Can this MBB connection save me?

I have seen connections help people out who were far worse off.. give it a shot!

Connections > Grades

Any other thoughts? I imagine that regardless, I'll get at least a couple questions asked about my mediocre GPA

Have a story as to why your GPA is mediocre....e.g. you are intellectually curious and consistently pushed yourself out of your comfort zone (i.e. rather than taking Rocks for Jocks (aka geology) you took classes in XYZ)....or...frankly...you really did not kick it into gear until Jr and Sr year....whatever it is ....make it honest...have a story...and then have a hook for why he should give you a shot...what are you interested in doing...have you done anything in that space already...above all else...maintain an air of confidence...your meeting is as much a stage show as it is an information exchange...make them feel comfortable in the thought of having you with them at the client site or even better...comfortable enough to send you there alone.

You're probably in good shape as long as you can explain your mediocre grades. Connections and good work experience trump grades in most cases. In the future it also might help you to try and crush the GMAT or take post bacc classes to demonstrate your intellectual ability.

There are two separate components here--getting the interview, then getting the offer.

With a 3.1-3.2, you're almost certainly only getting the interview if the director emails recruiting and tells them to give you an interview. I can't speak to the strength of your connection here, but in my experience this was something that general only happened for kids of large clients, so I wouldn't bank on it/put all your eggs in this basket.

If you get the interview, your interviewer will get your resume, so they'll not only see the low GPA, but might infer that you got the interview only through connections, which could bias them against you from the start (human nature and all that). So not only will you need an answer for the GPA, but you'll need to absolutely crush the case, because unfortunately the bar is higher for you than for other candidates. You'll lose any tiebreakers.

Wish I could be more optimistic here, but the fact is it's extremely rare for someone with a 3.1 to make it through and get a MBB job...

if a senior guy pushes your resume, you'll probably get an interview. you'll need to blow your interview out of the water though. 1. the nepotism perception 2. your 'unworthiness' perception

You need to think about it this way: Act as if. Act as if you have a 12 inch dick, as if you fucked Megan Fox.

You will get this internship if you act as if. I'm dead serious, this is your opportunity, GPA, "smeaPA", just kill your interview, have a baller personality and your set free.. otherwise your really fucked. MBB is very hard to get.

Here's the standard answer: For large/top shops connections will usually get you a first round, everything else rides on your interviewers/HR. It's not like the old days where nepotism ruled the Street.

Look on the bright side, a first round alone probably puts you ahead of 90% of the general applicant pool. Good luck.

How hard do MBB recruiters analyze transcripts? If this matters, all of my C/C+/W grades were in classes that are generally considered to be harder in my major.

I feel like this is the third or fourth time you've posted this exact question or something similar.

Your connection won't help you much. You'll get a first round where you will compete with others who actually have FUCKING impressive resumes... They may have mirrors of your resume except with much higher GPAs. You better destroy your interview, or you're fucked

As other's have mentioned, the connection could get you the interview. From there on out you are on your own though. Be prepared for every aspect of the interview, both the cases and the fit portion. You should aim to have 50 live case practices under your belt.

I think the low GPA would hurt you most in the resume screening phase. If you're able to get an interview anyway through networking, your GPA is going to be just one of many factors they consider. I just had an interview yesterday and I felt like the 2 most important things to my interviewers were my ability to work in teams and do well on the cases. They didn't even ask me about the weak parts of my resume. As others have said, be prepared for the questions but realize ultimately everyone has a weakness and they are looking at many things in these interviews.

I think LHDan gave somewhere between a decent to pretty good answer for me.

I think MBB is very tough to get.

I think Big Four is prestigious in its own right- but not quite as tough to get as MBB.

I'm scratching my head at how a kid with a 3.2, even at a tough school, manages to get MBB.

I'm not saying this is a total impossibility- I'd be saying you're toast with a 2.9- I'm just saying this is incredibly incredibly tough.

I have one or two more thoughts on this when I'm sober, but they require a lot of nuance that an MFE student back from D-Bar can't provide. I think the general sense is going to be that this notion of "just be confident", while shrewd, is a little too cynical about the people who will be interviewing you, and IMHO is steering OP in the wrong direction.

This is accurate. For reference the average GPA among new hire classes at my MBB office was give or take a 3.8 every year (was heavily involved in recruiting and have seen the data). I can't remember ever giving an interview to someone below a 3.4-3.5 or so. And even those were typically URM+varsity athlete types that had done a decent amount of networking. And this is at a top target with ~100 interview slots available.

You only get an interview with a 3.2 if a partner tells us we have to give you an interview. And as I said before, that tends to only be if you're the kid of a major client, at least in my experience.

It's entirely possible for OP to get an interview. If you build a connection with the partner and then press hard enough (although this can backfire), there's no real reason for them to not make the call that guarantees you an interview, as it's essentially no loss to them regardless of what happens.

The only caveat I can see is if the candidate is just overall pretty subpar (as OP's GPA indicates, unfortunately), since people might push back by asking the partner why he's wasting their time. But since first-round interviews are given by pretty low-level employees, I don't think this particularly matters either.

So final rec to OP: reach out to your connection and push hard when needed (seem a little desperate for your shot to prove yourself), but make sure you have a good, quick story to tell him about how you're a diamond in the rough. It'll probably work out, but regardless you won't be getting an interview at a single other management consultancy, so recognize that: 1) your chances are still very low at working in consulting at all, 2) that even if you get the interview you probably have a 10-20% chance, and that 3) that chance is a direct factor of how much case prep you put in (you should aim for over 40, among other things). You need to decide for yourself whether the opportunity cost of all this is worth it.

crimsontide:

I've got around ~3.1-3.2 GPA and also have a couple withdrawals on my transcript, thought I'm at a school known for rigorous academics (think Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Chicago, etc).

I went to one of those schools and knew people (I was one of them, but didn't do MBB) who had GPAs in that range who got MBB and other "prestigious" jobs after college. Really depends on your major and how you interview. And yes, you might have a hard time getting a first round, but all you need is one interview to get an offer.