How much of an effect do high college GPA requirements (e.g. 3.5 or higher) to enter a desired major or renew a needed-for-affordability scholarship have on a student’s academic choices?
For example, an academically adventurous student may do the following:
Take the most advanced placement possible with AP credit after reviewing the old final exams of courses that can be skipped.
Choose honors courses or other more in depth versions of courses, even though they may be more difficult to get A grades in.
Choose interesting breadth and free electives that may be more difficult to get A grades in.
Take higher course loads in order to fit in more courses of interest into the schedule.
But if the student needs a high college GPA to enter a desired major or renew a needed-for-affordability scholarship, would s/he be more prone to make the following stereotypical grade-grubbing choices?
Repeat AP credit to try to get easy A grades.
Choose the least rigorous options to try to get easy A grades.
Choose breadth and free electives based on the ease of getting A grades.
Take normal or light course loads to make it easier to get A grades.
This is a real concern for good but not stellar students who want to enter programs like physical therapy or graphic design. If after two years they fail to be admitted to the desired major, then they are often stuck with a lesser degree of questionable value, like health sciences or general design, or else they may need an extra semester or two of college for a more drastic major change. This happened to a student we know. She was not admitted for graphic design after sophomore year, so majored in general design and is now unmarketable and working as a waitress. Granted, there were some steps she could have taken to improve her situation…
This is similar to students who are accepted into a reach school ( not a " reach for all/most type of school). Some kids get in despite being below the 25th % and guidance telling them that their chances are very low, and then they find the work too difficult for their intended major. These kids sometimes get accepted directly into their major at a " lower" school but turn it down. They are faced with the decision to either transfer or accept a major that they did not really want. I see this happen all the time.
If you are taking “easy” elective courses at first, you are then going to have to take all of your major courses the last two years and it will be tough to do well…and you need to do well to increase your chance of getting a good GPA to get a good job.
I think usually the academically adventurous kids were ones that took a ton of APs in HS and did well. If you took a normal amount of AP’s, then it would be better not to take the honors version of all the courses nor to overload on credits.
"But if the student needs a high college GPA to enter a desired major or renew a needed-for-affordability scholarship, would s/he be more prone to make the following stereotypical grade-grubbing choices?
Repeat AP credit to try to get easy A grades.
Choose the least rigorous options to try to get easy A grades.
Choose breadth and free electives based on the ease of getting A grades.
Take normal or light course loads to make it easier to get A grades. "
It all depends on student attitude? Is student there at college to continue "playing the GPA game" or they are up to learning new things, meet challenges, grow up and meet their ultimate goals?
I can only refer to the pre-med experiences of those who are in Honors colleges and on the full Merit scholarship. These students are under triple pressure to maintain at least 3.6+ minimum college GPA, while working, participating in medical ECs, preparing for the MCAT in junior year and going to medical interviews in senior year. And they still want to have a normal life for 4 years at college, some are up to having unrelated minors, participating in Greek, going abroad,.....etc. These students do not have a choice of skipping medical school pre-reqs either, and these are challenging classes where they need to maintain even higher GPA than their average GPA, the pre-reqs GPA is reported separately on application to medical school. No, they will not get engaged in "playing the GPA game" - as practices described above. In addition, they are simply not the type who would do it. They are the ones who are killing the GPA's for others in their departments who are not pre-meds. Those who are up to "playing the GPA game", fall out of pre-med track very quickly.
As I said, I am not familiar with other career choices. Those who survived in pre-med (about 15% of initial number of pre-meds), would not be the ones who are "playing the GPA game".