Hey everyone,
I'm currently a rising junior at a non-target working an IB and a PE internship this summer. Leading to this year I was a horrible student, drifting on through life and having no care in the world. I just recently started getting my shit together like three months ago and managed to get my fist internship in Spring 2019 in FP&A. I am now working at a PE (remote) and an IB internship Summer of 2019. I know that GPA matters a lot in IB, obviously, but mine is shit... 3.0 high ranked certifiable shit (I've even retook classes, eek). Yet, I managed through and ungodly amount of networking land a PE and IB internship this summer, and might have a spot lined up for Fall 2019 or Spring 2020 and am looking to network a spot into Summer 2020.
The only light at the end of the tunnel is that my Major GPA (Finance and minor in Accounting) is 4.0 so far. I plan on keeping it that way till I graduate in Fall of 2020, hopefully. I just market my Major GPA on my resume.
I guess my question is am I beating a dead horse getting these internships at Boutique banks if my GPA is trash? Are my chances at working at a BB firm impossible to achieve after graduation? I have a good amount of connections all throughout Chicago that work at these BB banks, but I'm still unaware even getting my foot in the door matters if my GPA is hot ass. Also, when it comes to a full time offer after graduation the boutiques don't usually extend full time offers after internships based off the networking I've done.
What would you guys do in my position? Should I still ride the IB train or throw out my dreams and go intern in consulting or PWM (I know people working in these fields too).
Thanks in advance.
No its not impossible. I don't see why you can't get a BB internship and FT offer.
Feel better? Great, now keep grinding.
Feel like I can take on the world after this comment
Why did you have a low GPA to begin with? This is what I'd like to know if I were interviewing you. For me, a low GPA is an automatic ding. If you were either lazy or dumb even just your freshman year in college, I would worry about your mentality and if you can consistently handle long hours doing tedious analyst work. Investment banking, consulting, and most every other high end professional services career don't require you to be any sort of genius. But all those careers require you to work hard and persevere through some mundane shit--especially in your early years. If I see a low GPA, I imagine a low IQ or a low drive. Both are rather problematic for any professional services job.
That said, it's obviously not impossible to land a top job, but you are going to have to overcome that specific bias that I just described. I don't want to be a huge dick, but I went to less than maybe 1/3 of all my classes in college and both graduate schools I attended (top targets studying math, physics and economics) and got a 3.8 GPA. I didn't try very hard, but I'm fairly clever. I value cleverness above almost all things, so when I see a low GPA in a weaker subject than math, physics or engineering (I don't highly rate undergraduate finance or economics), I imagine that you're dumb. If I were interviewing you, I'd first attempt to assess if you're smart and then secondly ask why if you're sufficiently clever you still got poor grades in a relatively easy subject. If you were able to satisfy my curiosity on both those points, I wouldn't have a problem hiring you, but your story can't be as simple as 'I didn't realize school was important until I saw the potential for making money in my junior year.' To me, that means you lack intellectual curiosity, which is the thing that makes people clever in the first place.
i can see how your post could come across as a weird thing to say but i completely agree. One of my classmates absolutely killed every single class EXCEPT the numerical ones (calculating wacc/irr by hand and using it to discount). He was perfect on paper until he encountered unstructured learning that requires patience and perseverance. My point is, its easy to just read and recite stuff for good grades or put in hours for coursework. Studying subjects like math/physics/engineering requires a different skillset(thats a lot more valuable imo) and if you don't have that, it speaks volumes about your character. And people like @brotherbear will notice that. Long story short, make sure you do well in the hard modules.
P.S @brotherbear Don't say "I'm fairly clever", it makes you sound dumb. "Clever" people will never say this because they know they could be much better or its just not appropriate. Its no different than a model saying "Im pretty". Why would you say that? In addition to this, intellect is subjective. You may see someone as a genius, while others see him as a pompous idiot.
P.S.S OP, don't examine your career path in granular detail. You seem to have a great network & lined up experience. Get your grades up and you'll be fine. Worst case, you'll start out in Chicago and eventually lateral to another job/city of your taste.
I don't think it makes me sound dumb to say that I'm fairly clever. I did so in the context of explaining why a low GPA would be difficult for me to accept. There are three main reasons someone might have a low GPA--extenuating circumstances, low intellect or low drive. The preponderance of people with low GPAs fall into the latter two categories, so on a balance of probability, I'd automatically ding someone for poor grades.
No one wants to be seen as lacking motivation or lacking intelligence, so in the event the OP were to get interviews for competitive positions, he needs to have a believable explanation of his extenuating circumstances that led to his mediocre academic performance for the first year or two of college. Even in the case that there were some legitimate conditions that led to the sub-par performance, his explanation shouldn't center on an inability to attend class.
As I said, I didn't attend a lot of classes and didn't have performance issues. I explained that I am fairly clever not just because I'm arrogant (which I am), but because it covers one of the two primary explanations for poor performance. In my case, I'm relatively lazy but clever enough to make up for it in an academic setting. I probably wouldn't hire someone like me because it's more important to be hard-working in this field than smart (so long as you are sufficiently brainy). I suspect the OP is smart enough to do the work, which means his performance issues probably come down to a lack of motivation which I find more problematic because I wouldn't want to hire someone who is clever but lacking in drive.
After all, I-banking and consulting are far less cerebral than we all might like. They require stamina and the motivation to stick it out through all the tough times. That's the main reason GPA matters--it's a signal (not the only one, but an important one) that you possess the right personality for the job. The false positives come from people like me who are clever enough to do well without trying especially hard. Ideally, banks and consultancies don't want to hire a lot of people like me because we're not particularly diligent workers. In providing the context I did around my intellect, I gave a fuller explanation of my rationale than I would have otherwise been able to do. At the risk of sounding arrogant to some people on a forum I will never meet, I gave what I consider to be objectively better advice. That's a fair trade.
I'd say GPA is largely irrelevant the moment after you get your first job, though I know plenty of HFs, VCs and PE funds that still ask about GPA and test scores years later. I also don't view all GPAs uniformly. A 3.2 in engineering, math or physics is better in my mind than a 3.8 in history or psychology. The subjects just aren't equal in difficulty, and I don't imagine many history majors suppose they'd get the same grades in more technical courses.
As I said in my previous posts, I think that being a good student is an indication (in the minds of many) of diligent work ethic, which is largely what banks and funds are looking for. They are selecting not for the smartest people, but for the ones who--when left to their own devices--chose to work and study when no one was looking over their shoulder. It's an indication of intellectual curiosity or drive that's very difficult to instill in people late in life. On rare occasion, someone may have an epiphany that awakens them and provides them the jolt they need to remain motivated, but I would prefer someone always possessed that trait. The principal reason for this is simple--I believe that if you were lacking drive at some point in your past, you are at higher risk of losing it again in the future than someone who was always a self-starter.
Classic prospective monkey saying a certified Director in VC sounds dumb. Jesus F Christ
Banking is a hilarious industry.
Just a humble brag here from this dude.
Surely if you're so clever - you realize that there's more to people than GPAs?
Stop perpetuating an archaic recruiting manager stereotype and help change the system for the better Big brain.