#gpa

If you want a summer job with the Trump administration, shitty grades are no big deal. Your skills at MAGA butt kissing and far right ideology trump intelligence in this administration.

Trump famously declared...

He feels insecure around people who are smarter than him. So that means he has to recruit from the bottom of the barrel.

[I]n 2026, the Trump administration is conducting 1L job interviews with a White House official sitting in to vet the political loyalty of each candidate.

An email sent to Liberty University School of Law students over the weekend lays out, in refreshingly unvarnished terms, what the administration’s hiring pipeline actually looks like. And it’s exactly as bad as everyone suspected: The two most important requirements are you MUST be aligned politically with President Trump and his administration and you must be willing to work hard. Don’t be scared off by the transcript requirement. GPA is not a strong factor. If you meet those two requirements, you have a shot.

Imagine a career services office writing this paragraph and not expecting it making a laughingstock of the law school? “GPA is not a strong factor” doesn’t make for a ringing endorsement of any law school’s mission. Telling students at a law school ranked in the 140s that their GPAs don’t matter if a candidate is politically correct enough is just open mockery of the curriculum. But that’s the “anti-DEI meritocracy” for ya.

President Jimmy Carter asked, "Why not the best?". Donald Trump seeks the worst. This administration practices DEI for the demented and the dull-witted.

i’ve been thinking about how much weight society, and colleges especially, put on gpa in the admissions process. and honestly, i feel like we need to chill with it.

first off: colleges are businesses. it sounds blunt, but it’s true. a college isn’t just a dreamy place for eager students to learn. it runs like an institution with goals. they want future changemakers, people who’ll be notable alumni, people who’ll help build the school’s brand, network, influence. so if you’re a college admissions office, what do you do? you recruit the folks who check the obvious boxes: high gpa, high test scores, “safe” extracurriculars. you want someone who’s done everything “right.”

but here’s the kicker: by putting so much weight on gpa, you’re basically pulling in a bunch of people whose main goal has been “get a good gpa.” they’ve learned the game. they’ve optimized for grades. there’s nothing inherently wrong with working hard to get good grades, but the problem is: their purpose might be limited to that. when they behave purely as students whose goal is “maximize my gpa,” or "get into an ivy league school" you lose the person whose goal is “find a problem, fix a problem, uproot something, make something new.” you lose the passionate person. the risk-taker. the person who maybe got a lesser gpa because they were busy creating something, experimenting, failing, learning.

so if a college says “we want changemakers,” but then questions students with a "gpa below x", there’s a mismatch. you end up rewarding “safe students” rather than “impact students.”

second point: yes, there have been shifts: more holistic admissions, more weight on essays, extracurriculars, diversity of experience. but i worry we’re sliding back to gpa‐obsession. for example: i read about brown university entering a voluntary federal agreement in 2025 that required disclosure of admissions data (including grades) and other oversight as part of restoring research funding.

the fact that federal funding deals incorporate admissions metrics signals an external pressure to quantify “merit” in ways that almost always favor high gpa. it’s upsetting because brown is known, at least in reputation, for intellectual curiosity, creative thinkers, exploration. but when external systems push “grades first,” the door closes to those who may have lower gpa but higher potential for impact.

think about the kid who spent summers volunteering, building something from scratch, maybe took on leadership in non-traditional ways, maybe got a few Bs because they were juggling passion projects and classes. that kid may have the spirit colleges say they want, but then they’re cut because of gpa. that hurts.

it sends the message that the "safe" path (study hard, hit all A’s, take a bunch of APs) is the only path. it discourages risk, it discourages exploring. “if you can’t guarantee an A, maybe don’t try that big project.” that stifles creativity.

so what do we do instead? or at least what should admissions offices do?

weight gpa less. yes, still consider it; it reflects persistence, ability to meet deadlines, handle academics. but don’t let it dominate to the point that it filters out everyone else.

give meaningful weight to curiosity, creativity, resilience, risk-taking, leadership in non-traditional spaces. show that you value the student who tries to fix something, not just the student who avoids failing.

include more narrative space in applications where students can show what they did and learned, not just what grade they got. maybe even include questions like “what project did you do, what problem did you take on, what happened when you failed?”

for the public and policy side: stop legitimizing “grades = merit” as the only metric. create accountability for admissions systems to reflect the real diversity of talent.