The Myth of the C Student

I got A's. In high school. In college. A's. You could say I worked hard for them, and sometimes I did! But I mostly just got A's because that's what I did. You could say it defined me. So for someone whose entire being is defined by her marks in school, certain articles that popped up every now and then on pages like MSN and in weekly magazines disturbed me.

These articles used various methods to tell the world that it is the C Student who is scueessful. Your boss will be a C student. The C student is more likely to be hired. Companies want C students. Ugh.

I will recap quickly the reasoning behind these articles: A and B students, they say, are too studious. They spend all their time making the grade, but not making connections. They don't have the life experience. D and F students are lazy. So the C student wins out eventually.

But it's all a myth. My theory is that it's more of the modern-day mumbo jumbo trying to make people feel better about themselves. (Another similar modern-day concoction is the change of IQ from being intelligence related to anything related...IQ now has to take into account someone's abilities with sports, music, social skills, etc.) Think about the high school student who works hard and brings home a C. He cries to his mother, and is told, "It's okay. C Students are actually more successful!" So not only is this a myth, but it is used to tell people that it's okay to be mediocre. It's okay to not acutally strive for the top, because if they coast along, they'll get there anyway.

In my personal hiring experience, my GPA was a factor - a big factor! My stellar college GPA landed me an internship completely on its own! Beleive me - I bombed the interview but got the job. Likewise, when looking for my real job, interviewers gave that long, low whistle when they looked at my GPA. I could tell they were impressed. So being an A or B student does not hurt your chances of getting a good job.

But does it hurt your chances of success? No. Yes. Maybe. It depends on your definition of success, but by the world's definition - no. Being an A student (and carrying over that work ethic into your full time job) does not hurt! People tend to forget that a grade is not something that is arbitrarily assigned. It is a ranking that considers both ability and work ethic. If saying that it takes A's to succeed seems harsh, consider this:

Not all jobs are academic in nature. However, many require a college degree. Not everyone is equal in ability or interest. I could not expect to succeed in a career as a doctor. But I also probably would not have maintained a high GPA in a medical program. We'd all like our doctors to have gotten A's.

So why not our businessmen? In the time I've been in business, I've discovered the truth to the C Student myth. A Students are successful. They combine smarts and hard work to get the job done, and get it done well. As their employers discover this, A Students are giving increasingly difficult, high profile tasks, and are better paid for their efforts. If you were to analyze their pay on an hourly basis to their coworkers, you might not see much of a difference. A Students, in the career world, will be challenged until they can no longer conquer a task, resulting in early and often promotions.

D and F Students continue to be D and F students. If they manage to get a job with a bad academic history, they continue to underperform. This may be a lack of actual understanding. While unfortunate, companies cannot simply explain away the poor workers by saying "they tried hard." Results are important. As their performance is discovered, they are asked to leave.

Now, it is the C students - or perhaps actually the B students - that suffer. When it comes to layoffs, it's not the "bad" that get laid off (because they'll be fired or quit later on down the road anyway - it's natural turnover), and it's certainly not the best. It's the "good." Those people who are steady workers but not overachievers. Those who know how to do their job, but never really try to do it better or faster. They don't rock the boat. So they get kicked out of it.

So then, why is it that people always say that you will work for someone who is not as smart as you are? Think about it. Everyone thinks they are smarter than their boss - because most people think that they are smarter than they are. Even so, I have met with some pretty dense bosses in my time - but never my own bosses. My bosses are smart, and I aspire to one day have that knowledge. But in my work as an auditor, far too often I have found people in high positions that don't have a clue. A girl two years out of college should not have to teach a Controller of any sized company basic accounting. But it happens.

So is your boss smarter than you? Probably not. Are you smarter than them? Probably not. It seems that the boss vs. un-boss is based more on career decisions and age than actual intelligence.

So the moral of the story - C Students do not have it better. They do not get a free ride in life just because they snoozed through class. The moral of the story is that, while you may not rocket to the top, working hard will at least ensure that you don't get voted off the island too early. And if you feel like you are one of those people stuck working for a C Student type boss, think about what put that person in their position. No, A Students will not automatically be made the boss-man right out of school. Yes, they will probably work for a C Student at some, or maybe all, of their career. But it is not because they are a C Student. Not at all.