The problem here is simple: working hard isn't enough. If you can't pull all A's, get good test scores, and great recommendations, then you can't have graduate

The problem here is simple: working hard isn't enough. If you can't pull all A's, get good test scores, and great recommendations, then you can't have graduate school. Obviously it's unfair, in large part because someone wealthier won't have to work to survive and can concentrate on his or her studies. The converse of that, though, is when things get hard and the rubber hits the road the student will have some margin of error. The author of this piece has none, as he admits. That makes him a liability to an academic system that requires professors to make many of their graduate students slave labor hours so that they can publish at an appropriate level. I've been to the highest levels of grad school and had to leave because of personal problems. There's nothing quite so painful as being told that your spouse's terminal illness has little to no bearing on your examining committee's opinion of you. (n.b., I was in a European school, so I couldn't take more than a three year leave of absence before presenting and defending my thesis. My examiners could have given me another year, but they refused, saying that my spouse wasn't exactly going to get better during that span) This is all utterly unfair, but the sad fact of the matter is that graduate school isn't for the author. I don't mean that it's an unrealistic dream, I mean that it's not going to give a rat's ass about the author's life situation and grad school will treat him like shit when he has to take time to deal with very real life problems that academics tend to gloss over. The author would be better served by avoiding grad school for now and establishing himself financially. Good professional experience will counteract many of his GPA shortcomings (and most schools will ignore those if he has professional experience). When he's in a position to get a fully-funded position in grad school, only then should he go, because only then will he be able to commit himself 100% to his studies.