The Grade Horizon: At what point does GPA become irrelevant for success?

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
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<p>Engineering majors at elite Public Ivies like Berkeley are renown for their tough grading curves and unyielding competition. As a result, a Cal student majoring in CS or Molecular Biology will have a lower GPA than someone who attended an easier university with smaller class sizes and lax grading, even if the two have the same academic ability.</p>

<p>But at what point will the Cal engineering major(like CS)'s GPA be irrelevant for job opportunities? I assume that after reaching a certain GPA at Cal, there will be very little variance (between those at that GPA, and those with higher ones) in academic ability and job opportunities .</p>

<p>My hypothetical assumption can be seen as a logistic function between GPA and success/academic ability: [link deleted by moderator]</p>

<p>The Grade Horizon can be observed in my depiction as GPA gradually increases.</p>

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<p>I agree with you about job opportunities, the curve for that would probably look something like you have proposed. An extra bit of GPA at the top end doesn’t mean that much for future success. </p>

<p>But as far as academic ability goes, I can’t agree. It actually makes me very sad that people think like this. I’ve had a decent number of engineering exams at Berkeley with averages around 35-45, and on which a score of 60 would be equivalent to an A, or 4.0. But a few of my friends and I have actually gotten 90+ on a lot of those exams. I don’t know about you, but I think there is a BIG gap in understanding between getting a 60 and getting a 90 on an exam. The way you have drawn your curve makes it look like people who get A-'s understand things almost exactly the same as people who get A’s and A+'s. How can that be true if the gap between an A+ and A (sometimes 30+ points out of 100) can be bigger than the gap between an A and a B- (assuming B- ~ average)…?</p>

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<p>I had 3 cousins that graduated out of Berkeley in 2 EECS CS majors and 1 MCB major and they all had GPAs above 3.7.</p>

<p>If you don’t:
-BS your homework,
-BS your GSI, teacher, or anyone who tries to help you,
-play world of warcrap,
-play MMORPG games in general,
-even play games in general,
-cheat on tests and get caught,
-cheat in general and get caught,
-procrastinate,
-be in a relationship for the secks
-try to buy a mudkipz at gamestop,
-or do stupid things like get high during a final
-and you didn’t get into Berkeley because of some stupid trait, then you should be fine :)</p>

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<p>^You just discounted the majority of the population. :|</p>

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<p>^ and that’s why a majority of the population aren’t honor students</p>

<p>unless, of course, they are prodigies :/</p>

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<p>This is not necessarily true, in that more selective schools tend to have higher grade inflation. See [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com)</p>

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<p>But for students at the 3.5ish level, an extra bit of GPA may make the difference for admission to a top law school, or any MD medical school in the US, versus being shut out of careers in law or medicine.</p>