Grade Non Disclosure

I heard a couple times in other posts that a couple of the top MBA programs have grade non disclosure policies, but that ibanks will still ask you about them in interviews at times. Does grade non-disclosure just mean that employers aren't really supposed to ask the student what his/her grades are, or does it mean that the school will not give out the student's transcripts at any point? If it's the latter, couldn't the student just lie about his grades if an ibank asked him what his marks were, since he doesnt have to worry about the school giving them out later in the background check?

Other than Harvard, which MBA programs have this policy?

 

Didn't Harvard get rid of this? Read an article talking about how non-disclosure is becoming a thing of the past. I suppose you could lie, but make sure your University really has an iron clad non-disclosure. Additionally, if you go to an Ivy that does not disclose it is reasonable to assume that some of your classmates will be working in the industry with you. If you are a crappy student it will get out.

 

We have this at Haas (UC Berkeley). Our policy only holds for on-campus interviews that we can't disclose our GPA. All the banks respected the policy during first rounds, but once you have 2nd rounds at the company office they are free to ask you about your GPA and you are free to disclose.

During summer internships recruiting, I don't recall anyone asking specifically for my overall GPA instead just focusing on how I did in the "core" accounting and finance classes.

Agree with Anthony, they can figure you out easily.

 

many schools have grade non-disclosure. my school's policy was identical to Haas, which shtick describes above me. a few points:

1) students are prohibited from listing their GPA on resumes they upload into their school's resume book database. 2) employers are prohibited from asking about GPA for all on-campus recruiting. 3) employers are permitted to ask GPA on second round, on campus interviews. 4) if you are interviewing off campus, or send a resume to an employer outside of the school's job database, none of the above rules apply.

i was asked about gpa from about 50% of BB. reputation is more important than grades, although the two often go hand in hand at school. bschool is collaborative in nature. you'll have study groups for all of your classes. if you're the guy who doesn't pull his weight in your groups, you'll have a horrible reputation and no bank will interview you.

any time i emailed my resume to BB, i included my GPA. (note: people also list their GMAT scores on resume, but not if it is below 700) i had a 3.9 and had nothing to hide. imo this helped to differentiate me from my classmates by proving that i was able to distinguish myself from a pretty talented group of kids.

from what i can gather, MBB is more focused on gpa and gmat than BB. BB is more focused on reputation and drive than gpa and gmat.

 

oh, one more thing.

since you mention lying about grades to the recruiters. first, bankers can always sniff out a liar. :)

second, my bb did a ridiculously thorough background check. i got a call from HR about a discrepancy of 1 month regarding the end date on one of my jobs. yikes! they hired a professional company who specializes in background checks and they must have called every guy i ever worked for in my entire life. it was really scary, especially when i have some HR person drilling me about why i said i stopped working in november when it really was october or whatever.

they also requested transcripts from bschool, undergrad and whatever other schools you attended. but i think this was just for my full time hire, not the internship. the background check was done for both my internship and full time hire.

 

GND is great. It makes for a much more collaborative bschool experience, takes a lot of the pressure off, and allows you to push yourself by taking more challenging classes.

To add to your list: Darden doesn't have it and stern does.

 
Best Response

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much. This really should not factor into your decision at all. Schools like Chicago Booth are competitive with difficult classes despite GND, Schools like Duke and Kellogg are super collaborative, despite having grades. Most jobs don't care about grades, and even if you are recruiting into one of the few jobs that care about grades (e.g. consulting and IB), you really only need to do well your first quarter or two anyways...which isn't too hard, since only people recruiting for those industries are trying hard anyways.

At the end of the day, top firms are going to take around the same amount of students from all the top schools, whether they have GND or not. At all the top schools, you're going to be spending all your time on school related stuff - if not classes, then clubs and networking events. All GND does is move a little time from studying to other areas.

 

I didn't know Wharton did away with GND. When I visited campus ~6 months ago I'm pretty sure they told me it was GND and that students voted every year on whether or not they wanted to keep it. I guess students voted to do away with it, which I do not understand at all.

I think GND is an important factor. If i'm trying to network and land a sweet FT job or internship, worrying about nailing my accounting final is the last thing I'm going to want to think about.

 

Grade Non Disclosure is a godsend. At Booth it is strictly accepted and even banks and consulting firms do not ask for your GPA. They are very familiar with our system and do not try to cheat it (from what I've been told and witnessed). Honestly, I can't imagine the dynamic that would exist if people cared about their grades. Booth's grades are curved to a strict B+ average and there are a lot of students receiving Bs and CS for the first time in their life. The stress relief factor alone is massive. It also promotes people to join clubs and participate in social events on weeknights and even weekends prior to exams. I love the policy and this is coming from someone that is probably in the top 15% of the class (for now).

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