Are Grades Bullshit?

“I didn’t know Kevin graduated with honors??”

This is the punchline of a story my mom likes to tell.

While looking through the program at my college graduation, my friend’s mom noticed the double asterisk next to my name and made the above remark.

Yep. Magna Cum Laude. Whatever that means.

My parents had no clue. No one did. It never crossed my mind to tell anyone.

I even picked up the cord associated with the honor, but never attached it to my cap.

Why? Well, several reasons – I didn’t want to stand out or be seen as “better than” and tend to downplay my accomplishments, but…mostly because of this:

I honestly didn’t see it as much of an accomplishment at all.

A high GPA, impressive? To me, no not really.

Deep down I knew my grades didn’t tell the whole story.

Quantification never does.

Let me explain.

***

In the early 1800’s, schools used written, in-depth evaluations to measure students’ understanding of the material.

But then the Industrial Revolution happened. The country grew rapidly, families flocked to cities and the number of students in schools tripled.

This left teachers overworked and overwhelmed with the task of analyzing each student’s work in detail.

So, school administrators pushed a new idea – the grading system.

You know, the one where you receive a grade of A through F.

It was slowly implemented across the country.

Eventually, they simplified it even further with the GPA – a numeric scale that averages those letter grades.

This made the lives of admissions offices, employers, and more infinitely easier. A quick glance at a student’s GPA helped determine whether the admission letter started with “Congratulations” or “We regret to inform you…”.

For employers, GPA served as a metric to quickly assess a prospective employee’s intelligence and skills. A person with a 4.0 was “smarter” than one with a 3.5. You didn’t have to think much beyond that.

In short, grades arose not to help students improve and think better, but to make administrators’ lives easier.

***

The result?

Well, for people like me, it led to an obsession with maintaining a high GPA rather than actually understanding the material.

In high school and college, I went class to class, semester to semester, year to year like a robot – memorizing material, spitting back facts, and making sure my GPA stayed high enough – before forgetting everything I learned and moving on.

There wasn’t any sort of overt pressure from my parents to get good grades. I think my people-pleasing, check-the-box nature led me down this path.

Get good grades. Get a good job.

You can’t cross off the first without the second – or so I thought.

I fell into a classic trap of quantification – when we boil down something complicated (learning) into a simplified number (GPA).

The obsession with the latter comes at the expense of the activity’s (school) original goals – you know, like actually learning the material.

Metrics aren’t useless, but we should treat them for what they are: oversimplified scores that can tell us a little bit, but far from everything.

***

NFL scouts can fall into this trap too.

Each year, the NFL hosts a Draft Combine – putting prospective players through a series of drills, exercises, and physical and mental tests.

Teams use the numbers from these tests – 40-yard dash, vertical jump, bench press, and others – to help predict a player’s future success and decide who to draft.

But a player’s impact on wins is far more complex. It deals with their football IQ, character, team fit, and work ethic, how they deal with pressure and setbacks – not to mention their actual performance on the field.

Yet, like clockwork, a “workout wonder” who impresses with speed, strength or mobility at the Combine often skyrockets up a team’s draft board.

Over-focusing on these specific fitness measurements can lead teams to draft certain players over others who may have helped them win more games.

Again, boiling down something complicated (future NFL performance) to a simplified number (40-yard dash time, bench press reps, vertical feet jumped, etc.) can have negative effects.

Sure, the metrics can help. But too much focus on the latter can come at the expense of the activity’s actual goal (drafting players that will help your team win).

Take Darius Heyward-Bey, a wide receiver out of Maryland who blew away scouts with a 4.25 40-yard dash at the 2009 combine.

The Oakland Raiders, enamored with his speed, selected him 7^th overall – the first wide receiver taken in the draft. It was a surprise move to many.

Heyward-Bey lasted just four seasons in Oakland totaling just over 2,000 yards.

The reverse happens too. Tom Brady, anyone? Pick 199.

Fifteen offensive linemen ran faster and jumped higher than him at his Combine (a small reason for his slide in the draft). Fifteen!

Brady’s the easy (and probably lazy) pick, but there are several others to choose from.

Predicting NFL success is incredibly complicated. The measurables are just part of it.

This lesson applies to much more than NFL scouting.

***

Many people measure career success in salary.

And that’s the right way to go – if your definition of success is based solely on the number in your bank account.

To me, hundreds of other things factor in, such as:

• Do I enjoy my work

• Am I good at it

• Do I have autonomy

• Am I being challenged and learning new things

• Do I have strong relationships with my coworkers

• Am I stressed and/or overworked

We all know a colleague who measures productivity by the number of hours worked and tasks completed, not by the quality or impact of the work produced.

Or Mr. 10,000 steps a day – so captivated by his fitness tracker that he never takes the time to think about what a healthy lifestyle actually means to him.

Don’t blame them. We’re all guilty of it.

Metrics often get in the way of the real importance of whatever activity we’re doing.

They shift our behavior and experiences toward what’s easily measured – and away from complicated, unquantifiable things that matter more.

And when you change the goals of an activity, that changes the activity itself.

So, let’s go back to school for a second. What are more important goals than a high GPA? I’d argue:

• To learn the material

• To think critically about topics and recognize flaws in your logic

• To build skills, take risks, think creatively

• To expose yourself to different viewpoints, ideas, and perspectives

• To make friends and build relationships

• To find out what you enjoy doing and what you excel at

Focusing on a high GPA can distract you from the above – the things that are truly important.

***

Nearing 30, Charles Darwin wrestled with the decision of whether to marry.

He made a list of pros and cons and assigned a “weight” to each – a number between 1 through 5 to reflect its importance.

In other words, Darwin tried to boil down something complicated (becoming a husband and father) into a single number.

On the surface, this approach may seem to make the decision more accurate, precise, and scientific.

And the result? Darwin’s list overwhelmingly favored not marrying.

But he eventually did.

Why?

Reflecting later, Darwin said he realized life is much more than what he had noted in his list – accumulating pleasures and avoiding pain.

 It’s about living and acting with integrity, virtue, purpose, and meaning – aspects that are incredibly difficult to quantify.

Darwin realized who he was outweighed whatever he might feel or experience in the short term.

For him, this meant becoming a husband and father.

For others, it may mean something different.

Purpose, meaning, dignity, being a spouse or parent – these aspects of our lives aren’t pleasant or unpleasant.

They define us.

Like many things in life, that’s something a formula can’t quantify.