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Comment by throwaway1af | Hacker News Reader

> "who was tragically underemployed for years because of his low GPA in college. We declined to hire him and I was told that his low GPA meant that he couldn't be very smart"

I need some advice related to this. Years ago, I started undergrad at a top school and had a full ride. Unfortunately, I fell ill, which lead me to fail most of my classes. After losing the scholarship, I dropped out, started a few companies, and made enough to pay for my education. This time around my grades are great, but my GPA is still trash.

I'm terrified I'm going to be judged and overlooked because of this.

Do you all have any suggestions as to how I should deal with this when approaching employers?

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Just leave your GPA off of your resume. I was surprised to read that in this article, my GPA wasn't great but I've never been turned down for a job because of it. In my experience, companies only ask about your transcript if you're a new college grad.

Agree with other responses that you really just shouldn't volunteer it. But if you're finding employers that you want to work for insist on seeing your GPA, you can reframe which part of your educational experience you calculate it based on.

- If you got an AA with a low GPA but a high GPA in the last two years before the BA, just give it for the last two years and say its a different degree program.

- Ditto if you re-enrolled at a different school. Many schools only consider your GPA at that school for the purposes of reporting it.

- Or if you went to grad school, just share your GPA from grad school. If I see a 4.0 in an MBA program I'm not going to ask what the undergrad GPA is.

If its really causing a problem there are one-year Masters.

My advice would be to not volunteer your gpa or transcripts and to avoid companies that want them. Apart from government jobs I haven't found very many that need a transcript

I've never mentioned my GPA to any job I've applied for. If they want that information, they can verify my degree while they do the background and credit checks.

When I worked on software for originating student loans, it was easy to pull that information from a web service we used.

> I dropped out, started a few companies, and made enough to pay for my education.

Don't bother with GPA then, this sounds like something you could focus on instead. GPA is only relevant for new grads without any real experience.

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