Yale student wants to know parents’ thoughts on college grades

Parents Forum
21

<p>at least in my experience, as has been said before, it matters to a certain extent for your first job or two out college after that your work experience is what really matters.</p>

<p>Regarding your questions about the prestigious college name making up for a weak GPA, this again holds true to a certain extent. I remember when we would screen college resumes for analyst positions (at a bulge bracket investment bank) many times we would have a lower GPA cut off for top schools or schools known to be competitive (or for engineering programs)…for example if you went to Wharton our bare minimum cutoff was generally around a 3.0 (assuming you had a bunch of good internships) while for many schools considered less competitive (even if in all reality they weren’t) like UMichigan, NYU, UVA, etc. our bare minimum cutoff was normally a 3.5. That said if you are pulling a less than a 3.0 at a top school it will still be very hard to be competitive and your grades will definitely have an impact. </p>

<p>Now though after being out of school for almost 4 years and having moved jobs and gone through 10-12 interviews with different companies, etc. I have only been asked for my GPA once since I don’t even list it on my resume anymore.</p>

22

<p>Andrew Abbott the UChicago occupational sociologists reported in a address he gave that for those attending elite schools after 5 years the difference in earnings between those with a 2.8 and a 3.8 was negligible.</p>

23

<p>^^ The irony of what whartongrad08 is saying (post #21) is that grade inflation has actually been worse at Ivies and other elite private institutions than at publics. The expectation at many elite privates is that the top half of any class will get As and the bottom half will get Bs. No one gets Cs. And so you end up with median GPAs around 3.5, or even higher at some schools. In many public institutions As are far fewer, a B reflects the broad middle of the class, and Cs are dispensed much more liberally. </p>

<p>Students, parents, and faculty at elite privates often justify this by saying the students at the elite privates are just so much stronger that a different grading scale is justified, but that’s not always the case. For example, entering class stats at Michigan’s Ross School of Business (undergrad) are almost indistinguishable from those for Wharton (undergrad). I don’t know if grading is tougher at Ross than at Wharton, but even if it’s the same, the 0.5 bonus whartongrad08’s firm gave to Wharton grads seems like nothing more than rank bias. But I suppose that’s one of the privileges of an Ivy education.</p>

<p>That’s more likely to happen in “old boy” networks in the Northeast, however. It doesn’t happen so much in other parts of the country, and it doesn’t happen in professional school admissions. I once met a dean of a top 20 law school who told me he couldn’t get his own daughter admitted to his law school because her undergrad GPA from an Ivy was 3.7, and his law school’s GPA cut-off was 3.8. Recommendations from professors and the Ivy nameplate won’t help you in law school or medical school admissions. It’s a strictly by-the-numbers operation at most schools. You have the benefit of Ivy League grade inflation, but after that, your GPA speaks for itself.</p>

24

<p>Here’s my take, from a post I made earlier in response to my son’s question. He said, “I know that I needed to get good grades in high school. But now that I’m in college, why should I care about grades?” (Not an “I don’t care about grades” question, but rather a “tell me how I should think about them” request).</p>

<ul>
<li>If you are looking to go to graduate school for a PhD, grad departments will only care about your grades in the courses in your field and related ones (e.g., econ departments would care about your grades in econ, math, stats) but would not care much if at all about your grades in art or music or French. Most important there will be research that you have done and are doing and the recommendations of credible professors who can talk both about your intellectual strength and your likely capacity to be able to do research at a high level.</li>
<li>If you are applying to law school, they look primarily at your GPA and your LSATs, so you care. Similarly, with perhaps a little less direct correlation for med school.</li>
<li>I don’t actually know how business schools generally evaluate grades versus other parts of an application.</li>
<li>If you are looking for a job, just doing well will be fine in most fields.</li>
<li>If you want to go work for McKinsey or its ilk, high grades at a good school will probably be a minimum threshold to get an interview, but at that point grades don’t matter.</li>
<li>If you want a fellowship like Rhodes or Gates, they’ll probably look at the totality of your academic record. Grades per se are not what is important – different criteria for different fellowships – but professors, likely in different fields, probably need to say that you have walked on water regularly, or at least show great potential for being able to do so.</li>
</ul>

<p>I’m not sure about all of the above statements, but they are consistent with my own experience.</p>

25

<p>googled: yale college gpa median</p>

<p>[Yale</a> median GPA is 3.6, study finds - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2006/10/11/16142/]Yale”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2006/10/11/16142/)

[Poll</a> suggests grade inflation | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2006/oct/04/poll-suggests-grade-inflation]Poll”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2006/oct/04/poll-suggests-grade-inflation)</p>

<p>Some people were shocked and awed that W attended Y and H. The World believes that attendence to some schools is all that matters. Your gpa is never mentioned in polite society. Be careful if you are up for a technical position against a high gpa public college grad.
[George</a> W. Bush - Biography](<a href=“http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124133/bio]George”>George W. Bush - Biography - IMDb)</p>

26

<p>bclinctonk,</p>

<ol>
<li><p>There is NO law school in the US which has a “cut off” of 3.8 for admissions. In fact, only a couple of law schools have MEDIAN GPAs above 3.8. If you don’t believe me, look at this <a href=“http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bcgsearch.com/pdf/BCG_Law_School_Guide_2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt; See especially page 7. </p></li>
<li><p>The way law schools measure grade inflation, most of the Ivies are NOT grade inflated. The really big offenders are big state Us. They are LOTS of posts about this on the law school board. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>To the extent law schools measure grade inflation, they do it but comparing the median LSDAS calculated GPA with the median LSAT at a particular college. So, Harvard, which usually has the highest median LSAT at about 166 is “supposed to” have a higher median GPA than the big state school which has a median LSAT of 150. Law schools don’t think–as you apparently do–that the distribution of grades should be the same at all schools. The way law schools measure grade inflation, if applicants from Harvard have a median gpa of 3.5 (I’m making up a number) and a median LSAT of 166, it’s LESS, not more, grade inflated than big state U with a median LSAT of 150 and a median GPA of 3.2.</p>

27

<p>

</p>

<p>The “boost” (at least in finance, management consulting, etc.) is definitely more of a reflection of rank bias / “old boys” network as opposed to an adjustment for grade inflation. The justification that was always given was that a 3.0 student at HYP was much stronger than a 3.7 at UT Austin…which is likely not true. The higher ups just want to be able to pitch their clients that all of their people come from top 10 schools, etc. :P</p>

28

<p>^ jonri,</p>

<p>I should clarify. The Dean’s daughter was slightly below the school’s median LSAT score AND below their median GPA. Being below their median LSAT made the school’s median GPA a hard cutoff. As I understand it, this is a pretty common practice among top law schools: if you’re above the school’s median in both GPA and LSAT, you’re in (except possibly at the very top). If you’re above their median in LSAT, they may be more forgiving of a below-median GPA, and vice versa. But if you’re below their median in LSAT, then the median GPA for the school becomes pretty much a hard cutoff. Which in its own twisted way makes some sense: they’re in a highly competitive business in which their US News ranking means a lot, and the LSAT scores and GPAs of the students they enroll are among the biggest factors in the US News rankings that are under their control.</p>

<p>Now it may be that the “3.8” this particular Dean told me about was the result of rounding off. But in any event, the document you cited is using old data. Here’s the current (2011) US News data on median GPAs for the top 20 law schools (actually 21 schools with a 2-way tie for #20):</p>

<p>Law school/median entering class GPA:</p>

<p>Yale 3.91
Harvard 3.89
Stanford 3.88
Columbia 3.72
NYU 3.71
Michigan 3.73
Penn 3.85
Berkeley 3.79
UVA 3.85
Duke 3.80
Northwestern 3.80
Cornell 3.68
Georgetown 3.67
Texas 3.71
UCLA 3.77
Vanderbilt 3.72
USC 3.64
WUSTL 3.70
GW 3.79
Minnesota 3.71</p>

<p>Given these figures, someone with a 3.70 GPA would be above the median for only 3 of the top 21 law schools. If I’m right about how law schools treat LSAT and GPA, that would mean the applicant with a 3.70 would be competitive at only 3 of the top 21 law schools if she had an LSAT score below the median for that school.</p>

<p>And those are the current reported US News numbers. The conversation I reported here was a very recent conversation with a law school dean, based (I believe) on the current admissions cycle. It could well be that median GPAs–or perhaps more to the point, target GPAs–are even higher for some of these schools.</p>

<p>Bottom line, even if grade inflation has pushed the median GPA for Yale undergrads up to 3.6, the Yale nameplate won’t get the median Yale grad into a top 20 law school. A stellar LSAT score might do it, but a 3.6 from Yale will be a drag on the applicant’s prospects.</p>

<p>As for your recalculated GPAs based on the undergraduate institution’s LSAT scores, that seems a little bizarre. Why would a school take that into account? Unless they’re just using it to game the US News law school rankings, by reporting their “recalculated” GPA as their actual GPA. But that seems like rank cheating.</p>

29

<p>Oops, inadvertently omitted U of Chicago Law School, median undergrad GPA = 3.78.</p>

30

<p>The study linked by LongPrime was based on a survey of 400 members of the Yale class of 2006. 201 responded. The median GPA of the students who responded was about 3.6. Guess the GPA’s of those who didn’t respond.</p>

<p>I think shawbridge (#24) is right about all items where I have any personal knowledge.</p>

<p>When we interview faculty candidates, the interview committee never looks at any transcripts. They have to be provided, to verify that the degrees were earned, but they are shuttled directly to the academic personnel office when an offer is in the works. What counts, in terms of obtaining an assistant professorship, is the research accomplished as a graduate student and post-doc, the letters of recommendation, the research plans, and the ability to present results and plans.</p>

<p>The statement that no one gets C’s at Yale is not actually true. I know a physicist there who flunked second-semester seniors in a course–as in literally flunked them, grade = F.</p>

31

<p>I agree with jonri. Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley Law School) used to recalculate the applicant’s GPA with boosts to the GPA’s at some schools, no change at some, and reductions at others. I believe that they made the adjustments based on the records of students admitted to the law school from various schools. However, they may have had a formula based on the average LSAT scores of applicants from the schools.</p>

<p>They didn’t game the numbers reported to US News, but they did use them in an attempt to make the GPA numbers mean approximately the same thing, in terms of deciding which students should be admitted.</p>

<p>After this was discovered (the adjustments were linked on CC some years ago), Berkeley was pressured to drop the practice. I think the fact that they routinely reduced Cal State GPA’s worked against continuing it. But there is probably still some sort of “equalizer” in place.</p>

32

<p>

</p>

<p>True, and unfortunately, many prelaw types are statistically-challenged. :)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Admission yes, but they probably don’t give a whit about a college’s grade inflation.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Not the correct causation, IMO. Harvard has the highest mean LSAT because Harvard pre-selects for the best test-takers in the world. (It has nothing to do with Harvard’s grading policy.) In contrast, many big state schools routinely ignore/downplay test scores to fulfill their social mission. Cal Berkeley is routinely comprised of 30% Pell Grantees (Michigan = 16%), for example, and since all CB data indicate that test scores are a function of income…by design, Cal will have much lower LSAT scores than a top private college. </p>

<p>A better analysis, IMO, is to compare like schools (if we had the outcomes of LS admissions). Brown and Dartmouth have statistically interchangeable student bodies, for example, yet Dartmouth’s mean gpa is only a 3.4 and Brown is 3.6. Harvard is xx and Yale is 3.5+… Clearly, the average student at Brown has a much higher chance of admission to LS than does the average Dartmouth student. And, relative to D, Brown is grade-inflated. Ditto Y relative to H.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Of course, ~3.8 is just the 25% for HYS, so by definition a quarter of the students have a <3.8 gpa lower. But like undergrad admissions the bottom quartile is likely filled with hooked candidates, those with work experience, and great life stories. Thus, 3.8 rule of thumb is the unofficial cutoff for the standard, unhooked college senior applying to HYS.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support this theory.</p>

33

<p>“The study linked by LongPrime was based on a survey of 400 members of the Yale class of 2006. 201 responded. The median GPA of the students who responded was about 3.6. Guess the GPA’s of those who didn’t respond.”</p>

<p>3.8. They were too busy studying.</p>

34

<p>Lol, mini, you have a more academic household than mine.</p>

35

<p>On the one hand, it’s true that the cut-off for cum laude at Yale (top 30%) keeps rising, and that is an official datum.</p>

<p>On the other hand, a student who goes to Yale expecting it to be easy because of grade inflation (or parents who expect very high grades) may be surprised. It depends quite a lot on the courses chosen and the student’s background, as well as the level of effort.</p>

<p>For example, a sophomore in a seminar course may find that only 1/4 of the students are undergrads, and the remainder are in-field grad students. If half of the students get an A or A-, it’s still going to be an uphill struggle for the sophomore–even though from an educational standpoint, it may be the best course of the semester.</p>

<p>Purely from anecdotal evidence, it seems that the math department gives a lot of students a hard time, grade-wise.</p>

36

<p>Word on the street is that the adcoms in med schools are very grade (and score) conscious.</p>

37

<p>or, mini, the non-responders were too embarrassed to reply.</p>

38

<p>True, there was so much grade inflation it had become embarrassing, and they didn’t want to tell the Princeton folks that.</p>

<p>Grading at the state universities is often far harder than at the prestige institutions, and it has to be, because in certain disciplines they have far more students they absolutely have to “weed out”. So the curves tend to be much stricter.</p>

39

<p>I teach at a large public university. As far as I can discern, within the range of courses taught in my department, many more low grades are given, and the average in most courses is lower than in the corresponding courses at the Ivies. On the other hand, I would not call the grading “harder.” For the same level of mastery of a topic (e.g., organic chemistry, quantum mechanics, . . . ), the grades at my university are on the whole equal to or higher than the grades at the Ivies that are familiar to me.</p>

<p>Also, my colleagues and I are not trying to weed anyone out. In fact, we encourage students to come to office hours, ask questions of the faculty and teaching assistants, and employ the full range of academic support services available to students. On the other hand, students who just haven’t achieved a toe-hold on the subject may not pass (e.g., average below 25%, when there are multiple students in the same class with averages of 85%+).</p>

40

<p>My belief is that admissions offices at law schools and med schools, as well as firms in the private sector, are capable of understanding grade inflation and deflation, and have their own ways of comparing students. I’ve never been convinced, for example, that graduates of Princeton (where there is reportedly grade deflation) do any worse than graduates of H or Y in these respects–although they worry about it.</p>