Why grades dont matter

Education is about self-improvement, not about the number of zeros on the end of a paycheck. With this in mind, I think that grades start to lose their novelty.

By valuing education for its personal return instead of its financial return, grades become less of a statement on the future and more of a mostly inconsequential part of knowing thyself. None of this is to say that it isn't important to work hard in school, which will often produce good grades, as working hard is part of improving yourself.

What this means is that there is no need to get in a huff about a disappointing grade here or there: it isn't a comment on self-value, and it isn't a comment on projected success out in "the real world" as opposed to this world, the fake one.

Grades have their place. They're a necessary part of education. What they aren't a necessary part of is self-esteem. They don't really matter because they don't define us: what defines us is the changes education makes within us. So maybe I got a B or a C on that last exam, but am I better overall for having taken the class? The lower their grades, the lower their self esteem.

Furthermore… Anxiety about grades and achievement can actually impede performance. While some stress is normal, especially around exam time, and can help to motivate kids to study… Excessive worry and perceived pressure has a negative effect on performance.

It leads to avoidance, of school, homework and study… And it makes thought processing less efficient. Learning is! It discourages academic risk-taking, creativity and engagement… Crucial elements of a productive, rewarding and ultimately successful school experience. As a result, students can lose their desire to learn… And instead, their motivation becomes solely to get through the next assignment or the next test.

They take these setbacks as an opportunity for further learning and growth. While chasing good grades is a finite endeavour it ends when the results come in … A love of learning can — and usually does — last a lifetime. That learning is a privilege, and one that we should value and enjoy. That being challenged is one of the best ways to learn.

Parents can do this by: Promoting a love of learning from a young age, and outside of the school setting. How can we help? Book your initial parent consultation to get the right advice for your child's needs Book Now » Got any questions before you book?

Child and adolescent experts: We only work with school age children, teenagers and parents. Education and school experts: We will help you navigate the school system to get the best possible results for your child. You are unwilling to conform by getting good grades.

You do not believe it is possible to learn for the love of learning and also get good grades. College is a great time to experiment new things and meet new people. Once you have that good school on your resume, you believe your employer will not use grades to differentiate you from your thousands of other classmates.

Why bother studying hard and standing above your competition when there are great shows to watch and places to see? Life is too short to work hard and give yourself the best chance possible to pursue what you want to do. After all, people stick together and look out for their own. There will be people in charge of hiring who did poorly in college.

Both of you are human and deserve to be treated equally. Apparently, it is very rare for other countries except for the United States questionable too, hence this post who use grades as one determinant of whether you will be a hard working, good hire or not. Grades mean nothing because you can always work for your parents company, live off your trust fund , or live off your spouse. You believe most of the cool kids in school who got poor grades will do great.

There is example after example of very successful people who did poorly in school. As you a student, you have years of experience hiring, firing, and building a team.

After all, you are special. All doctors are the same when it comes to performing life saving surgery, so long as they passed the medical exam. Socialism is when there is no personal responsibility and no reward for hard work. You are willing to help your 2. As a result, everybody will eventually stop working hard in order to gain benefits from others, and tremendous progress will be made.

The situation is exactly like the housing boom where anybody who could sign their name could get a loan. It is much easier to change the perception of the thousands of firms, than focus on improving ourselves. Forget about studying hard or going back to grad school to give ourselves a second chance.

We are special and the world must see who we are! Heck, you could even create a simple blog like this one and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in your underwear. They use your real income and expenses to help ensure the scenarios are as realistic as possible. You can then compare two financial scenarios old one vs.

Just link up your accounts. Financial Samurai is one of the largest independently-owned personal finance sites that started in Yeah, it was technically late, but for so many reasons it makes me feel like saying Fuck you to the grading system and focusing on taking my knowledge learned to my future career.

Otherwise, why bother? I think the world is a big place. Me personally I was awful at school dropped out at 19 and starting setting up businesses. Eventually I started buying small distressed debt heavy companies and fixed them. Find the problem get rid of dead-weight and keep cashflow.

Then after a few years I would sell them. Just my. I get my kids to read them. Good stuff. Competing for grades in high school school seems like a joke. I know many people that did mediocre in high school and college but make k by It is useful for the first job you will get. Once you got some experience or achieve things from a different angle, GPA is useless. Check out how much professional bloggers can actually make. Very cool.

How did you land on it? And are you struggling with finding new work due to you GPA? Nope, I got into a top-tier program that pays me well in part because of my GPA but I was trying to find an actual economic analysis of the marginal value of grade points to support a point I wanted to make about paying more rent if it makes undergrad easier, but landed on a Strawman argument list instead. Got it. Feel free to make your own argument. It should stop. Look forward, not backwards. If I am to believe the writing on the Internet, your background qualifies you to make a more detailed and nuanced argument, thus my disappointment to see the same finblog tropes replicated here.

Yes, if your goals are measured in dollars and cents and your talents are not going to get you there. Does hard work and persistence pay off as or more reliably as talent? Wow, truly awesome. A lot of the people commenting have stated just an opinion and then boasted about how great they are and what sets them apart from everyone else.

These are people who have to say something rather than have something to say. Which makes both statements likely false. A university is a safe environment where you can test and push the limits of what are able to learn and can apply without the consequences of screwing up in real life. For example you have the materials and direction to master how to successfully hedge bets on futures without any working capital.

These are the most useless comments that I have ever seen on any website. Please read some research articles on the factors that predict success. These articles study thousands or millions of people to determine the weights of diverse factors. In job interviews, you must somehow demonstrate that you are better suited for the position than the other candidates.

A high GPA in a tough major from a top school says a lot of good things about your intelligence, willingness to learn and determination. Someone without that qualification will have to be quite a salesperson to sell himself in an interview. High yes, 4. LOVE this Blog. Pretty much captures the essence of my financial success and other successes in my life of 49 years. In general, grades do not matter, but there are some conditions on that statement. Grades might have a bearing in the short term right after college or grad school, since for manny fresh-out students that is all they have on their resume to speak of.

Grades might also mean a bit more for certain fields, like medicine and engineering or if you want to be a college professor. I have been an engineer I have M. It simply does not matter at age It did matter first getting hired. Army , after working for several years, I got my master degree from Johns Hopkins with a 4. I worked my butt off for that 4.

I could have easily sailed by with a 2. Getting good grades is admirable, but what is valuable in a career is your ability to communicate, get along with people, influence others, your business acumen, and so on. The value proposition is on the credential itself like a Ph. Now, there are some careers, especially early on, where you really need to learn the technical details, and grades are probably a good measure of your mastery of certain cutting edge skills genome research, particle physics, etc.

I know a lot of folks that are geniuses on paper but dumber than a post in the real world. BTW: I love education and have amassed several thousand hours worth of training through work in my career — all good stuff, I learned a lot, continue to grow a lot, and NO ONE cares about the grade.

But, between us, I still tell my daughter that grades are important, because on some level they are a reflection of you. Grades might be an indicator of your ability to focus, indicate a strong sense of self-worth, and reflect your ability to make a commitment. But I also teach my daughter about all the things that make or break a person in REAL LIFE — things like personal finance, health, relationships, time management, leadership, parenting, standing up for yourself, being proactive and assertive, continuing education sharpen the saw!

Those are the skills that no 4. So, grades are important depending on how you interpret them and how you apply them. Once in the workforce, however, you are just another person with a degree. I just graduated my bachelor with 2. I have my own reason why my GPA is low. No one actually would care to listen and always tell me to stop giving excuse.

My family is poor and every place i went to ask for scholarship tell me i need at least a GPA of 3. Come on!!! People must and has to study their busts off in order to go to good universities. Plus not everyone are born with silver spoon in their mouth. You can gain the world and still lose everything.

I really think getting good grades is supeficial and does not give an idea of the true worth of a person as an asset to an organisation. This is false. This type of thinking is derived from consumer fetishism. When you understand this you will begin to see that most of your cute little grades are worthless.

I honestly hope every 4. I hope they work so hard that they stay at their desk 18 hours a day never to experience any other aspects of life. I hope they work so long that they never have time to develop relationships with their family consequently to be married 3 times.

I hope they buy their large house, cars, boats, televisions, i mean heck double size everything and let them buy it and be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt never to truly own anything they have.

I hope they can never sleep at night or do basic human functions like running a mile because they developed an ideology that their head is separate from the body and that the body is an unnecessary organism getting in the way of making money.

This is the american dream! Live it up guys!!! Or they can slack off at school, get bad grades, limit their choices and be bitter for the rest of their lives. Get good grades to have choices, which includes slacking off if you so choose.

Obviously, your reply and the original post are examples of extreme stereotype. Believe it or not, many physicians regret their choices to enter medicine. I would completely agree with Paul. I would say its not all about money as a substitute for happiness. Get this fallacy out of your head now. Life is so precious and yet we collectively throw it away every second. Wake up and live a little. It held true then and it holds true now. Life goes by way to fast on this pale blue dot.

Enjoy life for yourself and not for the acceptance of others. Who are secretly or not so secretly wishing for your downfall simply to get a moment of joy from your suffering. This is the real human condition. Always will be. Your average 2. What was the reason why you did so poorly in school? I know many Ivy Leaguers who are booksmart yet lack wisdom, historical context, or critical thinking.

College is a data point. If someone has a great GPA and in conversation and action yield above average results, great. But to rely on that as the singular data point that matters disregards other life experiences. While others were graduating college, I had a lot of personal family issues to contend with. Learned a lot in the process, many of it health and gerontology included, that my peers did not have to deal with until recent years.

My grades took a hit as a result. As a matter fact, I ended up viewing grades as a rather artificial construct. As you yourself have noted, grit and effort matters more than talent. And that is what I noted as well. The shit I had to go through in life mattered a lot more than the grades I got. And to those that get hung up on grades, I am fairly confident they also had a pretty sheltered and well-to-do life at their parents expense that allows them to see the world through so rose tinted lenses.

I was excited about reading this until it hit me that this was satire. Grades do matter yes. I work hard in school. I do research. I study all the time. I have a 2. I think the research that I do proves what I am capable of. I think the extracurricular activities and the course projects I have worked on prove what I am capable of.

I think the fact that I go to the school that I go to says a lot! None of that matters when they see 2. The semester I got my first D was the semester I decided to get 8 hrs of sleep 4 nights a week, and try to eat at least 2 meals everyday rather than skip these things to study.

Goodness knows I have no social life! My schedule before then involved classes from 10 am — 4 pm, and homework from 4 pm — 4 am. I would get 5 hrs of sleep if I was lucky, before I started again.

At my school many students develop depression or eating disorders from the stress of the courses. Learning and getting the grade is more important than their personal health and well-being, and for what? A world-renowned education, a vast array of knowledge, and the inability to have anyone take you seriously. My grades neither reflect what I know, nor how hard I work.