GPA dropped below cutoff after accepting offer help!
Hi everyone, please help me figure this out, essentially should I be worried or not?
I am currently a Junior and will be a Senior after this summer. Last fall my GPA was a 3.5 which is what I had on my resume when I applied for my summer internship. I accepted a summer analyst position with a respectable MM shop and will start this summer.
The GPA to apply was stated on the application as "requirements: minimum cumulative GPA of 3.3" after the fall semester my GPA dropped from a 3.5 to a 3.297 --- not sure what it will be after this current semester. Also, for the FullTime job posting on their website it has the same 3.3 cutoff to apply.
What will happen to me? Assuming I work extremely hard this summer, will I be able to get a FT return offer even though my GPA will be below the 3.3 cutoff mentioned on the online application?
P.S. I read the entire offer letter for this summer (summer 2k18) and there is nothing in it about GPA but I have not gone through the background check yet I'm sure they will ask for transcript but I have no idea? What will happen?
A lot of banks will put a minimum requirement in your contract offer where your FT position is contingent on graduating with a GPA above a certain level. I frankly don't know whether these things are really enforced, at the BB I worked at (and that was a few years ago, but I doubt things are change that much), we would get a third party to conduct the background check and while we definitely did get them to confirm that the GPA / transcripts that we're submitted with the application, but we didn't know what the applicant current GPA was so there was no way of knowing whether they had fallen below the threshold. I think in any case, the general feeling was that is was expected that after seeing what working life would be like and securing a FT offer, you would be more inclined to spend time doing fun stuff and your GPA would fall to some extent. Obviously, I am talking more about going from 3.8 to 3.6 than a complete collapse.
To the OP, I wouldn't worry about your situation too much, but you need to do a bit better senior year. GPA still get used as filter for buy-side recruiting and applying to a top school with a 3.3 would probably handicap you all else being equal.
You went from a 3.5 to a 3.3 in one semester. So that means you had a GPA of ~2.5 in the fall semester. While I'm sure you were "busy," is that really any excuse?
If any of the employees at the firm get wind of it, they'll likely have questions if your offer does contain language about maintaining a minimum GPA.
With all that said, I'd never allow a company I'm involved with to have such an overt cut off point as you're potentially missing out on great employees (yes the process is very different in the rarified air of BB's, but I'd still never allow it to explicitly stated).
The CFO of one of our portfolio companies went to a school that has an average SAT for its most recent incoming class that is around a 980 (excluding the 'new' third piece). He graduated with what he admits to be a GPA in the "low 2's." And to be honest, he's the best CFO we have. Another CFO is a Big Ten undergrad w/ Big 4 experience and a night school MBA from a 4th tier private school and the other is an Ivy educated former banker that started at Lehman, went to a now defunct boutique, and then into a career of CFO roles (this is his 4th CFO job).
Being a CFO in a PE's portfolio company, is almost equivalent to being a slave in a country of 'freedom and equality for all'.