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Galloping Past the GPA
School’s been a blast. You’ve gotten to hang out with the crew, play a lot of ball, and you’ve gone to a lot of great parties. Your courses have been pretty rough, but you’ve done a decent job. Big things are in the works; you’ve got huge plans for that huge college. You snag your GPA at the school office and find out it’s running a little lower than you thought. Now you’re freaked! How can you breeze past the competition and into the big time when your grade point average isn’t the front-runner?

Stacking the Standards

The college acceptance track is paved with admission standards. Universities like MIT and Stanford don’t focus on numeric grading, but the challenge level of courses taken in school. Others, like University of Texas, automatically accept the top 10% of graduating classes as entering freshmen.

There are a lot of people chasing down acceptance to universities, so you have to make yourself stand out from the other runners. Learn what college admissions departments are looking for in a student. Call the admissions department or look at the Website for the college you want to attend. Even though your numbers may not be the best, strong writing skills, extracurricular activities, and participation in organizations help when you’re applying. "Broad areas like strong leadership experience, interpersonal skills, and international travel are included by admissions," says Lynne Milburn, director of the Career Exploration Center at the University of Texas.

That four-year-or-longer marathon through college is tiring enough, and now you have to catch your second wind for that career-track dash. So how important will that little number be when you’re gearing for the workforce? Will that low GPA be a hurdle in front of that sweet job?

"Experience is so much more important in the work force than the GPA. Nobody has ever asked me my GPA, they want to know I have a degree and experience," says Milburn. She advises students to be prepared when meeting an employer who does care about a grade point average. Have an answer ready to explain a low GPA when asked, but don’t give the interviewer a fairy tale as to why the grades aren’t so great. "You want to be honest without diminishing who you are," she says.

Here are some more of her great tips for raising your market value:

• Show off: Get a portfolio together if you’re in a field like journalism or graphic design. Having examples of your best work says to employers, "Hey, look what I can do!"
• Work for free: Find employers in your field and offer to work without pay for a short time, or get an internship or part-time job doing what you want to do. These will score you some references for your Résumé, or even better, get you hired full time!
• Play up your plusses: Is your low GPA due to that elective basket-weaving course that has nothing to do with your career? If you can, figure out the GPA only for your major and include that on your Résumé.

Also, no matter what, be sure to show interest. "I know one student who had a really bad semester. At 7:30 in the morning, they came to campus and looked good for a recruiter," Milburn says. "This particular person had a doughnut in hand and coffee for the recruiter, and she got an interview."

Showing an admissions officer or future employer that you’re willing to go that extra mile can put you way ahead of the competition. Sure, your GPA won’t win any beauty contests, but you’re obviously willing and able. There are ways around a sunken GPA, but you have to figure out which works best for you.

Have any great ideas for boosting a college application in spite of a lazy GPA? Drop us a line!