I'd say that while a high GPA will never make an offer, a low GPA can definitely break an offer/interview. And like harden4mvp said, many firms will have defined cutoffs just to filter out hundreds, if not thousands of extra applications to review. That's not to say that a strong connection can't push you through even if your GPA is below the "cutoff".

 

Generally speaking GPA (3.5+ is fine with sufficient networking) only gets you a phone interview. After that, it is up to you and your soft skills to knock it out of the park. Knowing your technicals cold is a given. In my experience, GPA as a determinant of who receives an offer only comes up if two candidates are otherwise exactly alike, which is almost never the case. Hope this helps

Swinging Through
 

There was a thread on here by someone who did the resume filtering at their firm. I can't find the thread, but their system was something along the lines of

  • under 3.5, cut (assuming that was their firm's hard cutoff)
  • 3.5-3.8, scan resume quickly to see if anything stands out, put some into the next pile
  • 3.8+ put into next pile And then spend 30+ seconds reading each resume more carefully in the next look.

Obviously someone with a 3.9 is not inherently better than a 3.6, but the lower GPA you have the more you need to have something unique/relevant experience to stand out. Same goes for target schools versus non-targets.

Agree with above that once you get an interview GPA matters much less, but getting an interview is the most difficult part in IB.

Array
 

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