The diminishing importance of grades in professional success

¶ … Improve a Grade

What would you do? Would you do anything to improve a grade?

Why is it important to get good grades? Why, to get a good job, you might respond. Now imagine the resumes of the most successful people in the world. Whether you define success as becoming a Noble prize laureate or a mega-mogul of a successful corporation, or even if you just look at the resumes on popular Internet search engines like Monster.com, the truth is that after your first few years in the workforce, your GPA matters less than your skills, your success and responsibilities fulfilled at your first few occupations, and your professional contacts and qualifications. The name 'Harvard' in the section entitled 'institution of higher learning intended' on your CV might get you an interview, but it probably won't get you a job and it certainly won't matter very much if you have a 3.7 or a 3.8 from whatever school you have attended. After a certain age and level of experience, many job seekers eschew such information entirely, and those that still include the schools they graduated from seldom include a final GPA.

It is possible to conceive of make or break situations regarding one's academic career -- if passing or failing a class could mean one's expulsion from school, or entry into a popular major. But a situation where one would do ANYTHING to improve one's grade? It seems inconceivable -- unless one reflects upon the hothouse environment created in some classes and many scholastic environments, where the atmosphere is so competitive, so driven, so focused upon entry into a prestigious medical, law, or even undergraduate institution, that nothing else, even dignity or self-respect, seems worthy of consideration.