from 20 years ago is irrelevant.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

when did you go through recruiting at HYPS?

even at H, the banks and consulting firms ask for gpa during resume drops. there are def cut offs for initial screenings

NP, I also landed a wall street job/investment banking after graduation and did not disclose my GPA or class ranking. HR didn't ask for a transcript. This was the late 90s so maybe it is different now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:any company worth working for will ask for you gpa/transcript.

also, low gpa -> no reputable grad school of any sort

Exactly.

My brother got into HBS with a 3.0 from Berkeley. Don’t know whether than confirms or rebuts your claim, LOL!

Yep some people will hire a 3.0 from an elite school vs 4.0 from a large state school. Read through this board.

Hiring is one thing, but graduate school admissions in another completely different thing.