Should I delay Graduation by one semester for IB recruitment

So just to give some background, I go to NYU Stern, and I had a 3.7 GPA after my first semester freshman year. But during my second semester, I came down with a life-threatening case of pneumonia and had to take a medical leave. I was only able to salvage two classes as incompletes and had to withdraw from the rest. Unfortunately, for the one class I did finish, the professor took off a large number of points during the final week, which tanked my GPA to a 3.2 and basically made it impossible to recruit.

I spent my entire sophomore year playing catch-up and managed to pull off a 3.83 GPA in both semesters, which brought me back up to a 3.6. I also landed a pretty solid finance internship this summer(Sophomore Summer) at a large bank.

The problem now is that I completely missed the IB recruiting cycle. Over the last month, I’ve done 30+ coffee chats and have been grinding technicals like crazy. My plan right now is to delay graduation by a semester from May 2027 to Fall 2027,  and recruit for a Summer 2027 internship instead, since Summer 2026 is already out of reach.

Is this plan actually viable, or am I cooked? Be honest.

6 Comments
 

You should be good. Had a similar circumstance and still got a great offer.

From my experience I wouldn’t mention it in interviews/networking unless asked since it seems like you are making excuses. However a majority of people don’t care/notice.

 

You can also recruit for boutiques junior year I doubt all recruitment for 2026 summer is done , I know some banks open in the fall

 

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