5 ms·

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even thos

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for tracking into the traditionally high paid professions like law and medicine, and for tracking into the target colleges for high powered banking and consulting.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawayboise 5y ago
You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.
- opportune 5y ago
  Most of the high paying professions outside of software require the degree and that first job to break into them. Sure for banking and consulting it’s not a hard requirement, but it’s much harder to get into them with bad grades or a degree from a non-target school. It’s really only in the software bubble where people are able to prove themselves to break into it, due to various factors including engineers being in very short supply relative to demand for over a decade now. Sure nobody asks for my grades now that I’ve been out of college for a while, but they still look at where I went to college (based on high school achievement) and my first job (based on college achievement) and subsequent jobs (much easier to get because of where I worked at my first job), etc. I just see this argument as very tone deaf because there are hundreds of millions of us regular people out there, and academic achievement is the most surefire way to get noticed and be given opportunities if you aren’t lucky enough to come from an important/influential family. It’s not only about the grades themselves but how they pipeline the rest of your career and credentials. Rich people can shmooze and scheme to get some of those credentials and opportunities for their kids without the grades, but not us regular folk.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    > but they still look at where I went to college (based on high school achievement) and my first job (based on college achievement) and subsequent jobs (much easier to get because of where I worked at my first job), etc. No one has ever asked me about my schooling and I haven't had a school on my resume in over 10 years. Do they look at it because you put it on your resume?
    - opportune 5y ago
      I am still early in my career. And many jobs I have applied for/am interested in unfortunately index on having gone to a good school. I’ll probably never work for one but I’m pretty interested in HFT and quant hedge funds, and have interviewed with them before, and am of the understanding that having a name brand college on your resume is a soft requirement.
  - caseysoftware 5y ago
    "Sure nobody asks for my grades now that I’ve been out of college for a while, but they still look at where I went to college.." How do you know that? Do they mention it? I'm really curious on this one. Other than the rare alum, I haven't had anyone comment on my undergrad more than a year or two out of it. Recent jobs and projects make up the vast majority of any conversation.
    - robotresearcher 5y ago
      Biases work quietly. A recruiter that favors Ivy League grads does not comment on that to the candidates they contact, and obviously doesn't to the ones they don't.
    - opportune 5y ago
      To echo the sibling comment, it’s more for getting past screening than for anything involving interviews. Although it likely does add some implicit bias even for later interviewers/hiring managers who see my resume even if they don’t mention it.
  - 5y ago
- scooble 5y ago
  I agree, but there can be some exceptions. I got auto-rejected when applying for a law conversion course because of my A Level grades. I have a first class degree, a master’s degree with distinction and a phd.
  - conjectures 5y ago
    You dodged a bullet there then at least :)
- dtnewman 5y ago
  Yeah where you got your degree from still matters. And you get in to the best schools by getting good grades.
jdmoreira 5y ago
Grades don't matter. They matter if you really want to follow the beaten path. Sure, go ahead... join McKinsey or something like that. Being good a learning matters. Being good at executing matters. Being good at communicating matters. Being good at leading matters. Grades and credentials are just gatekeeping invented by people that are worse than talented people. Grades are for status not for wealth and even much less for creative and fulfilment. It's a losers game. I played it and it was stupid I will never allow my children to play that game.
- opportune 5y ago
  For most people the beaten path is how they get on the ladder towards building wealth. You can always hop off the well worn part of that ladder but you can’t easily get back on it once you’ve fallen off. You can feel that way regarding status vs talent if you want. Reality to me indicates that learning and execution are only important if you can get yourself into a position where you can use them. If you are a peon it’s quite hard to make a difference in the world even if you have those in spades. The way you find yourself in such a position might vary but going through the well worn path is tried and true.
- zamfi 5y ago
  > will never allow my children to play that game I can see not forcing them to play the game, but "will never allow my children to" always struck me as a weird tone.
  - jdmoreira 5y ago
    I will also never allow my children to gang up on and beat homeless people in the streets. Sounds like a weird tone?
    - hobofan 5y ago
      Yes, still sounds like a weird tone. Do you think that other people "beat homeless people in the streets", because their parents allowed them to do that?
shard 5y ago
Expanding on your comment, to get into a good school and make the connections that would help you in the future, good grades are table stakes. And for certain minorities, good grades are assumed and you have to have achievements on top of that to stand out. Sure, there are many paths to success, but just like investing, where the ROI probabilities would be better if you put your money into an index fund as opposed to the state lottery, the ROI probabilities from developing a good work ethic and getting into a good school are better than alternatives. As a parent, you are using your knowledge and experience to make optimization decisions that the child might not be able to envision or foresee. Different children need different kinds of parenting techniques. I don't see how anyone can claim that either project-based parenting or tiger parenting is the be-all and end-all to raising a child.
ErrantX 5y ago
Yup I came here to say the same thing; I'd go further and say it's not just mega rich families but most of the middle class. You got options even with just a little disposable income (ie paying for clubs can unlock a career, for example). For those from traditionally working class background, differentiating from your peers through grades is essential to unlocking funds that can take you where you want to be. That's why through the pandemic school grades (in the UK at least) have been so sensitive; they deployed an algorithm last year which probably mostly got it right but also (because it was averages) didn't pluck out those from the poorest backgrounds who would have managed to differentiate themselves.
dangerface 5y ago
> Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Not really, while its generally better to have a qualification than no qualification 48% of people with a degree are in a job that don't require it. Qualifications don't matter if everyone has them, this is because employers care about the skills some one has not the lectures they sat through. Skills are difficult to develop lectures are easy to sit through. If every one has those qualifications supply/demand kills the need for those jobs. If you sacrifice building up skills to chase grades you have a near 50/50 chance of ending up working behind a till with €50k in debt, not a good position to be in if you are not mega rich.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwawayboise 5y ago

You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.

opportune 5y ago
Most of the high paying professions outside of software require the degree and that first job to break into them. Sure for banking and consulting it’s not a hard requirement, but it’s much harder to get into them with bad grades or a degree from a non-target school. It’s really only in the software bubble where people are able to prove themselves to break into it, due to various factors including engineers being in very short supply relative to demand for over a decade now. Sure nobody asks for my grades now that I’ve been out of college for a while, but they still look at where I went to college (based on high school achievement) and my first job (based on college achievement) and subsequent jobs (much easier to get because of where I worked at my first job), etc. I just see this argument as very tone deaf because there are hundreds of millions of us regular people out there, and academic achievement is the most surefire way to get noticed and be given opportunities if you aren’t lucky enough to come from an important/influential family. It’s not only about the grades themselves but how they pipeline the rest of your career and credentials. Rich people can shmooze and scheme to get some of those credentials and opportunities for their kids without the grades, but not us regular folk.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  > but they still look at where I went to college (based on high school achievement) and my first job (based on college achievement) and subsequent jobs (much easier to get because of where I worked at my first job), etc. No one has ever asked me about my schooling and I haven't had a school on my resume in over 10 years. Do they look at it because you put it on your resume?
  - opportune 5y ago
    I am still early in my career. And many jobs I have applied for/am interested in unfortunately index on having gone to a good school. I’ll probably never work for one but I’m pretty interested in HFT and quant hedge funds, and have interviewed with them before, and am of the understanding that having a name brand college on your resume is a soft requirement.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  "Sure nobody asks for my grades now that I’ve been out of college for a while, but they still look at where I went to college.." How do you know that? Do they mention it? I'm really curious on this one. Other than the rare alum, I haven't had anyone comment on my undergrad more than a year or two out of it. Recent jobs and projects make up the vast majority of any conversation.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    Biases work quietly. A recruiter that favors Ivy League grads does not comment on that to the candidates they contact, and obviously doesn't to the ones they don't.
  - opportune 5y ago
    To echo the sibling comment, it’s more for getting past screening than for anything involving interviews. Although it likely does add some implicit bias even for later interviewers/hiring managers who see my resume even if they don’t mention it.
- 5y ago
scooble 5y ago
I agree, but there can be some exceptions. I got auto-rejected when applying for a law conversion course because of my A Level grades. I have a first class degree, a master’s degree with distinction and a phd.
- conjectures 5y ago
  You dodged a bullet there then at least :)
dtnewman 5y ago
Yeah where you got your degree from still matters. And you get in to the best schools by getting good grades.

jdmoreira 5y ago

Grades don't matter. They matter if you really want to follow the beaten path. Sure, go ahead... join McKinsey or something like that. Being good a learning matters. Being good at executing matters. Being good at communicating matters. Being good at leading matters. Grades and credentials are just gatekeeping invented by people that are worse than talented people. Grades are for status not for wealth and even much less for creative and fulfilment. It's a losers game. I played it and it was stupid I will never allow my children to play that game.

opportune 5y ago
For most people the beaten path is how they get on the ladder towards building wealth. You can always hop off the well worn part of that ladder but you can’t easily get back on it once you’ve fallen off. You can feel that way regarding status vs talent if you want. Reality to me indicates that learning and execution are only important if you can get yourself into a position where you can use them. If you are a peon it’s quite hard to make a difference in the world even if you have those in spades. The way you find yourself in such a position might vary but going through the well worn path is tried and true.
zamfi 5y ago
> will never allow my children to play that game I can see not forcing them to play the game, but "will never allow my children to" always struck me as a weird tone.
- jdmoreira 5y ago
  I will also never allow my children to gang up on and beat homeless people in the streets. Sounds like a weird tone?
  - hobofan 5y ago
    Yes, still sounds like a weird tone. Do you think that other people "beat homeless people in the streets", because their parents allowed them to do that?

shard 5y ago

Expanding on your comment, to get into a good school and make the connections that would help you in the future, good grades are table stakes. And for certain minorities, good grades are assumed and you have to have achievements on top of that to stand out. Sure, there are many paths to success, but just like investing, where the ROI probabilities would be better if you put your money into an index fund as opposed to the state lottery, the ROI probabilities from developing a good work ethic and getting into a good school are better than alternatives. As a parent, you are using your knowledge and experience to make optimization decisions that the child might not be able to envision or foresee. Different children need different kinds of parenting techniques. I don't see how anyone can claim that either project-based parenting or tiger parenting is the be-all and end-all to raising a child.

ErrantX 5y ago

Yup I came here to say the same thing; I'd go further and say it's not just mega rich families but most of the middle class. You got options even with just a little disposable income (ie paying for clubs can unlock a career, for example). For those from traditionally working class background, differentiating from your peers through grades is essential to unlocking funds that can take you where you want to be. That's why through the pandemic school grades (in the UK at least) have been so sensitive; they deployed an algorithm last year which probably mostly got it right but also (because it was averages) didn't pluck out those from the poorest backgrounds who would have managed to differentiate themselves.

dangerface 5y ago

> Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Not really, while its generally better to have a qualification than no qualification 48% of people with a degree are in a job that don't require it. Qualifications don't matter if everyone has them, this is because employers care about the skills some one has not the lectures they sat through. Skills are difficult to develop lectures are easy to sit through. If every one has those qualifications supply/demand kills the need for those jobs. If you sacrifice building up skills to chase grades you have a near 50/50 chance of ending up working behind a till with €50k in debt, not a good position to be in if you are not mega rich.