A high GPA does not necessarily mean you’re smarter, but it is one of the few indicators of academic ability and potentially an indicator of intelligence. Some employers put a lot of emphasis on GPA, while others don’t. Those who don’t put emphasis on GPA often mention that outside factors could negatively affect GPA. For example, a student may need to have a full-time job while in college to pay for school, and a heavy workload can impact grades.
Nonetheless, and disclaimers aside, we looked at AfterCollege members’ GPAs and here is what we found:
-AfterCollege users have an average GPA of 3.31, compared to the national average of 3.11*
-AfterCollege users who signed up through AfterCollege-powered career networks at academic departments and groups have an average GPA of 3.35
-Average GPA varies by discipline
*Source: National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities - http://gradeinflation.com/
One could argue that our averages are higher because those who self-report their GPA are also those who are more likely to have higher grade point averages. We looked at our sample though, and found a fairly even number of people reporting GPAs across the board.
GPA may not be the ultimate measure of intelligence, but we’d like to think that our users are smarter than the rest.
Methodology used to calculate average GPA
Out of all registered AfterCollege users, we looked at those who provided their GPA. We then excluded those who had provided non-numeric GPAs or GPAs outside the 4.0 scale. We were left with 174,476 users with GPAs that we could use to calculate averages. The overall GPA was calculated by taking the average of these 174,476 users. We then calculated GPA averages for each discipline by segmenting the users by major. Note: All GPAs are self-reported.
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