Contrary to what the title of this article might suggest, GPA is an important metric. It is most likely the best gauge of academic ability available at present. After all, a biology student with a 4.0 can withstand the rigors of medical school, at least to a greater extent than many of their peers.
But let’s not discredit the biology student with a 3.5, who spends their time learning extracurricular topics in biochemistry instead of studying for an elective that serves them no purpose. This decision will leave them more prepared for medical school than most applicants. But on paper, it hurts their chances of acceptance.
Let’s also address the literature student who receives a C in their required science course because they were busy reading Dostoevsky (which is, in my opinion, a far more rewarding pursuit). Does their inability to recite the Krebs cycle from memory negate their first-rate critical thinking skills? Not in the slightest.
The obvious counter to this point is that GPA reflects a student’s willingness to work hard, and hard workers excel even in matters they loathe.
This is silly.
After college, how often will a mechanical engineer be asked to analyze a poem? How often will a writer need to remember trigonometry? How often will a doctor have to recall the start and end dates of World War I to save a patient’s life?
At the end of the day, an individual chooses their major in part because they enjoy its subject matter, but also because it excludes topics they would prefer to avoid. When they eventually enter the workforce, they will surely be required to perform tasks that bore them, but these tasks will nonetheless revolve around their field of choice.
Moving on, a high grade—at least in STEM classes—does not necessarily indicate that a student understands classroom material. I’ve had classmates who aced calculus courses by simply memorizing the steps of every problem in our textbook; if asked to apply concepts of differentiation to the real world, they would fail miserably.
Can you blame them?
The time required to understand math far exceeds the time required to learn how to DO math. Once a student finishes reading through every theorem and proof in their textbook, they have no time to solve practice problems before their exam. If they can attain a better outcome with less effort, why wouldn’t they do so?
What I’m getting at is that GPA as a metric fails to achieve its intended purpose, which is to incentivize learning. Rather, it encourages students to devise clever strategies that make them seem smart.
Most college students face an almost unendurable workload, consisting of challenging courses, endless extracurricular commitments and personal adversity that is all but ignored by the people in charge. Consequently, they must seize any opportunity that allows them to lighten the weight on their shoulders, even if this means finding ways to achieve high marks without deeply comprehending their coursework.
The job market is competitive, and students must therefore do whatever is necessary to gain an advantage. It is not their fault that the education system has flaws that can be exploited. It is the fault of the architects of this system, who alone bear the onus of fixing it.
Now that we’ve reached this point in the article, I feel obliged to make a confession: over my three years at Auburn, I have spent countless hours worrying about maintaining a high GPA. I have wasted weeks—if not months—of my life memorizing exceptions to principles of organic chemistry, learning to solve obscure math problems that I would never again encounter, and meticulously reading through every detail of my history textbooks to ensure that I would perform highly on tests.
While at Auburn, I have made invaluable intellectual progress, but my perfectionism and pedantry have undoubtedly stunted my growth. The little details that I so often crammed in my brain to receive an A, rather than a B or C, left faster than they entered, and ultimately, all the extra effort was meaningless. During this time, I could have been with my friends, read a good book or learned something that would have proven useful to my future. But instead, I succumbed to the pressure to be academically perfect.
On the other hand, many of my friends and peers, some of whom I’d classify as brilliant, have made better use of their time, and are far more equipped than I as a result. They saw through the superficiality of transcripts which hinders so many, including myself.
As I write this, I can’t help but feel hypocritical, as I am unsure that my approach will change. But I hope to muster up the courage to choose the most practical and efficient approach to my schooling, not the one that solely makes me appear desirable.
Having a high GPA is important; it usually carries significant weight in hiring and grad school admissions processes after college. However, as a measure of practical ability, it has obvious shortcomings. Thus, students are faced with a quandary: they must either prioritize appearing skillful on paper, or prioritize being skillful. I’d guess that the correct choice lies somewhere in between.
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