Students simultaneously hate and worship it. They hide it from their parents and obsess over raising it. They take easy classes to avoid detrimental losses and plead with professors when the outcome looks bleak. But does any of it really matter?
A GPA can make or break a student’s semester. Defined as a numerical representation of the quality of students’ work by Penn State, students have been taught from first grade the supposed importance of achieving a grade that looks good on paper.
There are several aspects of the GPA that may fall short of providing an accurate assessment of a student’s academic capabilities.
One of the GPA’s biggest setbacks is the role it serves as an incentive for students to take classes that are far below their intellectual capacity.
If a student had the choice between taking an introductory communications class and an upper division physics class, it’s likely that they would go with communications, even if they enjoyed physics, just to preserve the integrity of their GPA.
So, if students are not challenging themselves academically, could the GPA actually be stunting students’ performance instead of encouraging them to do better?
Another setback of the GPA is that it doesn’t take into account a student’s people skills. You may be thinking that people skills don’t matter if you know your major upside down and inside out, but you’re wrong.
A student’s ability to meet new people, carry a conversation and maintain a relationship is too often disregarded as an important skill set.
The website My Education Times noted the importance of social skills, saying, “Companies need people who can work in teams, who can communicate well, have strong interpersonal skills and a have a knack of problem solving, delegating work, motivating and team building.”
Many professors grade students on participation in order to measure a skill that is often subjective and not conducive to the confines of a letter grade, but this is not sufficient.
This is where extra-curricular activities, jobs and, yes, even partying play a vital role in a student’s success in college.
All three of these platforms test a student’s social skills more than most classrooms.
The GPA also fails to distinguish a student’s strengths from their weaknesses. Instead, it aggregates a student’s triumphs with their failures and spits out a number that often falls far below a number that would accurately represent a student’s knowledge in a specific skill set.
None of this matters if prospective employers look over your transcripts, but who is to say that they won’t just take your GPA at face value?
While there are many disadvantages to the GPA system, there are also potential benefits that must be recognized if an effective change is ever to take place.
As much as students hate it, their GPA can make or break their resumé. While it may not be as accurate of a representation as many of us would like, it does provide some arbitrary measure of a student’s focus, performance level and consistency.
There will always need to be a uniform measure of students’ abilities; otherwise, the post-undergraduate process of finding a job or applying to graduate schools would be too difficult.
However, the GPA needs to be retrofitted to encourage students to challenge themselves, recognize the importance of social finesse and highlight students’ talents.
Reach the columnist at lweinick@asu.edu Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
