Grades and disclosure

Question

Current applicants - how does your desired schools' grade disclosure policies influence your preferences?

Current B-schoolers - how do you feel about your school's policy? Do you think it helps/hurts in allowing students to branch out, with recruiting, etc.?

Currently, I'm looking at the disclosure policies at the schools I'm seriously considering. None of them have grade disclosure (though I understand Darden allows the student to decide), which seems like a good thing... particularly since I'm not interested in any of the fields where it sounds like disclosing your GPA is a prerequisite.

cul3s · Answer

I want to add more questions about this..
does non grade disclosure means that SCHOOL wouldn't let recruiters know about our grades? or is it both STUDENTS + SChOOL are not allowed to bring up anything about grades (even though students want to) while talking to recruiters ?

Does the company actually check your grades after they hire you? or does this non disclosure rule considered effective for..forever?

Jerz · Answer

Kellogg permits grade disclosure, and it didn't affect my decision at all. In fact, it wasn't even something I asked about when deciding. I had planned to work for good grades regardless of the disclosure policy, so I'm not that concerned about it.

cul3s - I think for most schools, non-disclosure means recruiters can't ask, and students/school cannot tell grades or GPA.

cul3s - I think for most schools, non-disclosure means recruiters can't ask, and students/school cannot tell grades or GPA.

3underscore · Answer

I think that grade non-disclosure is the biggest non-issue in the whole of Business School. It achieves virtually nothing, is completely undermined by collective action issues anyway, and only serves to push employers to ask about less relevant things to identify who is academically strong. And then they give an award to the top 10% or 20% anyway, which simply serves as the same signal.

It really shouldn't come down to something so futile being the distinction between two schools - there has to be more. Given how few industries ask about grades etc, it really is kind of pointless.

It really shouldn't come down to something so futile being the distinction between two schools - there has to be more. Given how few industries ask about grades etc, it really is kind of pointless.

togafoot · Answer

Grades also doesn't really mean that much. Considering people are assessed on a Bell curve, a strong GPA one year doesn't mean someone performed as well as someone else from a previous year, each GPA is not comparable from year to year. Also if you pick electives where you are far stronger than other people in the class, your GPA would be stronger as opposed to a class where you are weaker. Likewise, how do you compare a GPA from one school vs another considering they are based on different bell curves? Non-issue and a lot of recruiters know it.

Skitalets · Answer

I second this. Most of my experience comes from watching my wife and her cohort go through law school, where the grading and recruiting is somewhat similar but not identical. She has friends with stellar grades who are still unemployed (she's a 3L) while other friends with so-so grades have top jobs. The only X factor is if you wind up on the law review (in our world, hitting the dean's list or other top 10-20% award). Grades below that level are not likely to be significant and the curve more or less ensures they're meaningless -- other factors like previous experience, interviewing skills, etc., will come into play.

terry12 · Answer

For us, it means neither the student nor the school can disclose anything related to the student's B-school academic performance, while the student is in school. You can say what classes you're taking and have taken, but can mention nothing about your performance. We've had this policy long enough that recruiters know not to ask about grades.

I don't know if grades can be disclosed after graduation, but those who earn academic honors (top 10% of class) are definitely allowed to disclose- again, after graduation.

I love the policy. I certainly want to learn the material and prepare for my future, but after lots of academic pressure in my past experiences, it's nice to be able to learn for learning's sake (corny, but true). We all take the same core set of classes during out first year. But over the last 2/3 of the year, every class is offered at three different levels, with the "advanced" level offerings typically involving interesting and challenging applications of the material. GND has given me a bit of freedom to take some of those advanced classes without having to worry about grades.

kwam · Answer

Here in Chicago the GND policy is a GBC (Graduate Business Council) decision which is voted every year (actually is voted if it is to be voted), and every year only 4 or 5 students want to review the policy. https://student.chicagobooth.edu/group/gbc/gnd.htm So it is a Students Code, and as you can see only for other academic institutions we are "allowed" to disclose as stated in point 7. In my internship interviews nobody asked about my GPA as recruiters know before hand that we have this policy here, and if they had asked I would have answered that I could tell him/her but I would need to kill him/her :shock:

. Well I wouldn't disclose it as I feel that I would be going against a code that was made to help us. I like the GND here because I can go to advanced classes knowing that I may not get A+ but learn new things. Also I felt that it really helped to create a friendly environment with people actually helping one another - at least with the people I have been in touch. I don't think that this is the only way to go, but I prefer as I want to take some risks, as an example I'm planning to take 4 courses again next quarter, and 3 of them are EXTREMELY intense - 1 in finance and 2 in economics, I also want to take 2 PhD level classes next year. In my view the GND policy assures people that they won't be penalized to take risks. On the other hand there are free riders; nevertheless they may at some point at their lives suffer the consequences of their attitudes.

Irishfan · Answer

kwam, I can give you those 4 or 5 names, if you want... :twisted:

bsd_lover · Answer

This article provides an interesting alternative view point : https://www.businessweek.com/magazine/co ... _mz056.htm For the record - I'm all for grade non disclosure and LBS also has a GND policy.

Grades and disclosure

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