Chances of MBA summer internship for IB with 640 GMAT
Hi all,
I was admitted to a few programs and will be attending a top full-time MBA program at an Elite Finance Target MBA program (think CBS, Cornell Johnson, Duke, NYU Stern) and want to pivot into investment banking, however, I am coming in with a lower gmat score. What are the chances I can land a summer internship ? I'm worried about getting turned away from every bank because of this. What are your thoughts? Do IBs take the GMAT score less seriously if candidate is coming from a top finance MBA program?
.
.
You should be fine. There's one bank, from my experience, that will care (they asked for my SAT scores from 8 years before I recruited for God's sakes) but for the most part you should be fine. As you said, don't put your score on there--it will be assumed that it is less than 720 if it's not on there, but frankly they'll assume it's in the low 7s or upper 6s so it will net help you.
Given your other experience (accounting, CPA, etc...) it's even less of a big deal than if you did say TFA or military, where the GMAT can be a proxy for your ability to do the math needed for the job. Your work experience should answer that.
You may get asked about it in an interview, but it may be more to see how you handle the question / test if they can get under your skin, so think about how to spin it, without sounding defensive.
A good GMAT can help you more than a bad GMAT can hurt you at most banks. If I see someone that has a 750 on their resume, I may be more inclined to move them on if they are borderilne elsewhere, but if someone checks all the other boxes, I don't really care that they have a bad GMAT.
That being said, I would also state that your grades (should your school have grade disclosure--some of the ones you listed do) will be slightly more important. If you don't have good grades coupled with a low GMAT, could raise flags. If you have steller class performance coupled with your solid work experience and good MBA program, the GMAT can easily be overlooked as you not performing well at a test that to be honest doesn't measure B school or finance success potential at all (and I say this as someone that scored very well on it--I wish it mattered more, ha).
One final caveat, if the reason you didn't do better on the GMAT is you didn't really have time to study and you think you could do better, it may be worth the extra time and effort just to remove the variable altogether. If you think you've peaked there, I wouldn't sweat it too much though.
^^^this^^^
.
I didn't have my GMAT listed and it didn't matter. There was only one bank that asked me for my GMAT. That same one also asked for UG grades, ACT and SAT. The rest didn't care and didn't ask about it, don't bother retaking it again. Spend the time that you would study on it preparing for recruiting, it starts fast.
This was for B-School summer internship recruiting?
Yes. Maybe a number of them asked for it on applications, but it only came up in one interview and I advanced so it obviously wasn't a deal breaker.
Only bank that asked me was GS and also asked about UG gpa.
So those are CBS's peers for i banking these days? Assumed they were ahead of all the other mentioned schools.
CBS leads the pack (by a negligible margin between other top programs) but generally speaking ALL IBs recruit heavily at the top 10 listed below. P&Q's latest rankings for I-Banking US MBA programs:
"The ranking is based on the percentage of MBAs at each school who landed front office work (i.e. corporate finance, sales, and trading and equity research) in top tier firms. In particular, the ranking focuses on tying MBA programs to specially-tiered institutions. We’ve allocated a greater weighting to those working for investment banks we’ve deemed ‘tier one’ than ‘tier two’ or ‘tier three’. In our ranking, tier one banks include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley. Tier two banks include Barclays, Credit Suisse and UBS, and tier three banks include BNP Paribas, HSBC, Nomura, Royal Bank of Scotland and SocGen."
In what world is DB tier 1 while CS is tier 2?
The same world that NYU is on par with the aforementioned schools...
Dunno, take it up with P&Q bro... Just an indicative listing, not really bothered by it
I would take this ranking with a grain of salt. I think a more important metric is % of students that got front office jobs out of those that recruited for it. Comparing % of students that go FO out of the total student body will always skew hard towards more traditional finance schools, whereas I know of schools with higher hit rates (again for those actually recruiting for the FO) than you would see at some of (clearly not all, however) the traditional finance schools.
I think there was one person in my class of 55 from Cornell, Stanford and MIT combined. Granted Stanford may place more in California. MIT on this list shocks me.
CBS is pretty significantly above those other schools in terms of ease of getting top banks. The thing that people misrepresent on here all the time is "it's easy to get a BB job from a top 15 "... which isn't quite true (but has some truth), but also doesn't take into account how much easier it is to slide into better groups at better banks and especially how schools are viewed at EBs as you move into the CBS/Booth/Wharton tier of IB recruiting.
I'd say you have a 69% chance
69.69%
OP, I had mine listed on my resume, but from what I was told the only banks that asked were GS and the EBs. Since you'll leave it off people may ask, but the mid tier BBs likely wont. But, if you are at a school that has grade disclosure, you will need to do well enough to show that 640 is an aberration, because it's definitely going to be seen as a legitimately bad score.
It's not ideal, but you can definitely do fine with that score.
If most of the banks don't ask for it (presumably because its not a factor in their consideration), should you show a high score or are there downsides that outweigh any benefit?
Quis maxime facere rerum ut et aliquid. Debitis sit voluptatum vel ad magnam. Culpa necessitatibus ut tempore magnam ut. Quo laboriosam eum quia voluptate.
Esse aut deserunt adipisci ratione quia commodi. Sit deserunt enim eum tempora. Saepe ut libero est.
Nulla tempore laborum ab ut quae. Vel facilis vero facilis et. Et enim quisquam totam ducimus eum a. Labore et consequatur et neque ipsa.
Quod tempora et cupiditate rem. Ipsam eum et aut quae voluptatem sint. Pariatur similique dolore est quas. Doloremque sed explicabo omnis illum. Ut ab voluptas consectetur quod.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Rem earum iusto non qui aut. Et assumenda quisquam nemo alias unde magni magnam. Vero quia dolore voluptas tempora ratione voluptatem neque aut. Iusto enim quibusdam expedita ut. Tenetur est dolorem ipsum et explicabo illum. Modi provident id eum.
Deserunt asperiores consequatur voluptatum odio vel. Magnam est praesentium et recusandae asperiores error. Nihil maxime culpa et animi. Expedita quae et sed enim officia eum et.