After the summer’s drastic change to the biggest portal at Emory, PeopleSoft rolled out yet another new feature: social media integration. Now, students will be able to post their GPA on any all social media platforms with just one click.
Courtney Maxwell, the Peoplesoft Vice President of Social Outreach explains the idea, “If a student gets a 4.0 and doesn’t post it on their story, will he even get into medical school? This is what is at stake, and what we hope to address.” Critics of the feature argue that students would rather not disclose something personal like their GPA.
Some of these critics even went so far as to protest outside of the Emory Office of Undergraduate Education, coining the phrase “GPA: Gimme Privacy, Eh?” The evidence, though, contradicts the idea that most students value academic privacy. Studies conducted at UC Irvine show that after summer vacation, 89% of students inevitably share their GPA in some form on their social media platforms. The vast majority of this group attribute their scores to their hard work and ignore the abundance of pass/fail courses in their schedules.
Peter Mcquoy, a junior in the college, exemplified this phenomenon. He replied, “I got a 4.0,” in response to “Would you mind answering a few questions?” Mcquoy continued, “I think this feature is great because it enables direct comparison between my peers and me. It feeds my incessant need to make sure people know I’m better than them.”
At press time, 50% of the incoming class had already posted their GPAs onto social media, disregarding the fact each of their GPAs read “Not Yet Available.”
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