Is there evidence for it not remaining a strong signal?
Once you have work experience, either from your first few jobs, or for some from internships, then your school rarely matters. It's not like you learned some revolutionary thing that is exclusive to MIT 20 years ago, or that whatever you learned is even applicable for that matter.
They take these two week courses at these universities. And then they put it at the top of the "education" section of their resume.
It's like $99.99 prices.
Against all human logic, people just cannot look past the magic words "Harvard University." And people aren't dumb, they know it's a two week, meaningless course.
Doesn't matter. Lizard brain sees Harvard.
... then your gpa rarely matters. But your school always matters. Not only in terms of network, but in terms of reputation, prestige and even camaraderie. Especially the higher you go up the ladder when more and more people tend to be graduates of top schools.
Nobody will ask about your GPA as you get further along in your career. But everyone will ask about your alma mater. You eventually stop putting your GPA on your resume, even if you had a 4.0. But you always put the college you graduated from.
I always failed math classes, but I transform to something different if I have to apply that math. I get a +3 modifier instantly.
Same in programming. I can tackle much harder problems than my peers, but my grades didn’t show that.
Result? I got my Ph.D., work at a reputable institution, and I’m happy. I’m also continuing a side academic gig.
I personally don’t care about GPAs of people I interview too.
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound dismissive. I've written this comment on mobile, in a short time, which proved to be a bad idea.
I wanted to say "I don't believe GPA to be a good indicator regarding capabilities and intelligence of a person". That dismissive sounding "No" was a direct answer to
> I'm not sure your GPA really matters even for your first job.
And, I tried to say "No, it doesn't matter from my perspective".
> I don't think your experience is representative.
It's certainly possible. I was not an ordinary student when I was an undergrad due to both my past and my interest in computers.
Part of the reason for grade inflation is that it helps with those sorts of admissions down-the-line. US News looks at median GPA when evaluating law schools, which has a bunch of trickle-down effects, one of the major ones being that law schools weigh GPA very strongly.
That problem is not exclusive to law schools.
It's kind of laughable that we still rely on GPAs. The solution would be to convert college grades into a kind of item response theory measure of fitness for each student (equivalent to like the degree of difficulty of test questions). You could do it within a school so that you can create a better measure of ability that controls for difficulty of majors or individual classes.
You could create one nationally as well, though getting data combined together would be a pain. Something like SAT/ACT/GRE scores might help when comparing between schools. Or grades of students who transfer schools.
They say that, but they don't. When someone is rejected they will say it was because of a low GPA. But people are accepted based on their LSAT scores. Do well on the LSAT and your undergrad GPA is almost meaningless.
Each school would set a target median LSAT and GPA for the year's class because they were weighted heavily in the US News rankings. Applicants with both scores at or above the target median would get scholarships, applicants with one number at or above the median would be presumptively admitted, diverse applicants with solid numbers were admitted to fill out the class once LSAT and GPA were set, and then there would be a half-dozen or fewer judges' kids, politicians' kids, etc.
I get the comments about better processes for admitting better / more diverse / healthier / whatever students, and it's trivial to come with them, but so long as US News wags the dog, that ain't happening.
Corollary: If your LSAT score is good enough, GPA is irrelevant for admissions. If your GPA is good enough, LSAT is irrelevant for admissions. Both need to be high for scholarships.
The only thing less objectively "elite" than the American investment firm is the American House of Representatives.
Been in the industry for 20 years and never seen nepotism on the trading floor.
The quants own the trading floor.
The Yale crowd owns private equity and investment banking. Why? Because private equity and investment banking involve "literally talking to rich old white people" for a living.
Hence they hire the sons of the friends of said old white relics to powwow with them.
However, you can be absolutely sure that the quants pull in the big bucks.
Trading pays far more than investment banking.
Makes sense. Given what I know of the course material, it seems like a very solid indicator of the mathematical capabilities of a person.
Maybe it doesn't matter for software engineers, but it matters a lot for the power structure of our society.