3.5 @ Wharton

imo just judging from my perception,

assumming you're a junior: I would say it depends on the rest of your resume. If you have a few activities or some reasonable finance experience then you are more than fine.

It would only be in the "danger zone" if everything else completely sucked.

I think 3.6 --> 3.5 is a very minimal decrease in your marketability. 3.5 --> 3.4 is a much larger decrease though.

ur in Wharton u have 3.5 or so and if u have lil experience.. ur SET... I would not worry..

dude your fine, obviously your competing with other kids from wharton who probably have a BB on their resume......but you should be fine unless you're only aiming for top groups

Hi, I also currently attend Penn (although not at Wharton), but I have plenty of friends who are in Wharton with a similar gpa (3.4-3.6). I am a senior and have gone through two semesters of OCR - they are hell and you get to enjoy your first round quite soon. All I can say is start to prepare your resume/cover letters/writing samples if needed over this coming winter break because it can be overwhelming. Also start contacting folks/connections/alumni you know in the shops you're interested in. You might also want to make up a story for why you may have a poor(er) semester, especially since your trend is above B+ and in the A- range. From my experience, interviewers won't pay much attention to a single bad grade or a bad semester, but I had a poor semester freshman year and a single company did ask me about it. Nothing serious, but maybe have an explanation ready.

You are well above the 'throwaway cutoff' for most places, which I think is under a 3.0 or 3.3-3.4 for top places. But, thanks to the Wharton curve, a whole bunch of people have your GPA, or around it.

Candidly, I can tell you that you aren't going to have trouble finding a meaningful job in consulting/ibanking. 3.5 is pretty strong and it looks like you have a good internship experience. Coupled with some good extracurriculars and you're set. Just don't be a stiff during interviews (practice, practice, practice).

I would not, however, only limit yourself to the top banks/pe firms/hedge funds/consultancies. Not that I think you're going to, anyway. Waltersobchek mentioned that you will be competing with other wharton kids/(and even college kids, like econ majors who have a 4.0 and crap). The reality is you will be competing with Huntsman and M&T folks, and firms eat that up. Others will have great experiences but will have 4.0 or damn near perfect GPAs. Find a story about why a company should hire you over someone with a 4.0. Penn recruiting is highly competitive (as you know... and now picture how much more difficult it is for a college kid trying to get a mgmt consulting/banking position.. lol) Don't limit yourself, but don't undersell yourself either. Apply to everything, and then pick and choose.

I don't go to Wharton, so you are better equipped to find out exactly how competitive these things are by simply asking around on your own campus, but if you are a junior and you already have that type of experience on your resume, a 3.5 should not hurt your chances. That is, unless you're applying to places like Blackstone PE that only have 1 slot and have to rule out anyone with less than 3.7 just to make the pile of rseumes manageable to begin with.

Even at Wharton an internship like that before your 3rd year puts you above the pack.

lol....funny you mention that. With Blackstone I'm hoping to use a connection, since my cousin's side of the family has the ex-vice president of China in it, and since Blackstone is now 10% owned by the Chinese government......

Like chron3k (hey bud), I am also a Penn student in the College but am friends with plenty of Wharton kids.

Chron3k already said most of what needs to be said. I think one thing that mustn't be overlooked is how you represent yourself through your resume. It is of paramount importance that you make it extremely clean, noticeable, and relevant. Get all the appropriate material in there, word it in an intelligent fashion, and format format, format... Then once you think it looks good, format it again. While there were also other factors involved that made the difference between my junior year spring semester and this current semester, I had a grand total of 2 OCR first rounds last year whereas I had ~30 this year and making sure my resume was in top condition was a large reason for this difference.

How’d you end up?