To think academic success isn't worth that much

[MeJuly]

Can anyone persuade me I am wrong?

If I get a top 1st in English, say, is it actually worth anything compared to getting a 2.2? What difference will it actually make to your life?

Maybe that is the problem with arts degrees but even if I am doing chemistry or physics, unless I want to go into academia, what difference does it make how well I do in my degree?

My employer absolutely rescinds job offers if a 2:1 isn’t achieved. I saw this happen fairly recently for a prospective hire who had previously successfully completed an internship, but the 2:1 was a hard line

Loads of people do but not all and those who don’t have a degree will still be submitting a transcript of grades achieved so far. The ones who don’t get anything are still applying after the results are out. I think the average time from graduation to starting first graduate job is about 22 months.

We had several lectures about why getting a first wasn't desirable! This was alongside "managing expectations" but effectively warned us no one wanted to employ candidates who get a first because the are rarely "team players".

We were also told this!

"The overwhelming consensus was that grades didn't matter too much (nor did degree subject) unless it was a technical role. It was being able to demonstrate skills, attributes and experiences." - this is exactly what the drive of the 2 lectures we were given on "managing expectations" was about. It didn't matter if you passed modules first time with flying colours or failed them multiple times and scraped a pass. We were all the same but the ones who didn't do as well were probably more affable. It certainly wasn't meant to make people want to get firsts or work harder, from what I could gather, rather back them up on non-attendance and the fact they had ultimately paid for their pass regardless of ability.

titchy It's true they have plenty of applicants. But the point when you get your grades might be really close to when you are supposed to start work and too late for them to start a whole new recruitment round. They can't really "overbook" either so they are pretty stuck if you don't turn up, at least temporarily.

My first definitely opened a door for me I wouldn't have got with a 2;2

YellowMeeple That's really interesting. Wasn't your employer then rather stuck until they could go through another recruitment round?

Maddy70 Do you mind if I ask which door?

Live in hope.

Really.
Some of these tests are ridiculous.
How many times you can press the space bar on a keyboard in two minutes.
Multi choice questions where the actual answer isn't one of the four options.
Interviews which ask for the portfolio from a specific type of postgraduate course where some universities use a different system.
Promoting internal candidates who you know are useless but perform well in tests and interviews but then employ them and are still useless but paid more.

In my experience it depends whether the people you are being interviewed by are likely to have been academically successful themselves. If they were, they are more likely to see you as similar to them and therefore the right person for the job.
A first being "worth it" is subjective. However, I have a 6 figure salary for a part-time job I love, so it was well worth it for me.

UninterestingFirstPost What is the job? Asking for a friend....

Yes but they would rather carry a vacancy than open the door to reduced standards.

It matters in law if the person wants to qualify as a solicitor or barrister. Almost every firm will want their trainees to have a 2:1. There are other routes to qualification these days but still, a 2:1 is the minimum standard for most firms.

Once you're qualified I don't think it matters at all.

These days you mostly just need a body in the room that's vaguely qualified, and you may well not even get that, such is the recruitment and retention crisis.

The numbers achieving a First have soared in recent years in a similar fashion to the proportion reaching ‘top’ grades at GCSE and A level. When the A* grades were introduced they were for the very few.

What do people who achieve a 2:2 or 3rd do? How do they progress or get a graduate job?

I got a 2:2. I studied really hard, but I found the content really difficult and the lecturers not good at actually teaching and explaining it. You either understood or you didn’t, and they couldn’t understand why you didn’t understand.

This was Russell group, admittedly some years ago now. A 2:2 wasn’t great and was seen as a bar/doss degree (I wish), but it was still marginally acceptable to enter the graduate market with it.

I'd say first vs 2.1 probably isn't a huge difference, but I've always felt a 2.2 wasn't worth the paper it was written on and would question writing it on a CV depending on the context.

As a recruiter, I can't help but conjure up pre-conceived ideas of someone who has spent years and thousands on something and only managed to come out with a 2.2. I appreciate there may be extenuating circumstances as to why that happened, but that's why I'd advise caution on how a degree is presented in a job application.

Education is never a waste. My advice is to make the most of every opportunity that comes your way.

Totally agree, OP asks about the ‘worth’ of academic success. Personal pride and self enrichment alone makes it worth it.

It’s a filter and many graduate schemes want a 2:1 but each company will have their own specifics. The real problem is degrees are so commonplace, when I was young only about 12% had a degree, when my Mother was young it was 5%, now it’s about 40% of young people. Has the amount of graduate level jobs increased by that much, absolutely not. Are people overall more intelligent because of this rise? Someone on another thread wrote the stats about graduates and first jobs, it was something like 700,000 or 800,000 graduates are now chasing 200,000 graduate entry level jobs.

DH is a very recently retired Professor he jokes that O levels are the equivalent of a degree now. I mean it’s a joke but it kind of isn’t, a degree was something really special when we were young. My Mothers job, first woman manager in her firm in the 1970’s now requires a degree, she left school at 15.

@UselessMumAlert was it academics saying this or recruiters? In all the years I worked in HE I only ever heard students saying this.

When I was a careers adviser I used to tell my clients that qualifications can be viewed as currency which allow you access into jobs and professions.
Some jobs ask for very specific qualifications whereas for others it is more an indication of the level you're able to work at or skills you may have developed.
But I would always stress that they were never worthless or a waste of time.

I think that poster was highlighting part of my post - there was an active push to tell students the benefits of not getting a first, as I say 2 lectures on it, to "manage expectations". It spiralled into bashing anyone who turned up to lectures, did the work and asked questions.

It is very hard to be proud of something if your peers are people who you know have little aptitude. A bit like being overtly proud if you won a running race against paraplegics and not admitting that is why you might have won; it feels very wrong to be proud and quite depressing if there is no challenge, particularly if you have paid for it.

Happened to my friend. He got a 2:2 so didn't get onto a training scheme

He got a different job and pay levels 30 years later are the same as friends who got onto that training scheme.

It's all so arbitrary, isnt it? One extra mark on your Poetry of Ancient Greece paper isn't really going to make a difference to your ability to pass Accountancy exams but employers do like a metric they can use to select.

A long while back a close friend lost a graduate job due to missing the degree class requirement

I recruit undergrads and if they don’t have / achieve the qualification (not that I have known it happen) I am not 100% sure what would happen - I think it is in our job offer terms so we could rescind. Certainly I would think they are not going to last long if they can’t complete their degree