10 Comments
 

I'll tell you from personal experience: I went to H/W, had a 3.6, was a varsity athlete, and did not receive a single BB or EB interview for summer recruiting (wasn't really in the loop junior year and didn't know about networking etc.). There are too many resumes floating around within the 3.6-3.8 GPA range at these kind of target schools to think you're guaranteed a slot just because of your school. I ended up at a MM through a cold resume drop and have been trying to lateral.

If you network you should be fine. Just need to get your foot in the door at a couple places.

 

I do not know anyone who graduated from HYP who got a top 3 IBD return offer in New York without a GPA above 3.7 (myself included). I'm sure there are exceptions, but at GS, the MD in charge of the alumni team basically said you need a 3.8+ with good leadership experience. The reality is few students are extended offers at the very top banks, even at these schools.

 
Best Response

no, you're fine as long as you network well. i went to HYP with a much lower GPA than 3.5 and learned that the hardest part is landing an interview. granted a lower GPA makes it more difficult but, as soon as you do that, everyone is on equal grounds for evaluation. i was surprised by how many 3.8+ kids bomb their interviews.

best strategy i've found from being on both sides of the table is to find alumni and make an impression. as soon as you land the interview, make sure you crush the technical portion as its 1) the most objective area of evaluation in roundtable discussions and 2) more likely (than personality) to impress your interviewer in a first round / land you a superday. if you impress people at your superday, it gives the alums you networked with earlier the ammunition with which they can pound the table for you. so basically, just network and be extremely prepared (don't embarrass the alums that recommended you in the first place).

 

Top target alum who ran FT recruiting for my school. At top schools, there will be like 50 candidates for 3 slots all who I'm pretty sure can do the job: some finance internship, decent EC's, 3.5-3.7 types. It was always fucking astonishing to me how, of this pool, if 3 nondescript kids had ever once e-mailed me and set up a 20 minute call, they would be differentiated from the pack and basically auto-selected for an interview slot and my work would be done. Instead, here I was sorting out GPAs to the hundredths place as if that mattered and analyzing freaking sophomore and freshman internships looking for some distinguishing factor.

Don't make my life difficult and don't be stupid. Try hard in school and e-mail your alums.

 

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