Rounding my GPA by <0.1
Hi, I'm a rising college junior (target school) starting to apply for internships for next summer. Currently interning at a medium sized bank, but interested in an IB internship at a BB for next year.
Many of the bigger banks I've looked at have a minimum GPA requirement (or rather, "preferred GPA") of 3.5 for IB. I go to a school that doesn't actually calculate my GPA, so I am in the position of needing to determine it myself. Doing so as honestly as possible, I come to 3.42. As most online portals only ask for GPA to one decimal point, I was wondering about the ethics / possible repercussions of rounding my GPA to 3.5. I'm also confident that my GPA will exceed that by the time I would start, as my current GPA is severely hampered by poor freshman year grades.
Thanks for any advice.
If you're caught, your offer will be pulled. If you got the offer through OCR, you'll also get banned by career services for any future recruiting on campus and you'll most likely get suspended by your school for an honors code violation. This will show up on future background checks and effectively disqualify you from any future employment in the financial services industry.
Can't speak to the odds of getting caught. Would imagine it's fairly low though.
Personally, it's not even remotely worth it. It's unlikely that the difference between and 3.42 and 3.5 will make or break you. Unless you have something substantial going for you or you're at a target school known for grade deflation, the odds are you're not getting an interview at a BB either way.
Thanks for taking the time. Do you think that getting an interview with a 3.42 is far fetched, even if I have relevant experience and a network?
Yes. I go to a non-target and people get offers at MM/BB and have a 3.4. Don't worry about it.
OP: I have been in your exact seat (now I'm dating myself) and I'm usually the straight up honest one (too much so...), but in this case I will, respectfully take the opposite side of the advice given by others. In short, just say 3.5 and move on.
Why? because it helps you make the cut-off and frankly having sat at a number of seats in this industry (banking not being one of them), I've seen this in every way shape in form. People in the industry across verticals are VERY VERY flexible with numbers and they are always changin'. AUM is nearly $500m? Can you be more precise? Sure. $450m. Actually more like $430, but we are up on the month and may have some subscriptions coming in next month. When's the last time you got capital in? A few months ago? Can you be more precise? Uhm.. December? Oh so 6 months ago.. I see...Wait how much are you up? Well we started the month up 5% but have given some back... (Ok, enough with the cynicism). But hopefully you get my drift.
Get "busted"? You can say 3.42 and that you are doing well enough in your classes that it would give you 3.5 and you wanted to reflect that and give them the most up to date clear picture because you want this job so badly and will do what it takes, or whatever. I assure you most of your banking types that would interview won't care. Like at all. Let me be clear that it's not like you are making a 3.2 a 3.5 or something...
They want one decimal, they'll get it. Plus put yourself in the shoes of some analyst/associate looking through resumes. Without someone putting your resume in the "good" pile/stack (ie. networking) it's an easy rejection since you don't make the cutoff at 3.4 vs 3.5... and they have 100 other things to do besides filter through resumes and ask every single one "is this a real GPA?"
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am 10-15 years older than most on this board and the above was very standard practice in my time and actively encouraged by bankers. It's what I have seen in my career and continue to do so. That said, if times have really changed that much, please do state so (for not only my benefit, but for that of others).
TLDR: Just do it and move on. No big deal.
Good Luck
Times have changed. See recent examples of analysts fired for cheating during internal exams, ordering seamless 30 minutes early, sketchy expense reports, etc,.. All of those I'm sure were more or less standard behavior during your time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargo-fires-bankers-amid-probe-of-di… https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-analysts-fired-for-cheati…
This is a great post and thanks for taking the time. Expenses aside (maybe and that would certainly not be at a junior level) the rest (cheating etc) were certainly not standard practices in my day, to my knowledge.
To be fair, I came out of college during a bubble. This means that expenses (and probably everything) were far less scrutinized and everyone and their mother at a bank was making serious money hand over fist. Tales of booze, coke, strippers, you name it, were not rare. If you had the expense account and it brought in business (typically NOT at the junior level), no one cared and everyone looked the other way. That’s no different from any other bubble.
The pitch back then clearly was: get into banking/structured products/S&T, sacrifice your twenties, make VP and get paid a million bucks a year. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t brutally competitive to get in. Sure, there were lots of seats. But you still needed a connection or great grades to get in since demand for those seats greatly exceeded supply.
Comp across the board and staffing numbers are, understandably, way down. As is demand for said seats. However demand clearly exceeds supply hence this discussion.
But such minuscule round ups or downs? Mere Details and justifiable ones. And that’s the key. Justifiability.
There will always be stories of the odd person getting caught on something silly as a cautionary tale. What won’t be mentioned are the other significantly greater number of people who do it, say nothing and get in and probably at the OP’s expense (yes we know there are so many other factors going into it but such rules will certainly be a major one).
I am only speaking from my experience and what I have seen first hand as well as having spoken to and seen from friends and acquaintances across areas in the industry and positions in the ladder.
In short I think the chances the OP is really scrutinized are very low and it will not hurt his chances of getting in. Whereas if he doesn’t then he won’t get a look in without networking (which is much harder and time consuming than everyone makes it out to be).
TLDR: great response above to my original post. OP it’s your choice and I am sure you will do great in the long run regardless.
Good Luck
Kind of late to this, but that’s kind of tall to relate a .8 rounding to cheating and fraud. Eat MS for that
Don't. 3.42 is sufficient with networking especially from a target. You won't get in through online apps, but most people won't. I agree with the first answer, you are screwed (lose offer/lose career center) if you are found out.
If you can take any college classes this summer (even random community college courses sometimes can transfer in as electives) do it, could potentially get your GPA to that 3.45.
Job applications and resumes are not exercises in being as honest as possible. They are personal advertisements. You must avoid false advertisement, but otherwise the goal is to show yourself in the best possible light, just as if you were marketing a product. Hiring managers understand this. As long as they do not catch you in an outright lie (and remember, the word lie implies intent to deceive) they will overlook the rest.
So rounding from 3.42 to 3.5 is out, because no reasonable person would believe that you weren't knowingly trying to deceive them.
But as long as your school doesn't prescribe a single method, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to use any reasonable method of calculating your GPA that yields the most favorable result for you. Does your school use credit hours? Calculate it weighted by hours and then calculate it again where each course gets an equal weight. Sometimes A- = 3.7 and B+ = 3.3; sometime its 3.66 and 3.33. Calculate both ways and see which favors you. Did you get any A+ grades? Some schools award 4.3/4.33 points for those.
Try every possible permutation until you find your best result. In the very unlikely event you're called out, you can show your work and now have the two most beautiful words in the English language working for you: plausible deniability.
3.42 is actually close to 3.5 so while you're at 3.5 you could round up to 4 and then it would just be 4/4.
![https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DeterminedOffensiveGar-size_restricted.gif][h…]
Personally I would do it. In addition to what Jamoldo said, I think if they do check your GPA or ask for a transcript it would be closer to the end of next year or at least after the Fall semester so as long as you bust your ass and GPA trends upwards to around 3.5 I think you would be fine. If you decide not to round it I think having an internship in banking right now will be a huge plus anyways.
Put the 3.5.
You have time to improve before you'll need to provide transcripts.
If your school doesn't calculate GPA on your transcript, I don't know if anyone will. Besides, most background checks are confirming enrollment/graduation but don't go so far as transcripts unless you personally provide.
Source: I outright lied about my GPA on my resume my senior year for a positio (don't recommend, but would do it again knowing how it turned out), got the offer & was the highest-rated first year analyst ever hired into my FLDP.
Don't risk it. People have pointed this out a lot above and I just want to provide my thoughts in two ways of why you should not fake it.
First, its against integrity by doing so and integrity is the single most important factor in your finance career and life. Second, if you're applying to any bank that has formal onboarding process, you will be asked to submit your transcript anyway in a later and they will find out what happens with your real GPA. They might or might not ding you, but finance is anyway a really small circle and if you get caught lying, it spreads around quickly and hurt your professional reputation.
Disclaimer: based on my exp. only, and I am in final year of college.
Can you put 3.75 as 3.8 or 3.85 as 3.9?
Sint molestiae fugit molestiae velit est blanditiis rem perspiciatis. Asperiores asperiores vero esse. Numquam omnis dolores voluptatem blanditiis quis consequuntur.
Cum sunt suscipit asperiores corporis accusamus eius. Placeat sunt quisquam consequatur. Porro corporis distinctio quasi ut eius sint.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...