University grades

Just a quick question concerning university grades with emphasis on Australia; do they matter that much in the long run?

I had pretty shocking grades in the first semester -- failed 2 out of the four. Will potential employers look at this and not hire me? For example I got 15% in one subject with an average of about 49% for the others.

I'm doing a commerce degree if that makes a difference.

Thanks a lot.

In America grades generally matter a lot for grad and professional schools and less for work. I don't know how true that is in Australia.

In America, if you are in the workforce for a couple years before going back to grad school, are grades still important? Or is it "You got a 2.8, so you're officially banned from grad school"?

Well it depends huntmich. Some grad/professional is more gpa driven than others. You could get into good MBA programs if your work experience was good. Probably good engineering too. If your work experience was relevant to the grad program you wanted to get into and you were accomplished I think you'd do ok in general. I don't think for instance a 2.8 that was a professional novelist would have any problem getting into english PhD programs, but i might be wrong. law/med would be very tough though as thats very numbers driven but if it was a long time ago when grading was different and your MCAT/LSATs were truly outstanding I don't think you'd be autoreject everywhere. For the sciences research experience is very important. I bet you could get into a TTT masters program, do well and get into a leet PhD program if you had cool undergrad, work or masters research done.


There are many grad programs that are really really easy to get into (like almost open admissions), so if you don't care about location or quality of program and you're not trying to get an MD or JD you can probably get in somewhere even with a 2.8.

I think it also depends on what year you're in. I don't know about commerce, but in my degree (psychology) first year marks don't affect anything. To get into honours they only consider second and third year, and I've never heard of anyone not getting a job because of their first year marks. They matter more the further into your degree you get.

Anyway, there's not much you can do about it now, other than try and boost your overall grades by getting the best marks possible in your other subjects. And work experience helps too if you want to go on to graduate study. My understanding is that while honours admission tends to be based on marks, for most masters courses they look at experience as well. dm3's comment about the novelist seems pretty accurate to me - I know two people who have recently gotten into masters degrees at melbourne uni (art and english) with average marks but a lot of professional experience.

But like I said, I know nothing about commerce and what employers look for - perhaps you could speak to a lecturer or course advisor or someone else at uni? They might be able to give you a better idea of how your marks will affect you.

Living_life I personally wouldn't worry about it. Just retake the classes and you'll be fine.

1st Year counts for dick all anyway. Your overall mark will only be used to determine whether or not you get into honours. Yes a higher overall grade could help you to get more job interviews, but you don't get the job just based on your marks anyway. If you are shit hot at classes, but a useless sack of flesh in terms of personality, you'll still have a difficult time getting a job. People need to be able to work with you remember

Don't worry about a couple of fails in first year. Just re-take the classes and get on with your degree

CB

dm3 said:

I bet you could get into a TTT masters program,

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LOL! I didn't expect to find that acronym here.

I can't speak for Austrailia, but in the US, grades matter. Pretty much every undergrad major requires a 2.0+ minimum cum GPA in the major area of study to graduate, and a minimum for non-major degree requirements as well.

Grad schools are pretty grade-driven to a point. The most common cutoff here for grad-school material GPA is 3.0. For competitive programs, 3.5+, and bare minimums at TTT's of 2.5, often entering under academic probation.

For the most part, jobs here won't directly ask you your UGPA during the interview, but it's not unheard of.

You should be able to ask this kind of question to someone in the UG advisement office at your school for a more regional-specific answer.

HTH

Cheers everyone. I sort of see now that it doesn't matter that much since I probably dont want to do postgrad and I'll take it on the chin and keep going. It was just hard because at melbourne university if you don't get over say 60% you are very much looked down upon.

Oh yeah your first semester grades don't mean shit. When you get a job as a hedge investment anesteiologist, no one is going to care that you failed a few intro courses.



TTT is the best at college acronyms =)

Living_life said:

Cheers everyone. I sort of see now that it doesn't matter that much since I probably dont want to do postgrad and I'll take it on the chin and keep going. It was just hard because at melbourne university if you don't get over say 60% you are very much looked down upon.

Click to expand...

Remember that P's make degrees!!

I managed to come through pretty damn well at Sydney Uni even though I had only a very low pass average (about 53ish) for my entire 2nd year... I ended up missing first class honours by 1.5 marks... but hey.

1st year doesn't really count, 2nd and 3rd year will mean a hell of a lot more for your final average grade anyways.

So yeah

You'll be right

CB

I do know that some in Oz some Gov't Grad programs require a credit minimum score to apply for their jobs. I have 'heard' that when going for proffessional jobs employers are increasingle looking at GPA's when Hiring. Yet personally a degree is a degree still these days, I think most dont really care too much.

However when it comes to the crunch in an interview, And an employer is looking at two very similar very good candidates. They cant decide which one, they ask them what their GPA's were; person A says 3.5 person b says 5.8. Person B gets hired.

I'm going to have to be a bitch here and say that grades do matter, in business disciplines. Most of the better companies have a first round elimination based entirely on grades, so if you have lower than an 80 average, you can kiss consulting or the bigger, more reputable companies goodbye. It just depends on what you're targeting, professionally.

Having said that, I stuffed up a couple of subjects in first year and came back OK - it helps to have a plausible story for why you did poorly. Companies won't hire someone whose academic record suggests they're lazy

Agree with CB that 2nd and 3rd year are more important, but if you're failing first year units you're going to need to pick up your quality of work a lot to pass the higher units. Good luck!

For higher degress (honours at least) your first year marks don't count at all. I did the same honours degree as Aunty and although my first year marks were good, I was told they didn't count in the slightest for my honours admission.

Not sure about business though... I had my current job lined up before I finished my degree and they didn't indicate if they cared about 1st year marks.