Do you think good grades are worth the effort?

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Tell that to this guy.


Let's see...
High-paid? He's a billionaire.
Money? See previous.
Power? He started and runs Virgin, a massive business empire that does pretty much everything. His company is also working on space tourism.

Grades? Not so good... He had poor academic achievement in everything except sport. Plus, he has dyslexia.

I wish I could argue my point further, but I can find no evidence on how he gained the money to open his first store. However, I assume he started at the very bottom and worked his way up using money he had previously saved to open his first store? If that is the case, like with most Entrepreneurs, I would say he was very lucky to actually receive customers to help build up his business. If the business hadn't worked out due to lack of customers, where would he be now? In that sense, Grades aren't only useful for those three pointers (E.G: Bill Gates), but are also useful as a 'safety net' for if your plan fails to work and you decide to join another person's business (E.G: Assuming you wanted to work at Blizzard Entertainment, they would rather accept the person with A Levels in IT and a college degree than the C in IT without a degree, assuming both know various programming languages).

I believe his family lent him his first money.

I do agree that grades are good to fall back on, but for an entrepreneur they are just that: something to fall back on, a plan B. Strictly speaking, it's possible to simply fall back on the benefit system anyway, though I of course don't agree with doing so.

In any case, the type of entrepreneur who will get rich is the type who, at the point of falling back, will then be working on getting back up again into the world of business, therefore making the employment phase of his/her life temporary.

If Branson haden't had customers for his first business, I'm sure he'd have researched what he did wrong and tried something else. Any self-made billionaire will have had to have massive amounts of determination to succeed, that I can guarantee you.

Good grades don't make you rich. It dosen't hurt to have them, of course, but if money and power is what you desire, no job can really give it to you.

A job can give you money and power. Plus these billionaire entrepreneur's need educated people with college degrees and other qualifications in oder to maintain their businesses. I don't think that top grades are always neccessary to be good at a job or make a great living though. But if you want to be a lawyer or doctor you need top grades and those are just some of the jobs where you can gain money and power after getting good grades.

Then I appear to have been misinformed, somewhat. My apologies. I got that information of a friend who claims a family member of his went to the university. However, he could have been incorrect or (most likely) I could have misinterpreted it. Maybe he said 6 A-grade GCSEs?[/quote]

I wouldn't listen to hearsay. Chances are you get told a load of rubbish. If you're really interested in Oxford university you should look at the website for it as it'll give the basic admission requirements although it does vary constantly. Never hurts to start finding out early.

No, it's not worth it. Study what makes you happy and screw formal education.

They can give you money and power, yes, but if you work for someone else you don't have real power, and the money is nothing like what the millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs have. £250,000 a year is considered a very good salary, yet it's pocket change to someone worth £100,000,000 - and even that is a tiny fraction of what Branson is worth! Of course, people like Branson are one of a kind, but pretty much anyone can become millionaires if they really want to.

However, it's a good thing that most people don't start their own businesses and become rich, because like you say, there would be no one to work for the companies!

Again, the fact that you can point out a handful of exceptions does not mean that grades do not lead to greater financial success. It simply demonstrates that exceptions to the rule exist. This is unsurprising, as my argument was based on analysis of statistical means, and not an absolute statement of reality. You cannot point to a few successful dropouts and expect them to stand as valid evidence that success in education does not lead to greater financial rewards.

If you want to start your own business, you don't need qualifications. That's a solid fact.

Success in education, leading to employment, can earn you a good salary, but as I said in my previous post, that's still nothing like the money you can get from a successful business.

True, but then, I never contended that this was not true. However, I think your definition of 'successful business' is flawed. The vast majority of businesses die within the first 10 years of existence. Many of those that survive never grow particularly large. Microsoft is an exception. It is not demonstrative of entrepreneurial efforts on a whole. And while education is not strictly necessary to succeed, it provides a great many assets to would-be entrepreneurs. Education brings with it knowledge, status, social connections with other knowledgeable people, and expertise, all of which are of great value in business.

Of course a lot of businesses fail. In fact, I'm completely certain that all successful entrepreneurs have had failures. But then they tried again.

The stuff you learn in school can help you, of course. But my point is that you don't need qualifications, not that they're useless. I'll be taking my A-Levels myself soon, in fact, but the business I'm starting takes higher priority TBH.

Not just "diploma mills" but plenty of well-regarded doctoral programs all over the country will admit students with relatively low GPAs (I'm talking like 2.8-3.0 here). They would be more interested in any research you've done as an undergraduate and how you do on their entrance exams.

I think it also depends which university you go to, if you're applying for graduate school. I don't think all GPAs are created equal, seeing as not all colleges are as difficult to get into or get through. Plus it depends on which program that you were involved in. I think that most graduate schools (and those just starting to apply to college) look at more than just grades. They look at tests (such as the ACT or SAT, or GRE for graduate school), involvement, letters of recommendation, among other things. It's one of those things where it "just depends". I personally think that grades matter because they keep more doors open for me for longer, and that's good just in case I want to go to go to school for something more sophisticated or needing more education. I also think just absorbing as much of the material you can and taking the most advantage of opportunities offered is important, seeing as most of us are paying out the end for school. It just makes the most sense to me. It frustrates me that some people here blow their money (or their parents' money) drinking and partying every weekend, or in the middle of the week, then flunking out. It's not my problem to worry about, but it's still frustrating, and a bit sad. I don't think it can hurt to have good grades, especially if you're relying on scholarship money and loans to pull you through. To me, having a healthy social life and getting involved on campus is almost as important as good grades. Your education, the friends you make, and the experiences you have while in college are all things that will last and will remember the rest of your life.

I suppose it really does come down to your after school intentions, someone starting a business doesn't really need to even finish high school let alone get straight A's while someone interested in medicine will need the straight A's or else their chances of getting into medicine are much lower.

For example, I'm taking a path which will require a kind of techinical college or apprenticeship (electrician), I wont really NEED good grades for that. One of my friends however, he wishes to be an architect. He needs the A's to get into university. And then you have another student who wishes to become a bricklayer, he wont need any grades whatsover, he will only need the training given on the job.

Interesting, how it works, I wonder where the "normal" office worker fits in, probably the same people with a C average with an average social life, average body and average life.

Good grades are extremely important if you want to go to university or college and it's essential that anybody who wants to progress academically gets them.

I think standardized tests have a much bigger effect. I transferred into U of Minnesota with a 3.16GPA and a 30 on the ACT.