Let's say you go to a good target school, and GS, JPM, MS or any bank is recruiting students.
There are 2 candidates in the running for the final spot at a summer internship. Student 1 is a math/physics double major with a 3.2-3.3 GPA.
Student 2 is an English major and has 3.7-3.8 GPA.
Both of these candidates are virtually identical in leadership quality, prior work experience, and gave similar-quality interviews.
Who would get hired?
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the English major, because unless the math/physics guy networked his ass off he would not have gotten an interview in the first place
agree. of course networking can change anything but 3.2-3.3 is hard to justify anywhere.
For the most part, HR / bankers don't care. 3.2-3.3 is low for anyone if you're looking at BB IBD. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of exceptions but it's difficult. I'm not saying that the current system makes sense or is justifiable given your rationale (which I agree with) but those looking to recruit college students draw the line somewhere.
The person that interviewed better...
highly unlikely as the math major will probably have different leadership than an english major
Hard to tell, the 3.2 kid might have not gotten an interview through OCR and would have to be "networked" giving him an inherent advantage. Also you can't just group all of the BB's together like that, they all have different cultures and GS might be more prone to giving the math kid a shot while JPM would prefer the english kid. Overall for IB, I would say the english kid has a much better shot at getting an offer vs the math kid, but the math kid would have a great chance of being either smarter or more exposed to finance which could help him.
FWIW, if your picking a major I would go with english as the kids who ultimately succeed in STEM are rarely the kids doing it for the "prestige" or doing it for the purpose of breaking into finance.
maths kid if he does better on an interview
for me, grades in school would be absolutely irrelevant
Trust me it's going to be the person that interviews better once you both get the first round.
But for getting that first round, I'm more inclined to pick the person with the higher GPA.
agreed. once you get the interview it all comes down to fit.
Whose hotter?
None. We're not hiring.
If you were a baller, you would have said "I'm not hiring."
I don't get it. Why are 3.5s for finance majors acceptable, yet 3.3s for math/physics majors are a no-go?
Background doesn't matter; it's all about the interview!
I think a better question would be, if you saw two these two resumes and had to choose one for a first round interview, who would you pick?
english major every time. not close either
I had a 3.2 from target school, engineering major, got into BB S&T np
the BB IBD hiring process reminds me of law school acceptance processes. why so obsessed with numbers even though the reasoning is clearly flawed?
Is this banking? Sales and Trading? Quant Analytics?
Big differences.
Quant Analytics, Math/Physics hands down unless the English major has done diffyqs and knows how to code.
Banking, probably the English major.
I would think the 3.2-3.3 would get thrown out before any sort of first round interview 90% of the time if we are talking about a straight up resume drop.
Quant analytics, we would look at the 3.3. Don't think it would happen in S&T or banking.
For quant positions, would you take a look at a 3.8 gpa but with only math experience until multivariable calculus, linear algebra and differential equations?
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