Quick Question - Rising senior at a semi-target

Hey all,

Long time reader of this forum but first time poster. I am a rising senior at a semi-target (Econ major) and have a cumulative GPA of 3.49. I play D3 varsity hockey, a couple extracurriculars, have an interesting background and decent internship experience.

A couple questions:

1: Will a 3.49 automatically scew me for any shots at a first round interview (especially at MBB?)

2: Can/should I round it up to 3.5?

3: If I round it up, should I mention this on my resume or later on if they request a transcript?

Thanks and Regards

 
  1. hopefully someone else know this one.

  2. You should go ask your school career services... what is the standard practice? My bet is you can't round up... but you should ask.

  3. No. IF your career services says rounding up from 3.49 is standard, do NOT mention it on your resume.

 
Best Response

I dont know what the obsession is with GPA by the members of this website. No one is going to give a fuck if you have a 3.49 or a 3.5

To get an interview, you usually go to the career fair to the company booth and talk with the recruiters. If you come off like somebody that they could see as a potential candidate, they will take your resume and unless it has no substance to it they will offer a first round interview. a .01 GPA rounding is not going to change their minds whether to interview or not.

 

and for question #3, if you impress them and get hired, the person that your transcript will go to is an HR rep whose job is to make sure that you are not lying about going to college, not to see if you lied about having a B+ when it was really a B. The interviewers will never see your transcript. (with the exception of small 20 employees or less firms)

 

The first two posters have no idea what they're talking about. Didn't you ever learn significant figures?

3.49 = 3.5, you're not lying about your GPA, 3.5 is what it actually equals when you truncate the hundredths place. Hell, you could have a 3.45 and still write 3.5. Do you see the pattern now?

Though this is subtle, you can't, however, write that 3.49 = 3.50 because that WOULD be a lie.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty
 

This post as well as the OP are pissing me off, so since I am sitting at a balet recital that my wife dragged me to, I will elaborate.

Lets say I am interviewing a few candidates and end up hiring one of them that I think will do a great job and will be a good fit with my group. At the point where My colleagues and I are willing to sign off on sending you an offer, we already forgot what your GPA was. By the second and third round, your GPA does not matter, it is your skill set, characteristics such as ambition, dedication, work ethic, etc..., and of course fit and personality.

Now this has never happened to me, but lets say two weeks after you start I find out that you really got a 3.4 and you put a 3.6 down on the resume. What will make me upset, is not the fact that you got a 3.4, but the fact that you thought it was important enough to lie about on a resume. What it tells me about you (besides the fact that you do not have the highest integrity) is the fact that you do not understand what is important to your employer.

I really think that you can benefit by researching more of what finance companies are looking for. I am not saying ignore GPA, as it is an important gauge of your work ethic. But interviewers are not stupid, they know that it is easy to get a 3.8 if you take easy classes with curves and easy professors, and they know that a kid can work his ass off in difficult quant, stats, physics, etc, classes and get a 3.4 so the GPA just gets you into the interview, As long as you do not have something rediculously low and are not a complete bore when you meet a recruiter at a career fair it should be easy to get into a first round. From there its all about how you can show to the interviewer what you can do for the company, and why it is valuable for me to hire you.

 

Trailmix8 I really appreciate your input. Of course I realize that GPA is miniscule in importance when compared to a variety of other factors in the hiring process. Perhaps I worded it poorly in my original post ,but I guess that my main question was since I dont have an "outright" 3.50, I wouldnt stand a shot at getting a first round interview since I am technically (depending on the use of sig figures) under the commonly perceieved cutoff point. I know it may seem like a silly question, I was just curious and I appreciate the feedback from all posters above

 

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