Summa Cum Laude GPA vs ACCT Minor

Currently a Junior studying Finance at a non-target with a summer internship lined up at a respectable buy side FI shop (think PIMCO). Next Fall & Spring, I have an internship lined up with a MM PE firm.

I have two desired potential paths.

1) AM SA -> IBD -> PE -> MBA

2) AM SA -> AM FT -> MBA

My GPA right now is a 3.93. If I do an accounting minor, I may possibly drop to below a 3.9. This means I would lose the summa cum laude distinction at my university.

My question is: should I gain the accounting knowledge at the expense of a high GPA, or would this sacrifice my chances at a top mba because I go to a non-target.

Cheers.

8 Comments
 

Also, I'm not 100% familiar with top MBA recruiting process but typically they want candidates that meet bare minimum GPA (which may vary) and selection really happens at the level/prestige of experience. For example, if you worked in some random BO gig then you might need superb GPA and distinction. But if you worked at PIMCOesque firms or PE, they probably don't even look at GPA that much and 3.9 is high enough.

 

GPA is important early in your career but one day comes a moment where it doesn't matter at all, and may even annoy people if you put it on your resume. A 3.8 GPA is probably good enough for anything you need to do, particularly since you already have your summer internships lined up, but the accounting minor is probably also not a game changer. I'd probably take a pass on it since you'll be doing accounting in your MBA, and it will probably stress you out when you're trying to focus on your job search.

 
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