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What does every college have in common? They all need a minimum of a certain GPA to get in. Prestigious universities are missing out on talented students because of their high standards and monomaniacal focus on GPA. Yale requires a 4.0 minimum. Harvard asks for a 4.1 or better. UCLA needs a minimum of a 3.0 for them to even look at an application, It’s 3.54 at ASU. Colleges should lower their GPA standards for admissions, to make higher education more accessible for students. Colleges do consider more factors than simply a student’s GPA; there are boards that decide such matters. But the overemphasis on GPA eliminates opportunities for students with diverse struggles and talents who didn’t express themselves by perfectly and consistently jumping through academic hoops.
Many argue that GPA is a good metric and that how one does in highschool is a good reflection of how they will do in college. While, yes, it’s a decent measure, it doesn’t measure everything, and students with different backgrounds won’t do as good as those who have access to all of the options and support they need. The article “Teaching a lay theory before college narrows achievement gaps at scale” published by the National Academy of Sciences explores just how important that is, arguing “In the United States, large, persistent gaps exist in the rates at which racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups complete post-secondary education, even when groups are equated on prior preparation. Yeager page 1” They have a great article with their solution they’re trying to impediment as a commonplace thing in colleges, the lay theory. Making college easier for everyone and offering the same amount of support with a simple program. This is a great step to one part of the solution. GPA is not a good measure for capturing all of the struggles and issues students are going through and will still struggle with in college that may not allow them to flourish in the same way someone with all the resources they need could. Teacher and former employer Ken Noble states, “The most important thing to me is a person’s performance, their drive, ethics and all round work personality. In other words I would put my money on someone who’s committed to do the job well, not necessarily if they’re the most intelligent or got the best GPA but their willingness to do the job and to do the job well.” There are numerous factors that make up an individual, and as Noble says someone who works and gets the job done is the best candidate. So why isn’t that the same for colleges? Shouldn’t they want to give people with the willingness to try and work for a better education the opportunity to have a better education?
Another problem with colleges requiring a base GPA for applications is not everyone has the best teenage years, a presentace of teenages struggle in their highschool years. Perhaps school wasn’t their main priority then, but now they are highly motivated and they want to come back to pursue higher education. A great real life example of this is Dr. K or more formally, Alok M. Kanojia. Dr K isa psychiatrist and the co-founder of the mental health coaching company Healthy Gamer. An article published by Tufts University in 2025 Summarizes his personal experiences. “Growing up in Texas, he developed a problematic addiction to online games by the time he was in high school. It got worse during college. ‘I was playing games all day long,” he recalled of his first semester at the University of Texas at Austin, where he quickly ended up on academic probation.” Due to him essentially flunking out of college he was left with less than a 2.0 GPA, and as discussed above, it’s nearly impossible to get into a good college with such a low number. Kanojia was denied by more than 100 schools when applying for residency. He’s a bright individual but schools didn’t want him because of bad grades due to past addictions that caused his failings. Kanojia is not the only one who’s had these difficulties.
The last point I want to emphasize is how many students are going about getting this perfect GPA. Because of the emphasis of needing a high GPA in our schooling system most students are doing work for the grade not because they want to learn. Christien Henderson, a highschool teacher, makes the statement “Many students are focused on the end result of classwork – getting the task done, earning the grade, and wanting to just be finished with their homework.” Students are not focused on learning the material, they are focused on getting work done and getting the grade. I myself am guilty of this– just doing an assignment to get it over with, without taking in any information; “learn and dump” as one of my teachers said. Getting a high GPA is often just doing all the work to a certain level of effort and, specifically, work the teacher expects. And while doing homework and projects they won’t try as hard and challenge themselves they’ll do it to the teachers standards and turn it in. If the teacher grades off of competition most students will do it and not put their full effort into the work, not caring if their answers are correct, they’ll get an A for having the work done. This leads to students getting inflated grades for a bare minimum work. In the article “Is Grade Inflation in High School Real?” by Samantha Lindsay she sums it up as follows: “If grades are inflated because a teacher is an easy grader, the average grade for a class will not accurately reflect the quality of the students’ work. A student might get an A on a project that really deserved no more than a B. If grades are inflated because a teacher gives easy assignments, the average grade will only reflect students’ ability to complete simple tasks and not an understanding of the complexities of the material. Often, both of these problems are present at once in the case of classes that have severe grade inflation.” So the students who have stellar grades may not have them for good reasons or because they are intelligent. Similarly intelligent students are not pressured to do better if they are already getting A’s in all their classes, which leads to struggles in college because they aren’t used to being challenged.
Now there are some issues. should all colleges start allowing anyone in with no standards? Of course not, that would be ridiculous to let just anybody in. But a GPA higher than what’s considered “perfect” to get into a college where they may have all the qualifications for the major they want to pursue is unreasonable. A writer can’t be expected to be perfect in math, nor can a doctor be expected to be perfect at writing. Someone seeking an art major shouldn’t have to be perfect at every other subject to get the 4.0 or higher they need for an ivy league school. Colleges should challenge them to the fullest and let them thrive in their subject and focus they want. I think it would be beneficial if there were tests for each school of the varying levels and for each major. This solution would allow everyone to get into the profession they are skilled at and the level of college teaching they require. Community colleges will have easy tests. Ivy league schools tests will be hard but each one on the different majors one is applying for, and the qualities they possess for them.
In a society that values progress and inclusivity, higher education should be accessible to all who seek it at the level they are at. By reevaluating the weight placed on GPA in college admissions, and instead doing major personalized tests. We can create a more successful educational system for everyone no matter who they are or what GPA they got in high school by looking at the person, not the grade.