Are Grades Important? What Every Student Should Know

I wish I had bothered to look into this more when I was in school. Are grades important? In this article, we’ll talk about why grades may or may not be important. As a student, there are few things more important for you to get an answer to than this.

Let’s go.

Table of Contents

When are grades important?

Grades are important when you need them for your career.

For instance, if your career of choice is a doctor, you need to get good grades to be qualified for a good medical school. In this case, grades would be important.

Below is a list of some careers where grades are vital:

Doctor
Lawyer
Dentist
Pharmacist
Veterinarian
Nurses

When are grades not important?

Grades aren’t important when you don’t need your grades for your career of choice.

There are plenty of careers where grades aren’t important:

Programmers (software engineers)
Mechanics
Engineers
UIUX Designers
Salesperson
Entrepreneurs
Content creators (YouTubers, Bloggers, Social media influencers)

6 Reasons why grades aren’t important

There are some reasons why grades aren’t important. Let’s take a look at the reasons listed below.

Please note that I’m not encouraging anybody to drop out of school or not pursue further studies.

This is merely to paint a different perspective you may not have been taught before.

This is ultimately your choice to make what career path you choose and consider carefully what you need to get there (even if it’s a high GPA).

1. You can make a full-time income online without a traditional job

There are plenty of ways to make money online. In this blog, I covered many such ways. You can make a living with the following:

The list goes on…

Sure, it won’t be easy but it can be so worth it to give it a try.

Pick one from the list or check out the “make money” section under HelloMoneyTree.com for more options.

Give it at least 2 years of consistent effort before you give up.

Most people who have succeeded in making a living online gave it time. In fact, there is no secret, it’s just time. They have figured out what works and what doesn’t work through time and they focus on the things that bring them maximum results.

I would highly recommend starting from blogging since it’s the cheapest business you can start with the maximum potential return. Click here to read why you should start a blog if you want to become your own boss.

Many bloggers are making a nice 6, 7 figure per year with blogging. It won’t be easy and you should make sure to produce at least 200–500 high-quality articles that people are searching for and give each article at least 8 months to rank on Google first before you give up.

A lifetime of financial freedom could be just 1 year’s hard work away.

You don’t need to be a genius to become rich or to make a living online. What you need is self-discipline.

There can be so many good reasons to work for yourself. Click here to read what those reasons are but some good points to consider are:

No annoying boss or coworkers
You set your own work schedule
You make however much you want to make
You can take a vacation whenever you desire
You fully own your life
You have more time to spend with your family and friends

You can have all of that without a traditional job that you need to study your ass off or maintain straight A’s to get.

You must make the choice yourself what you should do with your life: should you accept the normality of working a 9–5, work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, take 2 weeks off for vacation each year (but really you’re most likely just going to spend it at home because you’re trying to save money to buy a house that you’ll spend 40 years to pay off) for 40–50 years of your life, or, should you give something else a chance? Should you fail, you can always start another side hustle or business and you won’t ever wonder about the outcome if you had tried.

2. Grades don’t necessarily reflect how much you know and how hard you studied

Believe it or not, teachers aren’t robots and they aren’t always fair when grading students’ papers or exams.

I mean think about your essay and short answers for exams. It’s very hard to quantitatively measure whether a student deserves the grade they were given on these things that has no definitive answer.

A teacher can give you a 60 on your essay or a 90 and it’s hard to dispute it for more.

Teachers make the ultimate choice in what grades you get and thus what happens to your career.

A bad grade can deter you from a good college or a good grad school and the career of your dream simply wouldn’t be.

Sometimes grades don’t measure how knowledgeable you are on the topic but how much the teacher likes you. And at times we can’t decide if the teacher just doesn’t like us that much. They may have pre-existing biases against certain students.

I hated having my entire life trajectory controlled by a few teachers. They got to decide whether I could attend my dream school or whether I could pursue my dream of becoming a doctor.

Every percentage of grade really matters. I had a biology teacher in high school who was notorious for low class averages (60%) while the other biology teacher in the same high school was a lot more lenient (90%).

I mean if I was making a choice about which student to admit into a university when looking at their grades, I wouldn’t consider which teacher they had.

Teachers have a lot of power over their students and they know it. They also aren’t afraid to wrack your life for no reason.

Relying on getting good grades for your future really is a shitty way to live.

3. Grades only matter at the beginning of careers that require it

For many careers, grades don’t matter after you have 2 years of experience under your belt.

When you’re fresh out of college, one of the few things that can make you stand out is your grade.

After you have some experience, it really doesn’t matter what GPA you graduated with.

4. Nobody talks about what grades they got 10, 20 years ago

Grades may seem like a big deal when you were in school.

There was sort of this hierarchy in place where the students who have high grades are treated with sort of legendary status (is it just my school?) and the students who have low grades aren’t regarded as highly.

It can seem like grades determine so much of your life including social hierarchy when you were in school but flashforward 10, 20 years out of school, nobody talks about what averages they had in high school or what GPA they had in college.

It’s just not a talking point and not something that people derive pride from.

Take it easy. Nobody cares about your grades after you leave school.

5. It’s ridiculous to use grades to impress parents

Some parents may only be impressed by their children if they achieve high grades.

I know it can be hard not to take grades seriously if you have such a type of parents but I want you to recognize that grades are a social construct and really shouldn’t determine how loved you are.

I’m not telling you to fail and drop out of school.

Try to do well in school but know that grades aren’t everything. You can always seek alternative paths to make money that doesn’t involve a traditional job.

I mean who can deny your success when you’re making a 6 or 7 figure per year (or month) online while working 5–10 hours a week? And you don’t need good grades to get there.

You can give 80% or 100% in school but secretly stash away some energy for some entrepreneurial projects.

6. You don’t need a traditional job to become rich

This is something many people want to achieve in life — to become rich.

“Rich” may mean different things to different people but we generally consider those with a networth of over 2 million “rich”.

You can become rich through a high-paying job but you’d be forfeiting other ways to become rich that don’t involve being an employee at all.

Think about how many content creators are making a killing online nowadays.

You don’t need a traditional job to become rich.

There are many ways to make money online, check out the “make money” section if you want to find out more.

There’s also such a thing called investment that can actually make you rich with nothing but time. All you have to do is to throw in some money every month and let it compound over the years.

Becoming rich in today’s age in a world where you have access to the internet is a choice and having high grades certainly isn’t a prerequisite to getting there.

Final thought

So here we are at the end of this article. Do you agree with me?

If your choice of career requires you to obtain high grades, just know that you can always choose to have a side hustle on the side and you can jump ship if you decided that you’re done with your 9–5.

There’s always another way. Don’t fret.

Your life isn’t doomed if you don’t have high grades and your life certainly isn’t all sunshine and rainbow if you have high grades.

Take it easy. Don’t stress yourself out too much chasing after something that really has no value beyond school.