I'm a rising junior interning at a small VC firm in NYC this summer, only about 8 employees. Last summer, they had an intern who was an MBA student, who understandably put "Summer Associate" on his resume. Earlier this summer, they told me to put "Summer Associate" as well, I guess they didn't consider the fact that I'm undergrad. I've sent my resume with the "summer associate" title to a number of IB analysts/associates I'm networking with, and have submitted it to a number of the IB summer analyst applications that are open online for next summer. Now I'm getting a bit worried that its going to come off either pretentious or intentionally misleading. Should I reach out to HR to make sure they realize I'm not trying to mislead anyone? Withdraw and resubmit my apps? What do you guys think?
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It's not ideal but some companies do actually call their entry-level guys Associates (e.g. PwC in the UK) so it's not necessarily wrong, especially as your company told you to write down that title. Just tell HR or an interviewer if they bring it up that the title is what you were told to put down by the company (even if your company forgot you weren't an MBA).
I have a 3.9+ gpa from a target and varsity athlete ...basically just wondering whether this could be an auto ding, or whether I'll at least have a chance to explain it in an interview.
It's not an auto-ding. I did the same thing from an internship at a small PE firm and I got interviews. Titles vary a lot firm by firm, so unless it was a bank (where everyone has a strict analyst - associate - VP trajectory), then it doesn't come across as inaccurate. A lot of consulting firms have "associate consultants" or things like that, and a lot of PE firms and VC firms that have very few undergrads (like the places we worked) only have associate titles because they don't have organized analyst programs.
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