Aside from possibly affecting admissions into a phd program, how often is it referenced post-grad school?
Moreover, does a 4.0 carry much weight on a resume?
Non Sequitur
Jun 19, 15 6:30 am
No.
Grades mean nothing outside academia.
alrightalright
Jun 19, 15 9:29 am
agreed, no. grading in architecture is inconsistent and harsh at best, often subjective. as long as you're clearly not failing, GPA does nothing to help or hurt. the quality of your work/portfolio and personal character far outweigh gpa... employers care about how you mesh with the team and how you will contribute to ideas and workflow.
Good_Knight
Jun 19, 15 11:46 am
Post grad school your GPA means 0.00
If you have, or can develop, a 3.70-4.00 personality you are set.
Bloopox
Jun 19, 15 1:41 pm
I've never once been asked my GPA (undergrad or M.Arch) by a potential employer, nor have I ever put it on a resume or anything else related to employment.
Where it did matter, possibly, was in applying to a post-graduate degree program in a related field.
A few of the top-ranked M.Arch programs don't even have grades, operating purely on a Pass/Fail, or High Pass/Pass/Fail system - mainly as a strategy to encourage experimentation without preoccupation with damaging a GPA - so I don't think one could accurately use GPA to evaluate M.Arch grads against each other anyway.
shellarchitect
Jun 19, 15 2:08 pm
I put "with distinction" on my resume, but I doubt anyone ever cared about that. I think about 1/3 of the arch. program was "with distinction" vs. about 1/4 of the rest of the student body.
I don't think it was because the archies were smarter....
natematt
Jun 19, 15 2:21 pm
Yeah, I always just used the honors to signify that I had good grades. If you did poorly, don't say anything.
Bloopox
Jun 19, 15 3:14 pm
I'm almost 20 years past my M.Arch now, and if anything I think that seeing a 4.0 on a resume tends to make me suspicious of the rigor of the applicant's education. I came from a university that did not have as much grade inflation at the time that I attended as many architecture programs do today - an A in studio was nearly unheard of, and I graduated in the top 5% of my class with a GPA that was below 3.5. So when I see these entry level people with 4.0 GPAs on their resumes - and sometimes 4.1s and 4.3s and such from schools that have invented a grade higher than 4 for an "A+" - it just raises some red flags, especially when seeing several of those from recent grads of the same programs (gives me the sense they might be a dime a dozen there.) Maybe I've just finally hit the curmudgeonly stage of life, and am prone to the "back in my day we had to walk 5 miles..." thing - but I'm sure I'm not the only one, and face it: we're the ones doing a lot of the hiring now.
If you won any awards, list them. If you're a recent grad with comparatively little professional experience then you may also want to list the activities, committees, publications etc. in which you were involved during your student years. But I'd leave the GPA off completely when applying for jobs in architecture.
How much do you think one's M.Arch GPA matters?
Aside from possibly affecting admissions into a phd program, how often is it referenced post-grad school?
Moreover, does a 4.0 carry much weight on a resume?
No.
Grades mean nothing outside academia.
agreed, no. grading in architecture is inconsistent and harsh at best, often subjective. as long as you're clearly not failing, GPA does nothing to help or hurt. the quality of your work/portfolio and personal character far outweigh gpa... employers care about how you mesh with the team and how you will contribute to ideas and workflow.
Post grad school your GPA means 0.00
If you have, or can develop, a 3.70-4.00 personality you are set.
I've never once been asked my GPA (undergrad or M.Arch) by a potential employer, nor have I ever put it on a resume or anything else related to employment.
Where it did matter, possibly, was in applying to a post-graduate degree program in a related field.
A few of the top-ranked M.Arch programs don't even have grades, operating purely on a Pass/Fail, or High Pass/Pass/Fail system - mainly as a strategy to encourage experimentation without preoccupation with damaging a GPA - so I don't think one could accurately use GPA to evaluate M.Arch grads against each other anyway.
I put "with distinction" on my resume, but I doubt anyone ever cared about that. I think about 1/3 of the arch. program was "with distinction" vs. about 1/4 of the rest of the student body.
I don't think it was because the archies were smarter....
Yeah, I always just used the honors to signify that I had good grades. If you did poorly, don't say anything.
I'm almost 20 years past my M.Arch now, and if anything I think that seeing a 4.0 on a resume tends to make me suspicious of the rigor of the applicant's education. I came from a university that did not have as much grade inflation at the time that I attended as many architecture programs do today - an A in studio was nearly unheard of, and I graduated in the top 5% of my class with a GPA that was below 3.5. So when I see these entry level people with 4.0 GPAs on their resumes - and sometimes 4.1s and 4.3s and such from schools that have invented a grade higher than 4 for an "A+" - it just raises some red flags, especially when seeing several of those from recent grads of the same programs (gives me the sense they might be a dime a dozen there.) Maybe I've just finally hit the curmudgeonly stage of life, and am prone to the "back in my day we had to walk 5 miles..." thing - but I'm sure I'm not the only one, and face it: we're the ones doing a lot of the hiring now.
If you won any awards, list them. If you're a recent grad with comparatively little professional experience then you may also want to list the activities, committees, publications etc. in which you were involved during your student years. But I'd leave the GPA off completely when applying for jobs in architecture.