Does Your GPA Still Have Value?

By Samantha Douchette   No comments

Do grades really measure how smart someone is? Do standardized methods really tell you where you stand with intelligence? In high school, your GPA and SAT scores seemed like the only thing that mattered when it came to getting into the school of your choice. coque iphone 5 Now, many colleges and universities are reconsidering how highly they value these numbers. First, high school and college are two different worlds. In high school, grades are extremely important. Schools look at grades and test scores when they evaluate whether or not they should accept you. While your grade point average, or GPA, is an accurate indicator of your performance in school, it can’t tell you how competent you’ll be as an employee in the real world. Once you reach the collegiate level, what you want to study and how long you want to be in school highly affects whether grades matter. coque huawei p10 If you want to be a professor or go to law school, your GPA is extremely important. coque iphone xr However, in law, the more experience you have, the less important your grades are. coque autres huawei Most graduate schools require that you keep your GPA above a B minus. As of 2012, the University of North Carolina enacted a policy that compares you to your student peers. coque huawei p9 Every student transcript includes a “median grade in each of their classes, the student’s percentile rank compared to peers in the same section and a ‘scheduled point average’ ­— the average median grade for all students enrolled in the student’s mix of courses,” according to the university’s newspaper. While this might just seem like some more numbers, some at the university said that this reform would allow them to see trends in grades in certain departments and allow for students to not focus on GPA-boosting classes. They say the University of Miami and the University of California San Diego are also interested in using similar methods, but UNC will be the model. In a New York Times article, Chris Sparks, founder of the online job search site MBArecruiter.com, said that he looks beyond grades when it comes to searching for employees. He notes that personality, ethics and experience are contributing factors. But, he does say that as long as it’s a good GPA, he’ll look at who the person is over the numbers. Overall, I believe that no matter what, this system of scales categorizes every student. There is more to this categorization though.