To think academic success truly does not matter

[Hotstuff18]

Firstly, this isn’t sour grapes. I went to a very prestigious RG university and was always the annoying girl with my hand up at school (ah misspent youth 😂). However, in almost all the adults I know now their academic outcomes have had literally no bearing on their lives now in their late 30’s and early 40’s. In my own life, my A’s at A level count for absolutely nothing when my part time teacher salary is absolutely dwarfed by my non academic DH’s who spent most of his time at school messing around and smoking behind the bike sheds. At work, a lot of my colleagues didn’t do that well in their own exams and now do the exact same job as me. Many friends who work in trade jobs having left school at 16 earn very impressive salaries meanwhile others with top grades in their exams earn low money. One particular example that always sticks out to me is a lady who lives down the street, who’s also a teacher, absolutely bombed her exams as she spent the whole time partying (whilst I spent most of year 13 diligently writing up notes and doing practice essays) and yet we ended up living on the same street doing the exact same job. I’m not bitter about this at all, I absolutely love my life however, I do regret not just having more fun at school and not worrying about my grades because it really hasn’t paid off. Obviously, for certain jobs such as medicine too grades are needed but for the vast majority it truly doesn’t matter at all. I have definitely learned my lesson on it with my own DC and have never excessively pushed them and my main priority has always been their social progress/happiness at school rather than grades, which I think will honestly stand them in far better stead than getting all 9’s in their GCSE’s. Aibu?

Academic success absolutely matters. It doesn't meant that you can't be financially successful if you did poorly at school or university, or that getting a first somehow guarantees you will be a millionaire by 25, but you have a very small social circle if the correlation between academic success and earnings isn't pretty obvious. The fact that your As at a-level haven't led to a high paying career is significantly because you chose a relatively low paying field and have chosen* to be part time. The majority of people who got very poor grades in school are not earning a fortune now in trades - you notice the ones who are.

The more interesting debate for me in the age of institution blind job applications is whether it's worth going to a 'top' university where you will have to work harder to get a 2.1, or whether it's better to go to a less academic one and be more likely to get a first (or 2.2 and 2.1, but you get my point) or have more time to get work experience/participate in extra curriculars whilst at uni. As someone who went to Oxbridge I do question if it would be worth it for my kids now (should they even want to go/get in).

*I say 'chose' as you mention your DH is a high earner so presumably your family wasn't forced for one person to go part time because you couldn't afford childcare.

Also....

... This

My A level grades were a means to an end. They don't matter now, but without them I wouldn't have got onto the degree course that I did, and that has certainly affected my career.

YANBU. Not everyone is academic. You can’t force it. There will be other things that non academic kids will good at, practical skills are just as important. They might be good at sport, music, drama, cooking, craft, art. My Dad isn’t academic in the slightest but still managed to set up and run a business. It’s not the be all and end all.

It matters in my job - top grades throughout, 1st/2:1 are minimum requirements, but it's also a profession that tends to pay >£100k. i earn 6 figures working part time. I am surprised that someone who did so badly in their exams is a teacher. Maybe if teaching paid better it would be more selective and could demand higher grades (which I am assuming would also improve quality). Your profession is underpaid and undervalued if they will let pretty much anyone do it regardless of results and you should feel annoyed about that if nothing else. Who knows what it will look like in 10-15 years time. If pay is increased then grades may well start to matter a lot more.

The more interesting debate for me in the age of institution blind job applications is whether it's worth going to a 'top' university where you will have to work harder to get a 2.1, or whether it's better to go to a less academic one and be more likely to get a first (or 2.2 and 2.1, but you get my point) or have more time to get work experience/participate in extra curriculars whilst at uni. As someone who went to Oxbridge I do question if it would be worth it for my kids now (should they even want to go/get in).

As with all these things, it depends on the individual. My dd very consciously made that choice - she opted for Cambridge because it would be a challenge. She had a good social life there too, great work experience in the summer vac.

I guess some people prefer being a big fish in a smaller pond but it's not the right choice for everyone.

There are of course exceptions but data shows that those with higher levels of educational attainment tend to have higher average salaries.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281936/average-salary-by-education-level-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

Whether that means they are happier and more ‘successful’ depends how you define that.

Same here and the only people I know who have succeeded without at least a 2.1 at university are white men in their late 40s or older. There may be some white women who have now retired as well!

My DH is also in a very technical role he could not do without his degree. It depends doesn’t it, I mean I know plenty of people in my family (we are immigrants and my parents were barely literate) but they’re well off cos they built businesses. But that’s long hours and days; including weekends. It doesn’t mean they’re not bright they didn’t get an education.

I think they’d prefer an easier life where they could have got an education and been able to read and write properly. They got by and are well off but have had to do physical jobs, and rely on us for support for the business/tech/accounts side of stuff. Education is a gift, my Nan can’t read so she’s never read a book. so I agree it’s not about results and you can make your way in life but an education is a gift.

I agree it depends on the person but there's no question that you will have to work harder for a 2.1 at Oxbridge than a 2.1 at pretty much any other university. Some will thrive on that and the ridiculous pressure (I did), but from a strict career success perspective (and outside academia) I'm not sure that aiming for the best university you can is necessarily actually the best advice anymore. Oxbridge opened doors for me, but if institution blind recruiting takes off then that's over.

It's always taken as a default that people should go to the top university their grades allow, but increasingly that's not necessarily the right choice in my opinion.

You chose to go into teaching. As you’ve realised you don’t have to be exceptionally intelligent to be a teacher which is reflected in their salaries. I realise my opinion is not a popular one!

change your career path - if you’re as intelligent as you claim that shouldn’t be a problem.

If your only metric is how much money you make, then no. The richest (hundreds of millions-rich) people I know have no university education.

If your metric, especially for girls and women, is quality of life then you’re totally wrong. Education gives you choices, it allows you to go into the world with less fear, to advocate for yourself, protect yourself, look after your family. It gives you the opportunity to walk away. That’s priceless. Whether other things and other choices get in the way is another question - but without a good education those factors would only be aggravated.

Generally I disagree, the wealthiest person I know did law at Oxford and was a partner in a corporate law firm before retiring.

The highest earner I know is under 30, did maths at Cambridge and now works in the city trading stocks.

In my household I have a masters and professional qualifications, my DH has a PhD. We won’t earn astronomical salaries but our academic achievements have led us to to jobs where we will always be comfortable. Generally well paid, with options to work from home/flexibly. Not physically demanding like a trade job, just fairly easy consistency of jobs that we enjoy, find stimulating and earn us good money.

Sure if my children aren’t naturally academic then I wouldn’t be too worried for their job prospects but I would I still expect them to apply themselves to the best of their abilities.

I think also the world of work is very different for people starting off than it was 20/30 years ago. I know people in their 50s with director level positions who don’t have academic qualifications but would definitely have been held back much more today by not having a degree.

I'm in the position of not using my considerable academic qualifications in the work I do. As a previous poster pointed out, if I didn't have a high-earning DH (and a massive kids-shaped hole in my career history), my career trajectory would have looked quite different. But also, if push comes to shove and I have to earn proper money again, I still have solid ground to fall back on. With three Oxbridge degrees, my chances of returning to a professional job (and corresponding salary), even with a 20 year gap, is considerably greater than if I only had 2 GCSEs.

Academic success definitely gives options but it is only one part of the jigsaw. Other huge impacts on success are personality - not just obvious things like work ethic and ambition but other aspects such as executive function and strategic thinking, and of course, family circumstances / who you marry. I got onto one of the most competitive degrees for my subject 30 yrs ago but I haven't done much in my career as I annoyingly have an "in tray brain" where I will work diligently to complete tasks but I need to be told what to do.

Without a self starting personality and strategic thinking any kind of serious career progression is really hard to achieve. It means that most of my bosses are on paper no better qualified than me but they have an ability to work through a problem and plan a strategy which I've never been able to develop. Leads to a lot self esteem issues

I doubt 'institution blind' recruitment will ever be the norm in some sectors. DH and I are both PhD chemists - in some stem areas, it's not merely where you went to uni, it's precisely what you did when you were there that matters. DDs employer has interns and doesn't need to look beyond the local uni, and then they offered her a job - this sort of thing is probably not uncommon in some fields (engineering in her case). Her BF is also an engineer, the courses at many other unis probably wouldn't have equipped him to do what he's doing - the same letters on paper don't mean the same content/depth.

Returning to the OPs question, if DH and I hadn't been academically successful I can't quite imagine what our lives would have been like. If I'd been born in an earlier generation when it wasn't possible for women to be scientists, or even get a proper education, I imagine I'd have been quite frustrated.

Exactly this. Your experience sounds extremely narrow, and, to be honest, your generalisations off the back of such anecdotal evidence suggest you’re not highly intelligent, whatever your qualifications. Perhaps this is what has held you back?

You also seem to see career success in terms of money. Other metrics are available.

And there’s no negative correlation between academic achievement and ‘social success’ — I’ve always enjoyed friendships, a social and romantic life, travelling etc and had a string of prestigious scholarships and firsts throughout my university life (Oxbridge). It’s not either/or. It seldom is. I have friends teaching in a humanities department at Loughborough, and when I asked whether their students often requested extensions because they were training for the Olympics or similar, they said no, that it tended to be that students who were highly focused on athletic achievement took the same disciplined attitude to their studies. If you’re intelligent, at least of a certain intelligence type, you’re often able to apply that to lots of parts of your life.

Well you say that OP, but then I think of my Grandad, who was probably one of the brightest, most well read men I have ever met, but was born into dire Welsh valley poverty - at one point the family lived in a workhouse - and left “formal” education well before he was 14, even though he was praised by a bemused school inspector for reading Carlyle and discussing the Napoleonic Wars.

I wish someone had offered him the chance to develop academically and have his intelligence recognised, but no one did. And although when he returned wounded from WW1 he managed to work himself into a decent and quite responsible job he was always aware that he was judged by his accent and that his lack of formal qualifications meant he could never progress beyond a job he could do without any mental challenge . He became a very bitter and frustrated man, who took his frustrations out on his wife and children. I wish he had had opportunities to experience the academic success that you dismiss as unnecessary. It isn’t always about careers, sometimes it is about self esteem and being acknowledged for having the ability to think, reason and express ideas within a community of peers.

I think it matters more than ever. It used to be easy to be poor, you could live a nice bohemian life with bedsits 60 quid a week, no references needed, picking up jobs in independent café’s by word of mouth, no zero hour contracts, tax-free tips in cash, cheap places to hang out, the hope of one day being allocated a council house, etc.

Now you need a degree level job and parter with one too to pay for a comfortable life. Times have changed.

I have two degrees (one a Masters) and have never managed to use them. My DP was expelled from school at 14 and earns more than me. I have friends in very similar (to both!) positions so I am going with a YANBU!

I think the issue is that you went for a job which can be gotten with much less academic qualifications. As per your example of the lady down the street who does the same job.
While there are many other jobs that require academic qualifications. Mine for example requiring a high level of maths, and showing general academic learning ability through high results in general. Or the poster who mentioned her nuclear engineer husband.

To hit you with my anecdata, this is the case with most of the people close to me. Either my friends in the same profession, or my family who are all doctors.

It’s definitely not the be all and end all. Most of my friends are very successful and have very few prestigious qualifications. On the other hand it doesn’t hurt and it can open doors.

Well if you only measure outcomes in money terms and genuinely believe that intellectual curiosity is time 'misspent', then more fool you.

I have a library card for life to one of the foremost stores of knowledge in the world. Worth every hour spent studying both to get there and to graduate.

This is anecdotal but from my school friends there was a big split between those that went on to university and those that didn't. Those that did the majority have gone on to average or above average the style waged jobs. Those didn't it does seem to be a big split between the men and women.. lots of the lads went on into the building trade and I've done exceedingly well financially, even the complete fuck ups. The women tend to have gone into retail, or service level jobs haven't done as well financially speaking.

Hmm. Wonder if his version of being done down stands up, rather than him having as shitty an attitude at work as at home. DF left school also at 14, was an errand boy for 2 yrs, then entered RAF as a career, got all his education there, made officer through the ranks, ended up owning a big detached in Surrey.