6 ms·

I think before you can convince students of this, you need to convince prospective employers. To a lot of them, GPA is an easy filter.

jchonphoenix 17y ago
You would be highly incorrect. Most employers have a border of a 3.5 GPA or higher as a cutoff. Beyond that, they really care little. If you have a 4.0, you might get some extra "points" in their eyes. And for those of you who don't believe that 3.5 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I attend one of the most difficult universities in the United States, and I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus. Alas, our average GPA is closer to a 2.5. Yes, GPA is an easy filter, but for good reason. Companies want the very best. And the very best can easily achieve a 3.5 without trying and still have time to do everything this article suggests.
- pmichaud 17y ago
  That's true. I had a near 4.0 (one A-, gah) as a senior before I said "fuck this noise" and dropped out. I also had a family, was active in a couple campus clubs, and held a full time job as a developer. I was busy, but it's not impossible.
- JacobAldridge 17y ago
  I've heard of instances - specifically in legal recruiting - where there's also a top limit filter. That is, some firms (top level of the second tier) won't interview graduates with a GPA over 6.0 (I'm in Australia - GPA ranks to 7.0). I spoke with a legal recruiter about this once. The logic is that the very high GPA students are almost certainly too interested in academia, likely to go back to academia (and so leave the firm), and those that don't want academia probably worked hard for that GPA because they only want to work for a soul-crushing top tier firm. When I pointed out exceptions to this (including my beautiful, smart and focused lawyer wife), the recruiter just shrugged. It's much easier to miss the occasional exception, than waste time on the majority where the rule applies.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  > And the very best can easily achieve a 3.5 without trying > and still have time to do everything this article suggests. Yes, but why not spend that time they're investing in classes on more productive things?
  - jchonphoenix 17y ago
    Because it doesn't take time. I have a friend here at Carnegie Mellon that has a 4.0 GPA, got 3rd at ACM ICPC World Finals, and also took the 3 hardest classes this university has to offer, as well as double the average course load, all in the same semester. And he still got 9 hours of sleep a night. By all means, I'm nowhere near as smart as he is and I personally can't do that, but if you plan your semester well, you will have time to do "more productive things" and still have a 3.5
    - djcapelis 17y ago
      The point isn't to "have time" the point is to have the most time possible. If you shot for a 4.0 that's going to take more time than shooting for a 2.0. In my mind it was always better to take the time saved by shooting for merely passing my classes and invest it into side projects than it was to invest that time to get a 4.0. That didn't stop me from taking over the average course load and piling on difficult CS classes concurrently after having professors sign me out of pre-reqs, but since I shot for a 2.5 I didn't just "have time" for other things. I had lots of time for other things. You keep asserting that it's important to invest time in high grades and you can do that while still having time for other things. I agree that one could do that, but I don't agree that investing time in a high GPA is really necessary or desirable in most circumstances.
    - barry-cotter 17y ago
      Those three hardest classes are?
      - jchonphoenix 17y ago
        OS(Operating Systems), CDM(Computational Discrete Mathematics), Math Studies II
- atamyrat 17y ago
  But in Singapore, maybe in other Asian countries too, getting a good grade is not that hard, but it is very time consuming. For me personally it is a choice between high GPA or personal projects, achieving both is almost impossible.
  - jchonphoenix 17y ago
    Yea, you could be right. I'm just talking about American Universities because thats where my experience is.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      And Canadian ones. Where I went to college, a 3.5 GPA for the average person was easily 80h a week of solid work, if not more. Methinks your experience may be unique to your school.
      - jchonphoenix 17y ago
        I go to Carnegie Mellon. Its difficulty is comparable to MIT and Caltech, which I hear isn't a joke... Although there most definitely exists those that would say all three are quite easy.
        Locke1689 17y ago
        I go to Northwestern. We share a number of courses (some of the OS projects, Computer Systems, etc.). Definitely not easy.
- harpastum 17y ago
  I'm sorry, but your comment really pisses me off. "I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus." This is total bullshit. First, there are many people that barely made it into college (most of whom aren't in computer science/engineering), and no matter how much they worked, could not get a 3.5. Second, by saying "if he/she only bothered to focus," you're claiming that everyone who doesn't get a 3.5 is careless, lazy, or both. Everyone on this forum could achieve a karma rating of 3,000. And for those of you who don't believe that 3,000 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I have been on HN for over a year, and I do not know of a single person on HN who could not achieve 3,000 if he or she only bothered to focus. The reason I don't have a 3.5GPA is the same reason I don't have 3,000 karma: I enjoy both school and HN, but there is a diminishing rate of return for effort. If I do the minimum amount of effort in school to get a 2.75, then work for 40 hours a week at my company, and still hang out with my friends, I really have no regret that I never "bothered" to get a 3.5. Grade point averages are a result of intelligence, commitment, and personal priorities. Simplifying them the way that you do is both crass and incorrect.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      Perfectly valid comparison: both karma rating on HN and GPA are largely irrelevant numbers that have little bearing on how good of a programmer you are. Both numbers would, to the layman, suggest some kind of authority, but in reality do not. Both numbers are useful for theoretically filtering for the best, but in reality... do not. Wow, the more I think of it, the better this analogy gets!
      - boryas 17y ago
        Are you really saying that the grades you get in college courses are even remotely equivalent to a measure of how much random anonymous people agree with you on the internet? Granted, my GPA is much better than my karma, but I still don't see how thinking about math or CS problem sets all day is anything like filling the internet with your opinions/favorite links?
- gamble 17y ago
  By design, the average GPA should be close to 2.5. Most schools try to modulate the difficulty of their courses to maintain a C+ average year-to-year. In my engineering school, they had a schedule of expected class averages for each year in the program; professors that wanted to assign significantly higher or lower grades had to justify their decision to the department head. After all, if the class average is 3.5, there's no headroom for above-average students to distinguish themselves. However, I agree that any individual who wants to put in the work can probably achieve a 3.0 or better any most schools. Most people just don't want to do that much work.
- j_baker 17y ago
  Believe it or not, there are a lot of talented and smart people who genuinely aren't any good at college.
- wooster 17y ago
  I take it you don't go to Harvey Mudd then? There's a fairly wide variation in grade inflation between schools, which is why a lot of the top grad schools will adjust GPAs for students from schools with grade inflation, or lack thereof, compared to the average. Companies would do well to do the same, or to simply work on a case by case basis. Sadly, most companies recruit from a fairly small set of schools, and have little knowledge of the grade inflation differences. If GPAs were the worst of it, then it wouldn't be so bad, but usually the ignorance runs much deeper. I once saw a recruiter for IBM Research's Extreme Blue internship program complain to the audience that he was wasting his time talking to a room full of students, because he could be spending it talking to MIT kids instead -- he was addressing a room with 100+ CS majors from, among others, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, USC, UCLA, UCSD, Cal Poly SLO, and Pomona College.
  - jchonphoenix 17y ago
    Sigh For the last time... I go to Carnegie Mellon. (As for Extreme Blue, thats interesting because I did their internship last year and the people at my lab were from UCLA, Cal Poly, USC, (and obviously CMU) among others. No MIT though.)
    - wooster 17y ago
      Right, my wider point with that was about generalizing your personal experiences to the rest of the population. And good on Extreme Blue for taking a wider selection. This event was almost 10 years ago. Now I feel old. :p
potatolicious 17y ago
Heartily agreed - I see that one of replies below already demonstrates your point all too well, the unfair (and in my experience grossly elitist and simplistic) characterization that anyone who doesn't have a high GPA simply didn't try hard enough. This is especially relevant in our field. For one thing, I've only run into a handful of software companies who have a hard grade cutoff anywhere. None of the big names (MS, GOOG, etc) do it, and IMHO if you understand what makes a great hacker, you wouldn't do it either. NVidia was the last company of note I dealt with that had a hard grade cutoff. I didn't make it - and many other talented programmers I know didn't either... their loss I suppose. I do know the people who were selected, and none of them can really be called good hackers - at most competent coders. I've seen this pattern time and time again - in college the ones with the highest grades were the least employable. I had the pleasure of being in a program that required internships, and invariably the people with middle-of-the-road marks (3.5 is well above middle) had a much easier time finding employment than the ones at the top. The amount of effort it takes to stay at the top precludes one from doing the side projects that invariably makes the main difference between a merely competent programmer and a talented hacker. The top marks had no problem landing interviews, but had trouble converting interviews to offers. Sure, you can claim that a truly elite individual can make the grades and do all the side hacking projects and make it home to cook dinner. Reality of the matter is, these guys are exceptionally rare, and odds are you're not paying half as much as you would need to hire one of them ;) By hiring in that range you're getting an unproductive mix of academic overachievers mixed with a handful of pure geniuses. By targeting a lower grade bracket you're getting a much more even mix of people good at the job you want them to do, but aren't so good at academics.
- jchonphoenix 17y ago
  I'm just being honestly direct. You cannot completely throw out GPA because it is a measure of something. And you cannot completely rely on GPA because it is, as in all things, somewhat biased. The people with the low GPAs will continue to say GPAs do not matter. The people with the high ones will continue to say it does. All I'm saying is that, at a target of 3.5, it doesn't preclude you from accomplishing other endeavors during your university years.
j_baker 17y ago
Meh. If someone wants to turn me down for a job that I'd otherwise be qualified for because of my abysmal academic record, I view it as their loss.

jchonphoenix 17y ago

You would be highly incorrect. Most employers have a border of a 3.5 GPA or higher as a cutoff. Beyond that, they really care little. If you have a 4.0, you might get some extra "points" in their eyes. And for those of you who don't believe that 3.5 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I attend one of the most difficult universities in the United States, and I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus. Alas, our average GPA is closer to a 2.5. Yes, GPA is an easy filter, but for good reason. Companies want the very best. And the very best can easily achieve a 3.5 without trying and still have time to do everything this article suggests.

pmichaud 17y ago
That's true. I had a near 4.0 (one A-, gah) as a senior before I said "fuck this noise" and dropped out. I also had a family, was active in a couple campus clubs, and held a full time job as a developer. I was busy, but it's not impossible.
JacobAldridge 17y ago
I've heard of instances - specifically in legal recruiting - where there's also a top limit filter. That is, some firms (top level of the second tier) won't interview graduates with a GPA over 6.0 (I'm in Australia - GPA ranks to 7.0). I spoke with a legal recruiter about this once. The logic is that the very high GPA students are almost certainly too interested in academia, likely to go back to academia (and so leave the firm), and those that don't want academia probably worked hard for that GPA because they only want to work for a soul-crushing top tier firm. When I pointed out exceptions to this (including my beautiful, smart and focused lawyer wife), the recruiter just shrugged. It's much easier to miss the occasional exception, than waste time on the majority where the rule applies.
djcapelis 17y ago
> And the very best can easily achieve a 3.5 without trying > and still have time to do everything this article suggests. Yes, but why not spend that time they're investing in classes on more productive things?
- jchonphoenix 17y ago
  Because it doesn't take time. I have a friend here at Carnegie Mellon that has a 4.0 GPA, got 3rd at ACM ICPC World Finals, and also took the 3 hardest classes this university has to offer, as well as double the average course load, all in the same semester. And he still got 9 hours of sleep a night. By all means, I'm nowhere near as smart as he is and I personally can't do that, but if you plan your semester well, you will have time to do "more productive things" and still have a 3.5
  - djcapelis 17y ago
    The point isn't to "have time" the point is to have the most time possible. If you shot for a 4.0 that's going to take more time than shooting for a 2.0. In my mind it was always better to take the time saved by shooting for merely passing my classes and invest it into side projects than it was to invest that time to get a 4.0. That didn't stop me from taking over the average course load and piling on difficult CS classes concurrently after having professors sign me out of pre-reqs, but since I shot for a 2.5 I didn't just "have time" for other things. I had lots of time for other things. You keep asserting that it's important to invest time in high grades and you can do that while still having time for other things. I agree that one could do that, but I don't agree that investing time in a high GPA is really necessary or desirable in most circumstances.
  - barry-cotter 17y ago
    Those three hardest classes are?
    - jchonphoenix 17y ago
      OS(Operating Systems), CDM(Computational Discrete Mathematics), Math Studies II
atamyrat 17y ago
But in Singapore, maybe in other Asian countries too, getting a good grade is not that hard, but it is very time consuming. For me personally it is a choice between high GPA or personal projects, achieving both is almost impossible.
- jchonphoenix 17y ago
  Yea, you could be right. I'm just talking about American Universities because thats where my experience is.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    And Canadian ones. Where I went to college, a 3.5 GPA for the average person was easily 80h a week of solid work, if not more. Methinks your experience may be unique to your school.
    - jchonphoenix 17y ago
      I go to Carnegie Mellon. Its difficulty is comparable to MIT and Caltech, which I hear isn't a joke... Although there most definitely exists those that would say all three are quite easy.
      - Locke1689 17y ago
        I go to Northwestern. We share a number of courses (some of the OS projects, Computer Systems, etc.). Definitely not easy.
harpastum 17y ago
I'm sorry, but your comment really pisses me off. "I do not know of a single person at the university who could not achieve a 3.5 if he or she only bothered to focus." This is total bullshit. First, there are many people that barely made it into college (most of whom aren't in computer science/engineering), and no matter how much they worked, could not get a 3.5. Second, by saying "if he/she only bothered to focus," you're claiming that everyone who doesn't get a 3.5 is careless, lazy, or both. Everyone on this forum could achieve a karma rating of 3,000. And for those of you who don't believe that 3,000 is a fair cutoff, I would challenge you by saying this: I have been on HN for over a year, and I do not know of a single person on HN who could not achieve 3,000 if he or she only bothered to focus. The reason I don't have a 3.5GPA is the same reason I don't have 3,000 karma: I enjoy both school and HN, but there is a diminishing rate of return for effort. If I do the minimum amount of effort in school to get a 2.75, then work for 40 hours a week at my company, and still hang out with my friends, I really have no regret that I never "bothered" to get a 3.5. Grade point averages are a result of intelligence, commitment, and personal priorities. Simplifying them the way that you do is both crass and incorrect.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    Perfectly valid comparison: both karma rating on HN and GPA are largely irrelevant numbers that have little bearing on how good of a programmer you are. Both numbers would, to the layman, suggest some kind of authority, but in reality do not. Both numbers are useful for theoretically filtering for the best, but in reality... do not. Wow, the more I think of it, the better this analogy gets!
    - boryas 17y ago
      Are you really saying that the grades you get in college courses are even remotely equivalent to a measure of how much random anonymous people agree with you on the internet? Granted, my GPA is much better than my karma, but I still don't see how thinking about math or CS problem sets all day is anything like filling the internet with your opinions/favorite links?
gamble 17y ago
By design, the average GPA should be close to 2.5. Most schools try to modulate the difficulty of their courses to maintain a C+ average year-to-year. In my engineering school, they had a schedule of expected class averages for each year in the program; professors that wanted to assign significantly higher or lower grades had to justify their decision to the department head. After all, if the class average is 3.5, there's no headroom for above-average students to distinguish themselves. However, I agree that any individual who wants to put in the work can probably achieve a 3.0 or better any most schools. Most people just don't want to do that much work.
j_baker 17y ago
Believe it or not, there are a lot of talented and smart people who genuinely aren't any good at college.
wooster 17y ago
I take it you don't go to Harvey Mudd then? There's a fairly wide variation in grade inflation between schools, which is why a lot of the top grad schools will adjust GPAs for students from schools with grade inflation, or lack thereof, compared to the average. Companies would do well to do the same, or to simply work on a case by case basis. Sadly, most companies recruit from a fairly small set of schools, and have little knowledge of the grade inflation differences. If GPAs were the worst of it, then it wouldn't be so bad, but usually the ignorance runs much deeper. I once saw a recruiter for IBM Research's Extreme Blue internship program complain to the audience that he was wasting his time talking to a room full of students, because he could be spending it talking to MIT kids instead -- he was addressing a room with 100+ CS majors from, among others, Caltech, Harvey Mudd, USC, UCLA, UCSD, Cal Poly SLO, and Pomona College.
- jchonphoenix 17y ago
  Sigh For the last time... I go to Carnegie Mellon. (As for Extreme Blue, thats interesting because I did their internship last year and the people at my lab were from UCLA, Cal Poly, USC, (and obviously CMU) among others. No MIT though.)
  - wooster 17y ago
    Right, my wider point with that was about generalizing your personal experiences to the rest of the population. And good on Extreme Blue for taking a wider selection. This event was almost 10 years ago. Now I feel old. :p

potatolicious 17y ago

Heartily agreed - I see that one of replies below already demonstrates your point all too well, the unfair (and in my experience grossly elitist and simplistic) characterization that anyone who doesn't have a high GPA simply didn't try hard enough. This is especially relevant in our field. For one thing, I've only run into a handful of software companies who have a hard grade cutoff anywhere. None of the big names (MS, GOOG, etc) do it, and IMHO if you understand what makes a great hacker, you wouldn't do it either. NVidia was the last company of note I dealt with that had a hard grade cutoff. I didn't make it - and many other talented programmers I know didn't either... their loss I suppose. I do know the people who were selected, and none of them can really be called good hackers - at most competent coders. I've seen this pattern time and time again - in college the ones with the highest grades were the least employable. I had the pleasure of being in a program that required internships, and invariably the people with middle-of-the-road marks (3.5 is well above middle) had a much easier time finding employment than the ones at the top. The amount of effort it takes to stay at the top precludes one from doing the side projects that invariably makes the main difference between a merely competent programmer and a talented hacker. The top marks had no problem landing interviews, but had trouble converting interviews to offers. Sure, you can claim that a truly elite individual can make the grades and do all the side hacking projects and make it home to cook dinner. Reality of the matter is, these guys are exceptionally rare, and odds are you're not paying half as much as you would need to hire one of them ;) By hiring in that range you're getting an unproductive mix of academic overachievers mixed with a handful of pure geniuses. By targeting a lower grade bracket you're getting a much more even mix of people good at the job you want them to do, but aren't so good at academics.

jchonphoenix 17y ago
I'm just being honestly direct. You cannot completely throw out GPA because it is a measure of something. And you cannot completely rely on GPA because it is, as in all things, somewhat biased. The people with the low GPAs will continue to say GPAs do not matter. The people with the high ones will continue to say it does. All I'm saying is that, at a target of 3.5, it doesn't preclude you from accomplishing other endeavors during your university years.

j_baker 17y ago

Meh. If someone wants to turn me down for a job that I'd otherwise be qualified for because of my abysmal academic record, I view it as their loss.