I know this is a ridiculous question. Hear me out.
I’ve done a good amount of researching and multiple threads on WSO say how a 4.0 is a major red flag and they’d prefer a 3.9 over a 4.0
I’m not awkward and I have relevant work experience. (Incoming Sophomore at non target, working at boutique IB this summer)
Please tell me I’m crazy and to keep the 4.0 for as long as possible.
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You’re crazy and keep the 4.0
Agree, keep the 4.0. If it really bothers you, why not just put 3.95 on your resume? No firm would rescind an offer if you lowered your own GPA
Lol Fuck no. Are you studying so much that you don't have time for a life outside of school? If yes, then maybe think about how much 4.0 is worth it in the long run.. If not, then don't ruin a 4.0 gpa for no reason. If you can show that you have a life, and still maintain a 4.0, then that says a lot about your commitment and ablility to balance fun and hard work.
Many people start their careers not knowing that work-life balance is in part up to them. No one will be forcing you to take on new hobbies, working out, etc. A person that is well rounded and has a 4.0 tells me they will be able to deal with the rough hours and not become a suicide case one year into their analyst stint at worst, and at best a jaded analyst that complains all the time about work.
If you're at a Non-ivy, keep it. It you're at an ivy, wtf
Oops accidentally replied to a comment. Will delete original post.
Alright actually this is a really interesting question. I went to a college where there is a grading scale that offers A+ (i.e. Stanford, Cornell, Arizona State, Colgate) and at one point I had a 4.20 GPA. I noticed my interviewers would always start my interview by complementing my GPA and then ask ridiculously difficult technical questions when I was interviewing for my sophomore internship (ended up working at a UMM PE firm my sophomore year).
I pledged a fraternity my sophomore fall and my GPA fell to a 4.05 which I then rounded down to a 4.0. At this point I began recruiting for junior SA as it was Spring of my sophomore year. From then on I started getting normal interview questions that weren't ridiculously hard to answer. In my opinion, I do think interviewers expected more from me since my GPA was so high at a 4.20 but having a 4.0 is completely fine. It makes you stand out if you're personable and I ended up at a BB that summer and am going back. This doesn't apply to you but a GPA like 4.20 is actually stupidly high and so the interviewers expected me to be some sort of genius when I wasn't, I was just good at taking tests in college.
If you REALLY feel some sort of discomfort with having a 4.0 you could always put something like 3.93. They can't rescind you for putting a lower GPA than what you have. Just my 2 cents as this question did remind me of the past and you're not alone when you worry that having too high of a GPA may seem like a red flag. At the end of the day I wouldn't worry about it and would just keep it on there as a 4.0 and do well in your next interviews. They shouldn't negatively judge you for having a 4.0
Delete
lmao, my school also let me do p/f on whichever classes I wanted. As a math and physics major who was backloading a bunch of hard classes for my last sem, corona came at the best time
Heads up. Make sure to put your 4.2 on your OCR apps/resumes. Your reasoning that the average banker won’t understand the 4.3 grading system makes sense but whenever you’re competing against other people from school you’ll want to put your 4.2. I would just put it all the time.
bro 4.20
bro, nice
wonder if it was Stanford or Arizona State lol. That polarity
Neither I'm too smart to ASU and too dumb for Stanford. Should lead you to the answer.
Hey! Could you PM me?
I'm the poster you're replying to. What's the question? Is it that personal that you need a pm?
When I read the title I thought you were going to tack on another major not just sabotage your GPA lol
Heh, so I am long away from UG, on the employer side now. We tend to think all GPAs are bullshit for the most part. Lots of people with 4.0s, 3.9s, 3.8s. We aren't stupid, we know grade are inflated and professors are afraid to give less than As these days. This is why financial modeling tests and all other sorts of screening mechanisms are needed. Also why hiring from prior interns is such a smart strategy.
So, I guess it doesn't matter. BUT, if you don't have a one of those 'high GPAs' and are a recent grad, then yeah, it probably looks bad. If it's lower than 3.5 don't put on resume, the old rule was 3.0......
Do employers really think professors are afraid to give less than an A? All of our BSchool courses have required curves — I assumed this is common practice.
Required curves are not as common place as you think, and any policies that allow for Pass/Fail grading can mute the effect. Grade inflation is a real thing, it's written about and talked about. The whole P/F deal really shifts a lot of GPAs to be artificially higher and this was not commonly allowed years ago.
A 2.9 from like 30 years ago is like a 3.5 today. It's not hard to figure out, GPAs have gone up over the years, a lot of firm use them as screening tools (i.e. only those above a threshold get reviewed, makes for easy culling of tons of applications).
You see tons of 4.0s and nearly that high these days, it doesn't mean what it used to. And yes, some professors are afraid to give lower grades than deserved, this is not universal by any stretch, but the issue is out the.
Here is a quote from an article about grade inflation...
"While certainly astonishing, this statistic is indicative of a greater trend in higher education. According to research by Diane Dean, an associate professor for high education administration at Illinois State University, and Arthur Levine, president emeritus of Teachers College of Columbia University, 7% of undergraduates nationwide had grades of A- or higher in 1979. In stark contrast, 41% of students in 2013 boasted grades of A- of higher. In the same vain, grades of C or less dropped from 25% to 5%."
The article is actually about NYU Stern's grading curve and how it has been 'relaxed' in recent years.
No
Not a ridiculous question imo. As someone who also has a 4.0 I've had someone in an interview ask if my school (non-target) is too easy LMAO. I have certainly thought about getting a few lower grades to bring it down so people don't assume I have no life outside of school or my school's not legit or whatever. But honestly I think I've realized that what I've been doing has worked so far so why purposefully change anything.
Bruh
So you’re assuming you are going to get an A in every future course and that you will have to make a conscious effort to get a lower GPA? Dude ...
As someone who graduated with a 3.9+ from a non-target, I'd say the number itself shouldn't matter as much as whether or not the classes you are taking are both challenging yourself and indicative of what you are trying to get out of your education. Coming from a school whose business and finance curriculum was pretty poor at best, it gave myself a pretty high view of what I thought I knew, only to realize that the classes I had taken really hadn't prepared me at all for post-college.
Rather than focus on the specific number you have, I'd ask yourself whether or not you have taken the classes that both match your interests post-college and if those classes are a good indication of both the degree you're getting and your school's overall curriculum. In hindsight, I wish I had decided to take classes that would have more application to what I wanted to do after college. Now that I've been out of school for a bit, I could care less about my GPA--if I could go back, I wish I could have taken that upper-level accounting class, even with a bad professor (as a finance major), rather than take a lighter course load that would give me a better chance at good grades.
I know it all can matter for recruiting, but once you start post-college, everyone is going to assume you will need to be 100% trained, regardless of how book-smart you proved to be in school and any edge you can give yourself will give you the leg up in a long-term career.
Nobody will care if you have a 4.0 but they will certainly care if you (for some reason) mentioned how you *tried* to lose it
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