Is it over for me?

I’m a current freshman who is probably gonna end the year with a 3.3 gpa. I have pretty good connections through relatives (exec director at Morgan Stanley & UBS). I haven’t been able to get into any good finance clubs this year but I’ll apply again later and got a decent internship over the summer with the state government. Is my GPA too low to break into IB/PE/etc?? I need some advice lol

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You're far from done man. I would definitely recommend taking easier classes next year (assuming you took some hard ones this past year) to raise that gpa, and obviously idk how competitive the scene is at NW, but would say to leverage your connections as that's one advantage you have over others. Also, I'm sure if you go the diversity route, the standards are going to be way more relaxed compared to regular recruiting (have an acquaintance who was 1% hispanic get BB sophomore summer and going into EB junior summer by leveraging the diversity recruiting program). Definitely still network with alums for internships and upperclassmen for investment clubs if that's how it works at NW.

 

Yeah but does that make up for a bad gpa and crappy extracurriculars? Genuine question bc idk much about this stuff

 

You'd be surprised my friend. I go to a semi-target school in the south and the caliber of ppl who get offers from some BBs as well as UMM is very.....mixed for a lack of a better word. For ex., I know kids with 3.4 and 3.5 as sophomores/juniors get BB offers just bc of the fraternity they're in or bc of the ppl their family knows, and kids with 3.7-3.8 get no offers. Like OP said earlier, you also have the golden hand.  

 

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