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[Phys-L] GPA (was: rounding)



On 08/24/2012 03:36 PM, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:
I find the 3.0 lower limit to be disconcerting all on its own.

We agree on that!

Since
education schools routinely give A's out like candy (and a B is a
"gentleman's" pass for making the effort to show up), a 2.9999999999
does not impress me in the least. Rounding up is the least of the
worries here.

We agree that that example is sufficient to prove that looking at
the GPA is ludicrous ... but there is more to the story.

Education schools that "routinely give A's out like candy" are not
the only schools. I assure you that Princeton does not do that.
http://www.princeton.edu/odoc/faculty/grading/

Are you seriously trying to tell us that somebody with a B- GPA
from Princeton does not have sufficient intellectual capacity to
teach grade school across the river in Philadelphia?

We agree that imposing a GPA requirement is ludicrous. It's the
sort of thing that gives mindless bureaucracy a bad name.

My point is that a 3.0 GPA requirement is simultaneously too low
/and too high/ ... depending on details. See also my previous note.

While we are mentioning anecdotes: Tell us what you would do with
an applicant who graduated from college with a C average, yet got
a 990 on the physics GRE. (I've seen it happen.)

If you ask me, this goes to show that GPAs and GREs are both nonsense.

Also, tell us what you would do with an applicant who had a C average
and absolutely abysmal GRE scores ... yet had been teaching upper-
division college courses since he was 17 years old, because he was a
brilliant engineer and a gifted teacher. (I've seen that, too.)