Her instructors are all professionals in the field she wants to succeed in and her GPA is formed by her success in huge projects that are field related. I've got to figure in her program, moreso than most, that success in school is directly tied into success in the field.
My brother is one of the most successful graphic designers in Washington State -- if not the entire West Coast -- and has been published in more international design magazines than I can count (
http://www.sectionseven.com/ for reference). He makes over a quarter of a million dollars a year. He graduated from a podunk university with somewhere between a 2.5 and a 3.0. He coulda got a 4.0, but he felt his instructors were all WRONG and refused to conform to their approaches.
I firmly believe that most 4.0 students are conformists, not original thinkers, and that many of the so-called lazy really feel they have nothing to prove to academia. Hell, I lived in a dorm packed with these folks -- Nat'l Merit Scholars -- for five years. They consistently got grades well below the average, and they're all raging successes. The best of the best spent their time socializing and networking, not studying. We're social creatures, not academic ones, and business operates on the same principles -- it's better to spend your time forming the friendships and connections that will serve you later in life than trying to complete a bunch of throwaway homework assignments or move your grades from B's to A's. Nobody gives GPAs more than a passing glance during the hiring process, anyhow,
especially in creative disciplines.
