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With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

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Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#241

Post by cperciva »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #240
cperciva wrote: post #177

Not all universities! Simon Fraser University uses a 4.33 point scale (A = 4.00, A+ = 4.33) and its average GPA in 2017 (2.83) is only slightly above the average GPA in 1992 (2.80). Over that 25 year period, the university-wide average grade awarded has varied between a low of 2.77 and a high of 2.85. Students complain. They complain a lot. We know that we're losing pre-med students to UBC -- which awards much higher…

Yikes, that is really depressing that admissions committees aren't able to distinguish between what is effectively the "DOGEcoin is more valuable than x because everyone gets billions of coins!" Ultimately I think everyone should be judged on merit, like an audition, or based on a portfolio. But many businesses with deep pockets still award these types of positions based on nepotism and personal connections

I think part of the problem that SFU undergraduate students have with graduate admissions is that most of the students in question will be applying to medical or law programs at UBC. It's one thing for admissions committees to recognize that some universities have inflated grades; it's quite another for them to recognize that an "A" from their own institution is worth less than an "A" from another.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#242

Post by anoncoward111 »

diiaann wrote: post #173

“A 4.0 does signal something significant, that that student is good,” said Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who has studied grade inflation for years. “ A 3.7, however, doesn’t. That’s just a run-of-the-mill student at any of these schools.” I disagree with this statement, at Carnegie Melllon I noticed that a lot of 4.0's were engineered. Students avoid taking hard classes, avoid difficult requir…

I can attest to this. I deliberately chose the easiest classes and even studied abroad twice because I knew specific professors leading the program abroad were giving out free As.

Fortunately for me, I got my degree without too much torture that many others go through. Unfortunately for me, nobody looks at my nice 3.7 GPA!!!

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#243

Post by anoncoward111 »

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #82

Poisonously, kids have become commoditized and all that distinguishes them are 'Schools and Grades'. 'Schools and Grades' are really the product here. Kids are the sellers. Companies are the buyers. Until companies stop valuing kids solely by their 'School and Grade', this cycle will continue. To make this an interesting conversation, how DO companies hire great people without relying on their 'School and Grades'? Ar…

In essence what is happening here is that rich parents/kids (or just very heavily indebted ones) are buying their degrees now, which have basically become shitcoins.

X% of employers are still believing the high worth of these shitcoin degrees, and for some reason, the bubble has yet to explode.

It's like, there's no difference in skill between buying bitcoin early vs a valueless coin. But, there is a massive difference in perceived wealth.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#244

Post by bernardino »

WalterBright wrote: post #224
drawnwren wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. To go along with this, the other misstep I see frequently is the inability to differentiate between statistical distributions and the individual. Your friend dropped out of college to become a carpenter and is now worth $100m? That's incredible. I'd take fairly bad odds that the P(Salary>$!00k|Dropped out of college to become a carpenter) is lower than P(Salary>$100k|Graduated with 4.0 gpa). It would be harder t…

> the cost of a high gpa is fairly low That's right. I started out nearly flunking out in college, and eventually graduated with honors. The difference was not busting my ass studying, but more effective time management. I had as much free time as before.

I learned that being able to sit down on your desk and focus on a topic or problem set and learn through trial and error with no distractions for hours is what will determine if you get good grades or not, and it's becoming extremely hard to do so. Most of my friends resort to drugs to focus but for me, that does not prefer drugs because it makes me feel artificial, it's been tough - it's like strengthening muscles in your brain in order to focus for long periods of time and those muscles for me are weak.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#245

Post by qubax »

latencyloser wrote: post #54
hitekker wrote: post #39

For college students, I absolutely recommend transferring up if your GPA is above 3.8 and you're attending a lower-tier school. Your alma mater will resonate throughout your career. Your GPA will disappear after your first or second job. Better to get a C at MIT than an A at RPI.

As someone who went to a "lower-tier" school. I hate how true this feels sometimes. My colleagues who went to big name schools all seem to be in some sort of "club" together. At least, they have shared experiences that I have no such ability to relate to. They've been "elite" tech people since before they were in the job force. That being said, the only time I feel this is in social settings and it's usually minor. P…

> But it's never really impacted my professional life to my knowledge.

Depends on the level of attainment you are hoping to achieve. If you want to become a major player in your company or industry, it most definitely has affected your professional career. Social settings are everything when it comes to business and tech when the higher up the ladder you go. If your aspirations are just a 9-5 programmer or at most a tech lead for your team, then your alma mater and your relationships and common bonding experience doesn't matter much. But if you have higher aspirations, then your connections, relationships and how you play within social settings matter.

One of the easiest ways to bond is with share experiences. And shared college experience is one of the easiest avenues to shared experience.

> Kids, go to school where you can afford. Bust your ass, make connections, move on and move up.

Unless it's an ivy league, stanford, MIT, etc. Then do whatever you can to attend because these names and the connections you make in top tier colleges will serve you forever. You get an opportunity to hang around with the children of the leaders of major world nations. The children of top business, tech, political, etc elites.

> School doesn't matter once you're out of it.

GPA doesn't matter. Your school does matter if ( a big if ) it is top tier. And it matters even more internationally. Go anywhere in the world and tell people you are from harvard or yale or stanford. Trust me on this. There are doors only open to these people.

The only time you should mortgage your future on college is for one of the top elite colleges. Anything else, just go to the one that makes the most business sense to you.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#246

Post by joeax »

sheepmullet wrote: post #218
joeax wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the engineering/academic world, grades do matter and are highly predictive of ability. Can you cite some research studies that conclusively show this to be the case? I'd like to counter by saying that companies like Google have largely ignored GPA as a measure of aptitude. From the article (link below): "Google doesn't even ask for GPA or test scores from candidates anymore, unless someone's a year or two out of…

> I'd like to counter by saying that companies like Google have largely ignored GPA as a measure of aptitude. I think you have misinterpreted the situation. What it's actually showing is once you have restricted the pool of applicants to the top 10% of the field GPA does not matter within the restricted subset. I can't think of anyone I know that could do well in the Google interview process but could not get good gr…

The article states that they don't even ask at all, so you cannot assume that the "restricted subset" has all high GPA candidates. Within that subset could be high school dropouts who are math and/or CS geniuses, for all we know.

> I can't think of anyone I know that could do well in the Google interview process but could not get good grades.

There's a lot of reasons people don't get good grades that has little correlation to their ability. People get bogged down by life, develop entrepreneurial interests outside of school, or have little interest in academics. I've met people who are brilliant software engineers and couldn't or wouldn't complete a semester of school.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#247

Post by joeax »

xyzzyz wrote: post #206
dragonwriter wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, if you assume that IQ tests are useful in hiring, this actually makes GPA more useful, since US employers can freely use GPA in hiring, while use of IQ is significantly more complicated. Except that's not at all true of the underlying legal standard, and if GPA is essentially an IQ test, it is illegal in the exact same conditions as IQ tests, and any temporary advantage attend from the fact that plaintiff'…

That’s the theory; in practice hardly anyone does IQ tests, while employers asking for GPA is an extremely common occurrence. What matters for them is not what is legal, but how likely something is going to cause you legal problems.

I was once asked to take an IQ test for a software developer job. I believe it was more of a formality, and they wouldn't tell us our score. I'm not sure it was legal or not, and I was glad to do it.

That being said, in my 20-year career I've never been asked for my GPA. Not once.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#248

Post by dragonwriter »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #215
dragonwriter wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And IQ tests are legal to give during hiring, in just about any form, if that result correlates to useful for that job No, “correlates to useful” is not the standard; there also needs to not be a less discriminatory alternative available. > You have to first show there is no correlation between GPA or IQ and job performance to claim it's not legal. No, you don't: business necessity is an affirmative defense to disp…

Cite a case. Griggs v. Duke Power is what most people claim makes IQ tests not legal, but that's not what the case was about. It was about discrimination against blacks, which is a legal protected class. Intelligence is not a legal protected class, so this ruling does not impact such tests for general intelligence. >there also needs to not be a less discriminatory alternative available This was to prevent discriminat…

> Cite a case

I would do better, and point you to the EEOC page covering the applicable regulatory and statute law, which also includes citation to some relevant cases, and entirely supports my description of the disparate impact standards, but since you cited the exact source I would cite, I'll instead just note that our disagreement isn't about authority, it is about application.

> Griggs v. Duke Power is what most people claim makes IQ tests not legal, but that's not what the case was about.

Correct, it is instead the case that laid out the standards I articulated for disparate impact.

> Intelligence is not a protected class.

IQ is differently distributed with regard to a number of protected classes (race is most often noted, but gender also, and if using the same test rather than an age-normed test, also age; probably ethnicity, religion, and national origin, too, but statistics on that are harder to find), so virtually any use of IQ tests (or any criteria that very closely correlates with IQ) is almost certainly going to meet the adverse impact prong of disparate impact analysis, requiring the employer to prove business necessity. (This was exactly the issue in Duke Power, which founnd IQ testing unlawful in the particular circumstances because of the absence of proof of business necessity.)

> Here's the EEOC list of allowed testing.

You need to read more carefully, that's not a list of allowed testing, no such thing exists. That page contains a list of examples of forms of testing, none of which are categorically allowed or prohibited. It also lays out the standards for evaluating disparate impact which I outlined

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#249

Post by elcritch »

jfk13 wrote: post #85
elcritch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In fact, I'm adverse to hiring or selecting students with a 4.0. This typically indicates a poor optimization heuristic (GPA over learning/challenges/interests). That’s a great way to phrase it.

s/adverse/averse/ would make it even greater.

True, that is a bit better phrasing. I mentally inserted that interpretation when I read it. Personally I wouldn't hold it against someone if they carried a 4.0, however, I would inquire more as to whether they pursued their studies out of interest, what trade-offs they may have made, and so on as to understand their work mentality.

Re: With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster

#250

Post by bitwize »

FlyingSideKick wrote: post #71

My grandfather was CEO of an NYSE listed company and he preferred to hire people out of college whom had lower GPAs around 3.0 then perfect students because he thought these folks made for better team members and well rounded employees. Simply put he wanted to hire people who perused side passions and had a social life. Personally after having been in entrepreneurial circles for years it seems the most financially su…

No.

When in HS and college you have only one primary focus in life and that is to get good grades. Good grades show the world that you know how to study, how to work well with others, and how to put off the pleasures of today and work toward future goals. They may matter less when you're 40, but when you're 22 they count for everything and determine the opportunities tou have from the outset. And the experience you got knuckling down hard in school translates into valuable work skills right out of the starting gate.

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