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GPA is useful when curated with the 'reputation' of a particular college or university. For example, "Person P scored 3.25 from XYZ college, which is more impre

GPA is useful when curated with the 'reputation' of a particular college or university. For example, "Person P scored 3.25 from XYZ college, which is more impressive than person Q who got 3.75 from ABC college". This reputation information is usually known to those who have interviewed several years worth of interns and entry-level hires. It usually means that P from XYZ has the discipline to undergo the grind, so at the minimum one can expect some business value from that discipline. It doesn't say whether Q is incapable of the same discipline, just that P is a safer bet. Outlier E&OE.

dalke 13y ago
You have no evidence for that, because there is no evidence for that. Google tried to find indicators for success at Google. One quote from a NYT interview: > One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation. Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. > What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well. So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who’ve never gone to college. >After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. > Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer. Even in your own scenario, would you prefer someone who graduated with a 3.25 and triple majored in physics, business, and history, or would you prefer someone with a 3.75 who majored in business?
- quarterwave 13y ago
  The person who went to a 'high reputation' college is more likely to have had better peers, and so more likely to have learned more by thermalization. Also, software jobs are unique - one can be effective in a software job without knowing much about computer science. Jobs such as designing transistors or aircraft require strong basics, of the type that is usually acquired by undergraduate rigor. I doubt if a situation would exist where 14% of aero engineers at Boeing or Airbus never went to college.
  - dalke 13y ago
    The topic is about GPA, not choice of college. Where is your evidence that "a 3.25 GPA from XYZ college, is more impressive than person Q who got 3.75 from ABC college"? As we all know now from Moneyball, long-held views can be wildly ungrounded in reality, so why should I believe "those who have interviewed several years worth of interns and entry-level hires" are any better at judging competence than, say, professional baseball scouts in the pre-Moneyball era choosing someone based on how sexy his girlfriend looked? Or any better than orchestras before the introduction of blind auditions in the 1970s/1980s. Before then, female musicians were 5% of the top orchestras. By 1997 (see 'Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians') they were 25%. Or any better than the hiring practices where the only difference in a resume was a "white" name vs. a "black" name. The resumes with a black name required more attempts to get a callback (see http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html ) Unfounded unconscious bias pervades everything. Why should I assume that there's no unfounded bias in your observation, given that all attempts at quantifying what you believe to be true have failed to find a long-term predictor of success? Also, there are plenty of jobs where one doesn't need to know much about the underlying science in order to be successful. Programming is not unique in that regard. One can be an excellent chef without knowing "rigorous" food chemistry, an excellent athlete without a degree in sports medicine or biology, an excellent writer without a degree in English, an excellent musician without knowing much about pressure waves, an excellent CEO without a business degree or training in economics.
    - quarterwave 13y ago

dalke 13y ago

You have no evidence for that, because there is no evidence for that. Google tried to find indicators for success at Google. One quote from a NYT interview: > One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation. Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. > What’s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well. So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who’ve never gone to college. >After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. > Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn’t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer. Even in your own scenario, would you prefer someone who graduated with a 3.25 and triple majored in physics, business, and history, or would you prefer someone with a 3.75 who majored in business?

quarterwave 13y ago
The person who went to a 'high reputation' college is more likely to have had better peers, and so more likely to have learned more by thermalization. Also, software jobs are unique - one can be effective in a software job without knowing much about computer science. Jobs such as designing transistors or aircraft require strong basics, of the type that is usually acquired by undergraduate rigor. I doubt if a situation would exist where 14% of aero engineers at Boeing or Airbus never went to college.
- dalke 13y ago
  The topic is about GPA, not choice of college. Where is your evidence that "a 3.25 GPA from XYZ college, is more impressive than person Q who got 3.75 from ABC college"? As we all know now from Moneyball, long-held views can be wildly ungrounded in reality, so why should I believe "those who have interviewed several years worth of interns and entry-level hires" are any better at judging competence than, say, professional baseball scouts in the pre-Moneyball era choosing someone based on how sexy his girlfriend looked? Or any better than orchestras before the introduction of blind auditions in the 1970s/1980s. Before then, female musicians were 5% of the top orchestras. By 1997 (see 'Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians') they were 25%. Or any better than the hiring practices where the only difference in a resume was a "white" name vs. a "black" name. The resumes with a black name required more attempts to get a callback (see http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html ) Unfounded unconscious bias pervades everything. Why should I assume that there's no unfounded bias in your observation, given that all attempts at quantifying what you believe to be true have failed to find a long-term predictor of success? Also, there are plenty of jobs where one doesn't need to know much about the underlying science in order to be successful. Programming is not unique in that regard. One can be an excellent chef without knowing "rigorous" food chemistry, an excellent athlete without a degree in sports medicine or biology, an excellent writer without a degree in English, an excellent musician without knowing much about pressure waves, an excellent CEO without a business degree or training in economics.
  - quarterwave 13y ago