4 ms·

It betrays a desire to avoid a large chunk of bad candidates while discarding only a few good ones.

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Not everyone has the time to do well in college even if they have the ability. I worked 30-35 hours a week every week in college. I can guarantee that I would have gotten a 3.9 or 4.0 had I been able to not work, but I didn't have that luxury. Oh well, I got out with a 3.2 which seemed good to me.
- jamesaguilar 16y ago
  I agree, but my point stands that most of the people getting bad grades probably deserve them despite the few who deserve better. Companies who want to make the best use of their limited hiring resources would be served by avoiding people with low GPAs.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Even with a 3.2, you probably beat most kids at an engineering school. Although I've heard of engineering schools where half the class has a 3.5, but at my school our top guy had a 3.8, nobody had a 3.9 or 4.0 no matter how hard they tried. I was in the top 20% with a 3.3
  - endtime 16y ago
    Which school, if you don't mind my asking?
- vessenes 16y ago
  If I were you, when applying for jobs, I would state you worked full time while in school. I'd definitely take a second look at a mid-GPA candidate who had an awesome work ethic like that.
  - brianmckenzie 16y ago
    Very good point. I was in much the same boat as the OP. There is a lot of respect out there for people who've worked their way through school. Be careful not to emphasize it too much though, lest it seem like you're making excuses. Maybe the person considering you for a job did the same thing.
- Keyframe 16y ago
  Also, not everyone has the luxury to go to college at all.
potatolicious 16y ago
Not my experience in college at all. The bad hackers were the ones at the extreme ends of the scales - the borderline-failing ones were expectedly terrible, and the top-marks usually had some other major handicaps that made them remarkable people but terrible colleagues (extreme lack of team work ability, zero communication skills, tactlessness, gigantic egotism, etc etc). The best hackers (rather, the ones you'd want to work with) tended to fall in the middle of the pack. Decent marks, not great. Didn't spend their days trying to ace the next exam and spent a lot of time hacking on cool projects instead. My own experience in college is that marks in the middle of the pack made the best employees, and in fact nowadays an extremely high GPA is a yellow flag when I'm reviewing resumes (though obviously, not a disqualifier at all). Keep in mind at this school 80%+ would put you in the top 10-15% of all marks. I'm not against filtering for low marks, but in this case NVidia set their sights on the top 10-15% of the student population and disqualified everyone else as a matter of course. IMHO a dumb move that unnecessarily turned away a lot of qualified people.
- peregrine 16y ago
  Just wanted to chime in and say I am having the same experience.
- krschultz 16y ago
  We're not really talking about hackers here though. To me a hacker is ripping through code getting it done. But that works better in the software world where it is relatively easy to make a mistake. I don't work at Nvidia, but working in the hardware field things go a bit slower. You need people who pay attention to detail and follow the process to a T to avoid costly mistakes and rework. Thats why "people who could put up with the bullshit that it took to get into the top 15%" and "people who are intelligent enough to design chips at a high level and disciplined to follow the process to avoid blowing hundreds of thousands of a dollars per mistake" have more cross over than high GPA and good ruby on rails hacker. It is just a different mindset and a different set of economics to be building slow iterating hardware vs quick iterating software.
  - potatolicious 16y ago

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Not everyone has the time to do well in college even if they have the ability. I worked 30-35 hours a week every week in college. I can guarantee that I would have gotten a 3.9 or 4.0 had I been able to not work, but I didn't have that luxury. Oh well, I got out with a 3.2 which seemed good to me.

jamesaguilar 16y ago
I agree, but my point stands that most of the people getting bad grades probably deserve them despite the few who deserve better. Companies who want to make the best use of their limited hiring resources would be served by avoiding people with low GPAs.
krschultz 16y ago
Even with a 3.2, you probably beat most kids at an engineering school. Although I've heard of engineering schools where half the class has a 3.5, but at my school our top guy had a 3.8, nobody had a 3.9 or 4.0 no matter how hard they tried. I was in the top 20% with a 3.3
- endtime 16y ago
  Which school, if you don't mind my asking?
vessenes 16y ago
If I were you, when applying for jobs, I would state you worked full time while in school. I'd definitely take a second look at a mid-GPA candidate who had an awesome work ethic like that.
- brianmckenzie 16y ago
  Very good point. I was in much the same boat as the OP. There is a lot of respect out there for people who've worked their way through school. Be careful not to emphasize it too much though, lest it seem like you're making excuses. Maybe the person considering you for a job did the same thing.
Keyframe 16y ago
Also, not everyone has the luxury to go to college at all.

potatolicious 16y ago

Not my experience in college at all. The bad hackers were the ones at the extreme ends of the scales - the borderline-failing ones were expectedly terrible, and the top-marks usually had some other major handicaps that made them remarkable people but terrible colleagues (extreme lack of team work ability, zero communication skills, tactlessness, gigantic egotism, etc etc). The best hackers (rather, the ones you'd want to work with) tended to fall in the middle of the pack. Decent marks, not great. Didn't spend their days trying to ace the next exam and spent a lot of time hacking on cool projects instead. My own experience in college is that marks in the middle of the pack made the best employees, and in fact nowadays an extremely high GPA is a yellow flag when I'm reviewing resumes (though obviously, not a disqualifier at all). Keep in mind at this school 80%+ would put you in the top 10-15% of all marks. I'm not against filtering for low marks, but in this case NVidia set their sights on the top 10-15% of the student population and disqualified everyone else as a matter of course. IMHO a dumb move that unnecessarily turned away a lot of qualified people.

peregrine 16y ago
Just wanted to chime in and say I am having the same experience.
krschultz 16y ago
We're not really talking about hackers here though. To me a hacker is ripping through code getting it done. But that works better in the software world where it is relatively easy to make a mistake. I don't work at Nvidia, but working in the hardware field things go a bit slower. You need people who pay attention to detail and follow the process to a T to avoid costly mistakes and rework. Thats why "people who could put up with the bullshit that it took to get into the top 15%" and "people who are intelligent enough to design chips at a high level and disciplined to follow the process to avoid blowing hundreds of thousands of a dollars per mistake" have more cross over than high GPA and good ruby on rails hacker. It is just a different mindset and a different set of economics to be building slow iterating hardware vs quick iterating software.
- potatolicious 16y ago