Re:Business or Accounting (Score 1)

If you finish grad school with a GPA of less than 3.5 there is a good chance you were not studying something you were passionate about (particularly for a doctoral degree). The bell curve does not exist in (good) grad programs when it comes to grades. This is because a disproportionate number of students are outstanding making for a lot of top marks. The grad engineering courses I took (possibly excluding "trial by fire courses") typically had an B+/A- average and grades amounted to: A=solid grasp of concepts, B=partial understanding, consider re-taking or serious reading, C=fail (did you even buy the text?). I never new of a single D given out, F was only in extreme cases (student though class was dropped).

Naturally, this may vary by program, department, and university. But I know that it is relatively common in engineering.

That said, even the academically "poor" students were often very gifted when it came to research. Ultimately, publications and products make for placement if you want an academic/research life after grad school. A respectable GPA may be be necessary for corporate jobs, but will probably carry less weight for faculty/post-doc type job searches. Nothing helps you make the short list better than proven research skills demonstrated a few first author publications.