Why is PhD GPA considered irrelevant?

Question

The importance of a recent PhD’s GPA was recently dismissed in another question (What does an industry recruiter want to know my Ph.D. GPA for?).

Why isn’t GPA considered relevant for graduate study?

Answer 1

Simple: a graduate degree (esp. PhD) is about research. GPA doesn't measure research ability to any extent.

Answer 2

The PhD is a ~6 year degree, and most classes are in the first year or two. As others have said, the classes are really incidental; the PhD is about doing original research. There is also the question of normalization: GPAs must be interpreted in terms of the subject, the quality of the school in that subject, and the student's specialization.

Given this, the graduate GPA is only useful internally, to flag students who are doing unsatisfactorily in the coursework, or to help advisors choose students -- advisors have the necessary context to interpret course grades. In contrast, some bozo in HR will not have the context to decide whether a GPA of 3.5 from Harvard in Music is more impressive than a GPA of 3.8 from NC State in Chemistry.

Answer 3

One more point: in some cases, a graduate course may be simply an opportunity for students to attend a series of advanced lectures on a particular topic. There may not be any homework, exams, papers, or coursework at all. In such cases a grade will be assigned more or less arbitrarily, perhaps just an A for every student who showed up to most of the lectures and/or asked some pertinent questions. So the grade really doesn't indicate anything about the student's knowledge or skill, and this will tend to make the GPA less meaningful.

Answer 4

I would like to extend xuq01's answer a bit:

Simple: a graduate degree (esp. PhD) is about research. GPA doesn't measure research ability to any extent.

For those who wonder why, here is my take.

• Grades are mostly relative. PhD programs usually have too few students all studying unique subjects so they can't be graded relative to each other.
• Most PhD programs are different and hardly comparable even within one field or one university. Without standardized curriculum, grading on absolute scale is pretty much impossible.
• Formal grades are given by someone who is superior. By definition, a successful completion of a PhD program makes you an independent peer researcher with no one on top to "grade" you.

So even if a university provides PhD GPA, it will at best be interpreted as some in-faculty fraction-measure to track early-stage performance.

Answer 5

In the case where you do have a GPA during your PhD, it's frequently irrelevant and largely the result of some arcane bureaucratic requirements.

After my wife defended her thesis and requested her transcripts, she was surprised to discover that she had been taking 12 units of a class called something like "continuing research". Her university had automatically enrolled her and her advisor had actually given her a letter grade in the course every three months for the past four years.

He gave her an A every quarter, because that's what was required for the university to continue paying her tuition.

Answer 6

The primary purpose of a PhD is to create an independent researcher and add to the existing knowledge in a given field. The secondary purpose may be to train the doctoral student on the 'tools of the trade', which includes practical knowledge of experimental/modelling/other techniques, as well as the fundamental knowledge needed to use those tools.

Completion of the primary objective is judged by a thesis (or equivalent research output). The secondary objective may be judged, in some part, by exam scores/GPA. Therefore, the GPA counts less than the actual research output. This is why some PhD programmes waive off coursework altogether. Similarly, completion of PhD is based on thesis acceptance, not coursework completion.

This is in contrast to say, undergraduate study, where the primary objective is to teach the fundamental knowledge. Any research work is generally intended to acquaint the student with research methodology, not to generate actual output. Therefore, the GPA is more relevant as a primary metric.

It may be further argued that even in undergrad (1) GPA is not the best measure (2) A low GPA student may turn out to be an excellent researcher later. These may be true, but until a better, standardised system is devised, the existing system stands.

Answer 7

FWIW,

I remember hearing the same thing when I did my Ph.D., "grade point is irrelevent" and I was starting to act on that. Had a buddy tell me "BS" and I then decided to get a 4.0. And this from a guy with Harvard capability but always an underperformer (3.3. in HS, college, nuke school: which are progressively harder...but still NEVER to my capability).

I still did publications and talks and lab work and the rest of the stuff. But that 4.0 helped me get a LOT of interviews, get into McKinsey, etc. So...I would just be a little cagey when people tell you the GPA is irrelevant. Yes, you need to "bring it" on research also. But get good grades too. It's not that hard. Doesn't hurt anything. And looks great on a resume.

Answer 8

My take on this is the fact that most reputable schools will dismiss students with low GPA. But even if GPA is sub par, if a graduate student gets to the point that an unbiased committee will award this highest degree, proficiency has been demonstrated. Is a PhD from A with GPA 3.2 really different from a PhD from B with a GPA 3.5? Probably not in any meaningful way.

Answer 9

That GPA from the PhD is irrelevant is not entirely true.

If you proceed with a career in the industry, other things count more, like for example just the fact that you could focus for so long on a specific goal, had the ambition, discipline, persistence and self-organization skills to finish quite an extensive, exhausting and more often than not frustrating project successfully. This is quite a statement about you as personality from the perspective of any head-hunter in industry. The more or less subjective perception of the supervisor of how well did you do your research however is naturally not the priority.

Things look a bit different, if you intend to proceed with career in academics. Then the GPA (or the "evaluation" of your PhD as we have it in Germany) suddenly becomes important. How important also depends on the research group, research field and the region where you are, but in general, it is more often really important than not. In Germany (and most of the EU) for instance it would be extremely hard to apply for research grants and funding (especially as a young, just starting-trough researcher) if the evaluation/grade of your PhD is anything but "with excellence". In some fields, it could kill entirely the chances for career in academics or in a specific research group (especially if it's closely affiliated with the supervisor who gave the grade).

So, it depends a lot. And yes, there are situations, where it is quite important:)

Answer 10

The answer to this question is highly dependent on the way the school's course structure is set up. At my institution, a GPA would be meaningless. At the majority of institutions I have been associated with or worked with (all in the United States), the setup has been very similar:

In our first year, we take 4 core classes and must get a B or higher (3.0 grade points) or drop the program. After this, we may take 2-3 optional electives but these courses have no formal examinations and simply require giving presentations. By the way, you can sometimes get out of these courses or get infinite extensions on projects if you are in the middle of writing a grant or paper revisions. The rest of the time, for the purposes of tuition, we are enrolled in a 3-9 hour credit course called "Research Problems" which is automatically awarded an A unless your adviser intervenes (it's 3-9 hours to fill the remainder of credit hours so the student is taking a total of 9 credit hours). "Research Problems" corresponds to the fact that after the first year, you are just doing research. The vast majority of students are much more likely to drop the program than they are to continuously get poor grades for Research Problems so we can assume they would receive A's.

Why is the GPA meaningless? I took 14 semesters to graduate for a total of 126 credit hours. The classes made up roughly 20 of my total credit hours. Since the lowest grade I could make on these courses was a B (3.0), the remaining 106 credit hours would be A's (4.0). This amounts to a 3.84 as the lowest possible GPA I could have had. But this is not in any way reflective of the student's actual performance in their classes which is what the GPA is really measuring. If a recruiter asked me for this, I would assume they have no idea how graduate programs are structured or it was just a formality.

What a recruiter should ask for, if it matters (I can't see why it would), is the grades the applicant received in a class. I would still argue that this doesn't really tell anyone much of anything. In my candidacy examinations, the committee received a copy of my transcript beforehand so they could see the grades I made in my first year classes so they could ask question to test if I still had gaps in these areas. They would not have let me pass if they felt I was not ready. I could not have published any first author papers if I was still struggling with an introductory level class.

As a side note, having trained many undergraduates, the correlation between research aptitude and grade point average is not nearly as tight as one might think.

Answer 11

In a PhD program you don't take many classes, and 90% of your efforts are focused on research (the other 10% is split between TA'ships and classes). This is because you are being trained for a specific purpose, i.e., to do research. The ability to create, carry out, and report a research project is what you are there to perfect. Classes are good supplements to hone this process, but are mostly just a distraction. Similarly, evaluating a PhD on grades is like judging a carpenter on how quickly he can work out math problems, or recall how many teeth are on a saw. If he can frame a house to code, do those things really matter? Sure, they help him get there, but you look at the product he has been trained to produce when assessing his talents.

Generally, there is only one time when GPA really matters (and I say this loosely). This is when applying to grant agencies, in my case, NSERC.

Tangibly, GPA can play a big role in seeking employment. If an employer asks for your PhD GPA, this is an indication that you are in the wrong building, talking to the wrong person. Leaving immediately can save you some potential hassle down the road!! :D

Answer 12

Your GPA got you into your PhD program… What is important now is your intellectual curiosity, your uncompromised integrity, and the ability to see things that others do not see.

GPAs lack external validity. Your internal validity is untenable because you understand what is important and..

what is not