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When I consider prospective hires for the company I work for, the ideal candidate for an entry-level position is someone with a sharp mind who was bored beyond belief at school. All other things being equal, I will hire a person with a GPA of 2.8 before I ever hire someone with a 4.0. Seriously.

Same here, mostly because that describes me. My high school GPA was whopping 2.4 (though my SATs were very high), but I somehow managed to become a leader in my field with several patents and theoretical advances credited to my name. I was willing to work hard, I just wasn't willing to waste my time doing mindless busywork to satisfy the meaningless goal of some chimp-for-teacher, which shows in my grades. School has always been deadly boring for me.

In fact, I am suspicious of people with a 4.0 GPA. It suggests submission to the demands of an "authority" that is best ignored most of the time, a sort of subtle indicator of a possible character flaw. People with perfect GPAs always seem to be people who put an unjustified amount of effort and value in the process itself rather than the end results.

Ah, spoken like a bunch of 2.4 GPAers. :-)

Let me parry with a defense of the high GPA academic acheivers. Just because school was boring for you, doesnt mean that it *should* be boring for all or that for those who found it worthwhile to excel in school are somehow less able in some way. That is prejudice.

I managed to excel in high school and then went on to advanced degrees and much success in life careerwise and financially. I found high school easy and mostly fun, because I am naturally curious and loved stuff like history as I love politics now; it was 'natural' to just do well, although there were late nights writing papers in some cases. it was only when I started running into
some folks later who claimed to be smart yet had lousy grades that it even occured to me that any smart person would both to avoid excelling, and not 'get the most out of education'.

I find the bias against academic excellence to be based on anti-intellectual bias, the same kind of bias that High Schoolers would engage in by calling the A students "geeks" and nerds etc. A mix of class delineation, pride in sloth and other social stature metrics, and a desire to not give too much credit to those doing something you dont want to do; or maybe that one makes claims that one *could* do something in a 'sour grapes' manner as a way of avoiding questions of capability and intent. The 4.0 academic high achiever person excels at thinking, ie has high IQ, likes competition, and likes a pat-on-the-back for doing work; they've internalized high expectations; and they are intellectually curious, ie they want to learn. This last point is IMHO the most important feature for anyone to have in the modern world.

These positive attributes are correlated imho with academic success, they are turned negative into ...
"submission to the demands of an "authority" that is best ignored most of the time ..."
While I had my share of wacky teachers, but some of them were most excellent and worthwhile. No teachers I recall after 3rd grade were in any sense 'authorities' demanding submission. were you in a military academy? Of course, if you didnt know the material, you got bad grades, but if the point is to validate 'rebellion' by getting bad grades, it's a pretty clueless form of it. Rather, I saw my education as a service; adults are telling me stuff, some of it I rejected (my liberal teacher who had fun debating some conservative kids), others taught me much more (eg a brilliant chemistry teacher). The more I learned from them in High School on the taxpayer's dime, the less I had to pay to learn in College. I never confused a teacher with some substitute parental 'authority' figure. I need feel at the time, that I needed good grades to succeed later in life; and I still agree with that assessment. learning about how to succeed and overcome obstacles in school is an easier teacher than "real" life, I assure you.

"People with perfect GPAs always seem to be people who put an unjustified amount of effort and value in the process itself rather than the end results." This too is projecting far too much, as both process (action, behavior, habit) *and* results are needed. IMHO it is actually the opposite: The kids who care only for the grade ("is this on the test") are the results-oriented ones. they end up learning, then forgetting after the finals. but it does train them to play 'the game', whatever it is. Those are the folks who manage to get ahead by somehow manipulating the system to their advantage. The kids who care about the process are the ones who are there to just learn. And bless their hearts, because somebody is going to actually have to *know* the stuff when they grow up, so we can advance science and technology.

I've worked with a "sub-GPA" genius types, and I have found that there is no advantage conferred from the mindset that "dcided" not to get good grades - and one disadvantage, as an employer ... the thing that was most frustrating was the egotistical 'if it doesnt interest me, i dont care' attitude, the kinds which says - "I was willing to work hard, I just wasn't willing to waste my time doing mindless busywork". Well guess what, in any business anywhere, there is *some* work that is unpleasant, less-than-fulfilling or non-fun. But it has to get done. you have to just "Do the Job". And it frustrate(d) me as a manager to have to make work - that we are paid to DO dammit - somehow 'interesting' enough for this guy. What I did learn on positive side was if he WAS motivated, he would do the job well. He also could say: "I somehow managed to become a leader in my field with several patents and theoretical advances credited to my name." in part because he got that motivation to learn/achieve in a particular field and ran with it.

In short - the sub-GPA genius is more likely to be a Prima Donna - he egotistally treats work as something that has to 'interest' him. (My own view is: work is work, as a top-level manager once told our company "You reward for doing a good job is getting to keep it". If your career clouds your life, change it. ) Pick the 4.0 GPA type guy and you know he can (a) do the job w/ high standards, think for himself, *and* (b) DO WHAT YOU ASK HIM, something he learned to do back when he was a kid.