<p>I’m going to attend a mediocre school (ranked top 50 by business insider, but still … extremely easy to get in. It’s SF state to be specific). I don’t understand how a school that is so easy to get into could be top 50…but anyways:</p>
<p>What is an employable engineering GPA? Is something like 2.0-2.5 from a mediocre school employable? How about this kind of GPA from a middle tier UC (like UCD or UCSD, which are ranked top 30 engineering school by business insider)</p>
<p>Please tell me what you THINK are the minimum engineering and overall GPAs that are employable. I know this is a pretty dumb question, so that’s why I’m just asking for opinions… like opinions based on your experiences, research, friends, etc.</p>
<p>3.8-4.0 Bragging rights
3.6-3.8 Recruitable
3.2-3.6 Employable
2.8-3.2 Better have experience and an excuse
2.5-2.8 Need experience and luck
Below 2.5 Dad better own the company or maybe you are in the wrong field</p>
<p>Just my opinion. UCD will have a little more leeway than SF State.</p>
Oh thanks! So where would that “dad better own the company or maybe you are in the wrong field” cut-off point be, in your opinion, for a GPA from UCD (that part where you said below 2.5 for SF state).</p>
<p>Also, the chart you provided is for just engineering gpa and not overall gpa, right?</p>
<p>What is the best food?
Where is the best place to stay?
How long will it take me to get from here to there?
What is an employable engineering GPA?</p>
<p>The answer to all of these questions is: it just depends! If you’re looking for a general rule of thumb, anything above a 3.0 is considered employable for most jobs. I’ve seen some companies require a 3.5 GPA, and some companies that have no GPA requirement at all.</p>
<p>I always get excited when I see people striving for greatness… </p>
<p>And to answer your question from post #3. A 2.5 is referring to your overall gpa. Basically anything with a 2 in front of it, even if it is a 2.99999999999, is going to require some convincing. All the recruiter is going to see is 2 and forget the .999999999. Strive for better, it is possible.</p>
<p>It not something that has an exact answer. Some companies have GPA cut-offs, some don’t. You might be the right person with a low GPA and they’ll take you over the wrong person with the high GPA. It’s not as much of a science as you may be thinking. </p>
<p>Now, as a general rule, I would say a 3.5 is a good GPA that few employers would require an explanation for. 3.0 is decent and will meet the cut offs for many companies. Below 3.0 and you’re missing the cut-off for almost any place that has one so you will will be looking at a smaller subset of companies. Below a 2.5 just seems really bad, so while you’re already looking at employers who don’t mandate a particular GPA, you’re not looking good. These are just general guidelines based on my opinions, as I said, it’s not a science. </p>
<p>How difficult it is to get a job will depend on the particular field. While many companies won’t care about GPA, they have to have something to evaluate you on. GPA is often considered because GPA is an easy thing to consider. Finding the right person to hire is an expensive proposition and it can be worth it for companies to miss a good employee if it means they don’t have to spend anything to consider 10 wrong employees, which is why these GPA cut-offs exist. Once you get in front of someone in an interview though, your GPA doesn’t matter much, so if you find you end up with a sub-3.0 GPA do what you can to just get the interview.</p>
<p>When HR people hire someone or even offer to fly someone out for an interview, they need to be able to defend the decision to their HR Manager and higher ups. College and GPA are the most visible measures for which engineers will be judged. I often advise low-GPA grads to look at small companies where the owner will be in on the hiring decision. That way there is nobody with a job on the line if it is a poor fit.</p>
<p>When a company makes a hard GPA cutoff, they can inadvertantly shoot themself in the foot and disqualify some great prospects. A 3.1 from MIT or CalTech is worth roughly a 4.6 at ODU (sorry VA people) but would be technically ineligible for many positions. </p>
<p>With UC Davis (or B, or LA) there will be an assumption that the person is smart but goofed off a bit in college. That assumption will not exist at lower ranked colleges.</p>
<p>These are, of course, rough guidelines and not really rules. A really smart friend graduated with a 2.2, had multiple offers, and retired in six years. He was a ninja with computers, not so much with getting to class on time.</p>
<p>It is possible to graduate with an engineering degree, with a 2.0 GPA at most colleges. Some employers do not look at or request college GPA. Instead they focus on your experience, skills, and how you perform during interviews, which often involve testing knowledge of desired skills. After your first job, it’s uncommon for anyone to care about your college GPA. It is certainly possible to be employed as an engineer with a 2.0, although the GPA may limit options for your first job after graduating. I used to work with a highly skilled engineer who dropped out of college and did not have a degree. He was able to find work at many companies during his career, even though he didn’t have a GPA.</p>
<p>To the extent that employability is a function of GPA (and it is a function of much, much more than just that):</p>
<p>3.50+: Can work anywhere, and will be actively pursued for the best jobs out there
3.20-3.49: Can work anywhere, but will need to work to get the best jobs
3.00-3.19: Can work anywhere, but will generally be shut out of the best jobs
2.80-2.99: Will struggle to find work at large companies, can generally find work at smaller employers
2.50-2.79: Will struggle to find professional work, and such work will generally be low-paying and/or unpleasant, with limited prospects for advancement
2.00-2.49: Probably will not find professional employment in engineering</p>
<p>This is for cumulative GPA, you can often use your major GPA but it will require more effort in some cases. The 3.00 line is usually cumulative and is sometimes unmovable as an HR requirement.</p>
<p>I would use that scale for most schools in the ~10-50th spots on the USNWR engineering ranking. “Better” schools will allow you to fudge the numbers down a bit, “worse” schools will mean you have to fudge them UP a bit. How much? Hard to say, since these are only estimates anyway.</p>
<p>Why on earth would anyone use Business Insider’s rankings? Did you read how they derived them?
From a survey of 1,000 of *their *readers! Why not just stand on a street corner and ask people passing by for their opinions of colleges?</p>
<p>For right out of school, the lower the GPA (under 3.0), the more experience you will need. Yours truly was in that 2.5-3.0 range BUT I had a database job working for my school’s College of Medicine that helped me overcome the low GPA.</p>
<p>Let’s also add that I was in software engineering which has more needs and openings than say aerospace, chemical or mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>Now once you get your “foot in the door”, it’s all about experience and skills acquired.</p>
<p>Oh. In that case, if it is for overall GPA, it’s really not that hard then. you could get almost all C’s and a few B’s in your core classes and get almost all A’s and B’s in the easy fluffy classes, and overall GPA would be a 3.0. I thought we were just talking about engineering GPA, which would be so hard to get over 3.0 in.</p>
I think many in this thread are overemphasizing the importance of GPA. During my 4th year at Stanford, I handed out my resume to many companies at on campus engineering career fairs. My resume did not list GPA (my GPA was high, I just didn’t list it). Nevertheless, I received offers to interview at most companies I gave my resume to. The ones outside of driving distance paid for travel for these interviews, which sometimes included plane tickets, rental car, and hotel; so they were willing to invest a good amount of time and money without knowing GPA. I went on quite a few of these interviews. </p>
<p>Yes, there were companies I interviewed with that were quite concerned about GPA. One went so far as to request my full college transcript, and asked about a grade in a specific course during the interviews. However, most did not discuss GPA beyond a box on an application form, and many did even have a box to list GPA on the application form. The ones that did not have a box to list GPA had no way of knowing what my GPA was since it wasn’t on my resume, so some made job offers without discussing or knowing GPA. The interviews often took many hours. In some cases, they took a full work day. In general, the resume was the first round to get your foot in the door, then the actual hiring focused on the interviews. It was quite different from college admission criteria, which often places a strong emphases on GPA and test scores and little importance on interviews. Instead the interviews were the main event. They focused on my current skills, with discussion of past experiences. A few interviewers just made a brief introduction, then gave me a problem to work on or series of problems. For example, one interviewer asked my to write both a C++ and Verilog implementation of logic for a traffic light, then asked me to talk about my process and thoughts at various points while writing the code. </p>
<p>Once you get that experience of working in a first full time engineering job, college GPA becomes even less important. Instead people are concerned with your skills, experience, and how you have functioned in a work environment. You could still list it on your resume if you want, but a lower GPA wouldn’t prevent you from getting many jobs. Note that most jobs I looked at were related to EE/CE. Different fields may have different policies.</p>
In this instance, I mean the jobs that are the most lucrative and offer the most advancement opportunities, the jobs for which there is generally a high demand. Precise examples will vary by industry and discipline. In my own field, positions in design engineering, particularly those focused on the principle components, tend to be the “best jobs” and tend to be populated by people with high GPA’s and graduate degrees… and not incidentally get paid more and promoted more frequently. By comparison, we have system support engineers who rarely have either notable GPA’s or grad degrees, but for whom raises are small and promotions infrequent.</p>
<p>Data10, how long has it been since you graduated from college? Just wondering, because if you graduated over a decade ago, obviously the job market has become much more competitive due to the increased supply of engineering grads and outsourcing.</p>
So where would that “dad better own the company or maybe you are in the wrong field” cut-off point be, in your opinion, for a GPA from UCD (that part where you said below 2.5 for SF state).</p>