Question for
@MarqHusker ,
@bayareabadger ,
@847badgerfan or anyone else who does hiring.
We've mentioned thoughts on how much schools matter, but how much do transcripts matter for you?
Example: One graduate took 7 years to graduate, but the transcript is clean (I mean it's straightforward). Another graduate also took seven years to complete their degree, but the transcript has a lot of drops. You can see the grades are good for the completed classes, but the dropped classes clearly impeded speedy progress.
This is a real life example contrasting two people I know.
You wouldn't know any of this as the hiring agent, but the situations are: The first graduate lost both parents young, had to work, could not carry a full load, and took 7 years to graduate. But she plodded along through her degree with good grades. The second graduate had no such difficulties, but dropped multiple classes because he struggled at various points (and in his case, I just happen to know it most likely was due to the fact that he wasn't putting maximum effort into it).
Now, you wouldn't know those details, but really, imo, you can kind of sus out the general story. A transcript that indicates a slow progression is different than a transcript that indicates a slow progression with a lot of dropped classes along the way. And the longer it goes (7 years, in their cases), that starts to be a glaring difference, for me.
So I'm wondering, beyond the degree held and the school they got it from, how much attention to transcripts do you pay? Or do you even bother with them at all? I noticed after I went back to school and was job-hunting, not once was I ever asked for my transcript. But if it were me, I think I'd want to take a look at those.