Career Switch to I-Banking after Crappy UG Performance?

So I'm headed back to school next fall for an MBA at a top-15 school. I'm looking to make the jump into I-banking from my previous career as an engineer (typical, I know). Here's the rub, unlike a lot of the posters on this board I haven't been a gunner my whole life. Until I was about 20 I was a huge slacker/goof off. I went to an Ivy League UG, but only because high school was so ridiculously easy and I am freakishly good at standardized tests. As a college student I basically did no class work (hardly even made it to class most of the time) and just sort of bullshit my way to a 2.97 GPA.

Now, I did some other interesting stuff in college. I was a varsity athlete - a contributer, not a bench warmer -, and also started my own internet company which I eventually sold for about about one years tuition (circa 2001). I was in a hard major at one of the hard Ivies (no grade inflation), but I'm not going to lie, I essentially learned nothing in college and my transcript is peppered with as many C's and D's as A's.

Once I hit 20 I got much more serious. I taught myself enough engineering to get myself a traditional engineering job after the whole dot-com thing didn't pan out, and I've done well in that career. I'm licensed, and I'm about a year and a half ahead of the typical engineering career progression after five years. I have a GMAT score well over 700, am a MENSA member, and as I said before I got myself into a top-15 b-school.

In the educated opinion of the members of this board, do I have a shot at an Associate position or does my UG GPA screw me (b-school has grade non-disclosure)? What would be the best way to market myself and explain my low UG GPA? My thinking is its better to have recruiters think I was lazy than think I was dumb, but neither is really a good image to have.

Thanks

 
Best Response

I wouldn't spin it as lazy. Make sure you mention how much else you had going on during undergrad. I'll paste my answer to a similar question from another thread below:

captk:
I was in a similar situation to you.

I also started, ran, and sold my own startup while in school. Due to the distractions of running my company day to day, my GPA was a 3.3.

Every single I-bank that I landed interviews with asked me (paraphrased) "What's the deal with your GPA?"

Make sure you list your entrepreneurial experience on your resume, as well as specific goals you achieved and skills you learned while running your company. The key is to spin it as a unique experience that you have that others don't. Emphasize the problem solving skills and the perseverance you learned while running your company.

This was my answer: "I was running my own company throughout my time at school, and sometimes I had to prioritize and make some decisions. Was I going to study for my English test (make sure you say a non-Business subject here) or was I going to advance my company? In the end I made the choice to grow my company, and I don't regret it. I feel that the experiences I got entrepreneurially far outweighed anything my peers have gotten in the classroom."

Without exception, every interviewer nodded his head and said "I can respect that" and the interview moved on.

I got almost every position I interviewed for, often over other students with GPAs an entire half point higher than mine.

You can read the whole thread here: http://wallstreetoasis.com/forums/your-opinion-on-my-situation

  • Capt K
- Capt K - "Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, bait the hook with prestige." - Paul Graham
 

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