Bottom of the class

[Plainsman]

<p>I don’t know what to make of some of you folks, especially Marian. You seem fixated on rankings and grades as if they tell everything you need to know that’s worthwhile about a person. </p>

<p>LIke others have stated, I don’t know my college class rank, but I still went to both law school and B-school. In fact, I don’t know my class rank from law school and B-school. I literally have no idea. I’m 55 and have never been asked my class rank from any school. And I haven’t been asked my GPA since I interviewed for my first job after undergrad. That was more than 30 years ago. Once you’ve worked a few years, people are more interested in your EXPERIENCE and proven track record in your line of work, not your “stats” from school days. Any working professional who is still bragging about his/her school test scores, GPAs and class ranks probably has a mediocre track record in the real world.</p>

[ellemenope]

<p>I don’t see Marian, among other CCers, as being fixated on rankings and grades. She is just telling it like it is when it comes to applying for some internships and first jobs and to many graduate schools.</p>

<p>I agree that with time, work experience and skills trump, but even then sometimes the lack of a degree is a killer. I know someone who was just laid off from his HR job. He’s been interviewing and hasn’t had any luck yet. He thinks that his lack of a 4 year degree is a factor. When an employer gets a thousand resumes for a job, he has to make a first cut…and whether or not you have a degree is an easy first cut.</p>

<p>For some internships, first jobs and grad schools, a 3.0 is a floor.</p>

[Plainsman]

<p>^ </p>

<p>I suppose, but nobody gets below a 3.0, do they? Geez. I had a 1.9 GPA in HS, bottom fifth of my HS class, embarrassingly poor SAT scores. I went to the only college that would accept me (I won’t name it to avoid unfairly stigmatizing the school), earned straight A’s (yes, the competition level had something to do with it), but used that as leverage to transfer to a respected private university in New York, a school I never could’ve gotten into straight from HS. From there, I went on to graduate magna cum laude. I had no trouble competing against the same kids who were Top 10% in HS with awe-inspiring SAT scores. My embarrassing HS performance did not doom me to finish at the bottom 50% of my college class, a class filled with people who did significantly better in HS. That is what I object to–believing a student’s modest or below HS stats predict where he/she would finish vis a vis the glitterati at some elite college or university. I’m a living example of the flaws in that kind of thinking.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>^Plainsman, that’s a great story. It’s nice to be reminded that late bloomers don 't have to be doomed by their high school performances.</p>

[Plainsman]

<p>^</p>

<p>mathmom: Another real example. I went to law school with a black fellow who grew up in Newark, NJ’s inner city. What used to be called the ghetto. He was an affirmative action admittee to Brown University, which way back when was looking for promising minority students from the ghetto who attended dreadfully substandard, crime-infested inner city public schools. He admitted all of this to me. Despite SAT scores barely over 500, lousy teachers, inferior texts, and a “no-win” classroom/learning environment, someone thought he demonstrated potential (his 500s were the top scores from his HS). So off he went along with a handful of others from similar inferior circumstances to Brown University. </p>

<p>He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown. He laughed as he recounted how it seemed every week the well-meaning liberal staff at Brown would offer special tutors to him and the others in his group, under the assumption that without “special attention” they would fail miserably up against the scions of the wealthy, white and privileged. Some did, but my friend always refused the help. After all these years, I can still remember how he chuckled as he told me “It wasn’t that hard, really.” </p>

<p>To me the only measure of whether someone belongs at a certain college/university is if they can do the work. Not where they finish in class rank, but whether they can do the work. If they can, they belong; if they can’t, they don’t. It’s that simple. It’s admirable that so many CC kids are practically geniuses because of the 800s on their SATs, or the 35 APs they took, and their 4.0 GPAs, and it’s admirable that others simply worked extremely hard to get top results out of high school. However, not everyone is so fortunate, but that doesn’t doom them. All the pre-judgments about “stats” going into college frankly count for beans, and mean even less after you begin a career.</p>

[thirdfloor]

<p>^ Very well said. Stats are such an unreliable indicator of how capable someone is to excel.</p>

[mini]

<p>By test scores, my younger d. should be in the bottom 15% of her class at college. She is currently in the top 10%. Frankly, we aren’t particularly surprised (and, honestly, I don’t think the school, having interviewed and then selected her, is particularly surprised either.)</p>

[madbean]

<p>If you complete college and earn your degree, you are to be complimented. As we can see from college listings, a certain percentage do not finish at all–they are the bottom 3%-45% of their class. </p>

<p>Some students are late bloomers, doing much better in college than predictors might indicate. Some are so burnt out from hard-slogging through high school, or are finally breaking free of family pushing, or are unable to handle managing their own work after years of “help” from well-meaning family, their college grades are less than expected. My point–it is hard to predict which path a certain student might take. I would never predict–ahead of any evidence of college performance–that one kid will be in the top or bottom of their class. </p>

<p>Sometimes it takes a little faith and confidence.</p>

[calmom]

<p>

A student who is admitted to college with statistics in the bottom 25% may not turn out to be in the bottom 25% of the college class because many students with better qualifications won’t do their best, for one reason or another, and therefore won’t have grades as high as one might expect on the basis of their statistics.

</p>

<p>Actually, I doubt very seriously that there are many entrants whose overall “statistics” are in the bottom 25%. Mathematically, by any measure you choose, there is always going to be a bottom 25% – but my guess is that for the most part, the kids with the lower SATs probably have very high high school GPA’s or class rank. A college might overlook weak test scores for a student who has excelled academically; and a college might overlook an uneven GPA for a student who has extremely strong test scores – but they aren’t likely to admit the student with both weak test scores and a weak GPA.</p>

<p>So in one sense it’s not a surprise at all that some these high GPA/low test score kids often end up doing well in college. A kid who performs better than test scores would indicate is likely to continue that pattern. </p>

<p>I doubt very seriously that the top schools admit many students who are incapable of doing the work if they put in effort. They may very rarely make an error in judgment, but the kids with the lower test scores are getting accepted because the ad com sees something else in their records that indicates they are an appropriate candidate for admission.</p>

[calmom]

<p>

These are the stories that make me wonder: Is a student really better off to attend a high-ranked college and end up with a GPA well below 3.5? below 3.0

</p>

<p>Lgreen – I think you are making a mistaken assumption – that the high-ranked colleges are HARDER academically than the mid-ranked colleges. The fact is that many of the elite private schools offer a lot more in the way of support to their students than public U’s. </p>

<p>I mean, for the pre-med crowd, organic chem is a tough course. At an elite school, the class size may be small, the student may have an opportunity to work directly with their prof during labs or find it easy to arrange to meet with the prof to answer questions. If the class has TA’s, they are likely to be very capable and knowledgeable-- after all, they are themselves grad students at an elite college. </p>

<p>If the choice is a mid-ranked college, the student may find the competition just as tough – after all, the material that must be covered is the same – and also find that the class is taught in a huge lecture hall, with hundreds of students. TA’s may be far less helpful – my own experience was that my Chem TA did not speak English, which really limited the usefulness of dialog with him. And of course grading was done on a strict curve based strictly on exams. </p>

<p>I think that the academic expectations at my d’s elite school are very high, but I don’t think its all that hard to pull a strong GPA if the effort is put in. My d. had math & science classes that she seemed to struggle with, but ended up with A’s. </p>

<p>So I think the breakdown is something more like this:</p>

<p>High-ranked college: hard to get in, high academic expectations, high degree of support for students </p>

<p>Mid-ranked college: easier to get in, moderately high academic expectations, little support for student, possible large & highly competitive classes in certain field.</p>

<p>Low-ranked college: easiest to get in, lower academic expectations, easy to excel - but poor college reputation negatively impacts chances for grad school; student has poor preparation for GRE or MCAT</p>

[siserune]

<p>

@calmom

My daughter is a junior at Barnard. Her test scores put her below the 25th percentile for her school. Since she attends Barnard, she also takes classes at Columbia (usually 1-2 classes per semester) - where she probably is way below that 25th percent mark. She has earned A’s in all the classes she has taken at Columbia, including one class with an A+. She will probably graduate summa cum laude (However, an A- will bring her GPA down, so its possible that she is only looking at magna cum laude)</p>

<p>The real question is what this young man’s study habits are.

</p>

<p>HYPSM are quite a bit more demanding, competitive and IQ-saturated than Barnard, which makes for a less elastic stratification of students. Someone who at entry is consistently pegged at the bottom 25 percent by a variety of measures will not find it easy to jump 70 or even 20 percentiles in class rank through diligence alone. There will be a bottom 20-30 percent (if that) of students at those colleges who underachieve for whatever reason, and one can surpass them through hard work. Beyond that, the competition gets a lot steeper, as many smart(er) people will actually be trying to maintain high grades.</p>

[lgreen]

<p>

I know a young man whose test scores place him below the 25th percentile of one of the nation’s top schools (think HYPSM) but who was admitted there, presumably on the basis of his other accomplishments. When we last spoke, he had not yet decided between that school and a public school where his stats would be far above the norm.

</p>

<p>Update: The young man chose the in-state public school. I don’t know whether academic rigor was a factor in his decision, though. There were other issues, such as finances and distance from home.</p>

[Shrinkrap]

<p>Duke tells you what number out of how many you are, right below your grades . Don’t know if students notice this, but I did.</p>

[thumper1]

<p>DD will get her diploma regardless of where she stands %age wise in her class.</p>

[lololu]

<p>Ha! My younger son’s ambition for college is “to be the stupidest student at the best school I can get into” because he hates having to deal with kids who just don’t get it. He would rather work really hard to keep up then to wait around for others in the class to catch on. The same way socially, he would rather feel pushed then dragged down.</p>

[toblin]

<p>It’s been observed:</p>

<p>“The **A **students will end up working for the **C **students.” </p>

<p>(I forget the part about what becomes of the B students.)</p>