Hard Major with OK GPA or Easy Major with High GPA?

I once heard that the biggest LIE Adcoms say is that hard courses matter more and In reality, GPA matters more.

Wanted to hear some feedbac from other regarding this.

Hoow would adcoms rate Someone with Physics/Engineering @ 3.5 and someone with Liberal Arts @ 3.8+?
Lets assume the school prestige is same.

 

A physics/engineering with a 3.5 is very good. So is 3.8 in LA. We need to evaluate certain factors:

Degree Experience (Faculty References and Portfolio) + Work Experience (Professional References) + Extracurricular Activities (Reputation and Personal Refereces) would be my deciding factors.

Degree Experience (What did you accomplish in your Program, GPA is important, but a 2.8 with a good work ethic and solid understanding in concepts might be just as valuable as 4.0)-

Faculty References combined with a personal portfolio would be my deciding factor

Work Experience- Professional References, Combined with Experience and Knowledge applied and Gained from a job is crucial for understanding

Extracurricular Activiities- Personal References, do you have a good reputation? Are you responsible? If this is demonstrated well that will help you.

Now a weighted formula Degree Experience (.5) + Work Experience (.25) + Extracurricular Activities (.25) for a candidate with less than 4 years work experience could be used to evaluate the quality of the candidate.

So GPA might not even be a deciding factor. It may help you get some interviews, but once you get the interviews we are looking at how you present what you've done and the quality of your skills in respect to the job being completed is evaluated.

 

The Stern Finance curve has become significantly easier in the past few years. I believe 3-4 years ago the curve was a strict 10-15% and now it is somewhere around 25% for A's.

Even though avg GPA for b-school is only around 3.3, most of the majors did liberal arts or engineering in their undergrad, which is significantly harder than business/econ. To be competitive it would be best to shoot for the 4.0 if you major in finance/econ.

As of which to choose, I think everyone knows the econ program in the CAS-NYU is not highly regarded, while the Finance program is. Do the finance program and just get a 4.0.

 
Best Response
snyyj:
The Stern Finance curve has become significantly easier in the past few years. I believe 3-4 years ago the curve was a strict 10-15% and now it is somewhere around 25% for A's.

Even though avg GPA for b-school is only around 3.3, most of the majors did liberal arts or engineering in their undergrad, which is significantly harder than business/econ. To be competitive it would be best to shoot for the 4.0 if you major in finance/econ.

As of which to choose, I think everyone knows the econ program in the CAS-NYU is not highly regarded, while the Finance program is. Do the finance program and just get a 4.0.

You really think liberal arts is harder than finance/accounting/econ? I don't. Perhaps in some instances like psychology or perhaps poli sci, but the sociology, lit, and philosophy classes that I had to take (was at a liberal arts school) were all fluff classes. Most anyone who was a liberal arts major was considered more a slacker than anything. Maybe it's different at other schools, but I'd say math/engineering are hardest, then natural sciences/physics, then finance/accounting/econ, then liberal arts/marketing/management.
 

thanks for all the input guys. haha...regarding the username, I couldn't think of any, so I just went with goldman. no intended meaning whatsoever. Quite honestly, I don't even know if I want to go into ibanking/finance industry yet.

 

A lot of it depends on your personal strengths as well. I was an engineering undergrad, but I'm also pretty good at quant. stuff. I don't know if I'd say math/eng is harder than science/physics, but that's kind of getting into the weeds a bit. If you aren't good at math, all of those courses are going to be hard. I personally like math, but think I would blow my head off if I had to do biochemistry again.

By the time you get out of the Army, your degree will be obsolete and/or you will have forgotten a lot of it. Do what you like, get a great GPA/GMAT and then work military into your application paperwork. Whether the Adcom's know which degrees are more respected for different colleges, I don't know.

 

This industry is full of GPA whores--it's egregious like few other industries. With that said, the reality is, you're "over-educated" for finance if you have a degree in math/stats/economics (combined). If I'm recruiting for an entry-level position, I'm thinking to myself that this kid is smart with a 3.5 GPA in these challenging subjects, but that he is waaaay over-educated for the position. Unless you're trying to break into quantitative analytics, there's no reason to have that high level kind of math ability. You need to be good (not great) at math and have a good personality. They don't need a math genius or an economics freak whose knowledge is totally not applicable to the real world (no offense to economics majors).

If you're at a non-target (and let me stress the word(s) non-target), the perfect major for breaking into this industry is finance with a GPA of 3.7+. If you go to a target school, your perfect major is earning a degree.

 
Shady:
Currently a freshman at a target with good recruiting.

I took an introductory programming class this year and I definitely enjoyed it.

To get into S&T or IBanking, will it be more beneficial if I did a minor in CompSci with a lower GPA, or a pure finance major with a high GPA?

Also, does a minor mean anything? Or is it useless unless you do a full major, thus double major in finance/CS?

Slootybishes pls
 
StryfeDSP:
Shady:
Currently a freshman at a target with good recruiting.

I took an introductory programming class this year and I definitely enjoyed it.

To get into S&T or IBanking, will it be more beneficial if I did a minor in CompSci with a lower GPA, or a pure finance major with a high GPA?

Also, does a minor mean anything? Or is it useless unless you do a full major, thus double major in finance/CS?

Slootybishes pls

Hello miscer, it seems as if general consensus is only finance, thanks

 

I think it's easier - having come from an engineering background, tehnical questions seemed to be dumbed down a lot and technical/analytical skills are assumed to eb ingrained to a much greater degree.

As an example a friend and I both had interviews at UBS (for trading) with the same guy on the same day; he gets a grilling on how to derive the Black-Scholes equation and other very technical questions. I get a simple what's a CDS and how do u price it - in very vague terms and questions about what sort of music I like - I had the guy rolling on the floor here as I have such bad taste! I went through and my friend didn't.

I've also had interviews start with 'do u know what a derivative is?' before finishing with me defining the greeks and vol trading which left the interviews opening praising the amount of reading I've done so I think standards are definitely lower.

 

i'm glad I did engineering. As a profession, it's the worst you can think of. As a degree, people automatically think you are smart. I also have BE1 and Master of Engineering, people just think you must be smart.

I did not get any technical question. Actually, this is how it went.

ME: I know real basic of derivative bank: how do you price xxx/xxx.... ME: I don't know cuz I just know basics bank: if you don't know how to price, what do you know? ME: I know what call/put options are, swap, ... bank: What's a call option? ME: paying a premium for a right to buy something at certain price if the price goes up, or do not exercise this right. bank: OK I see what you know.

but believe or not I did get the job.

 

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