Otherwise you are unlikely to get an interview even in a target school.ģ.7 - At this point in time, you should be worrying about other factors on the resume, and having this gpa doesn't make you a shoo-in by any means. You can get away with this sort of GPA if you're a URM, an athlete, had ridiculous sophmore internship, go to a notably challenging school (princeton/MIT/etc), or have a strong connection to this firm.

Minimum cut off - Usually 3.0 or 3.3, anything below that and getting an interview will be extremely hard even with a strong connection because you have to get past HR.ģ.5 - You're probably below average in the pool of applicants. Some schools will have criteria in their on campus recruiting software that require you to meet a certain GPA threshold, usually 3.4 or 3.5. If someone likes you and your resume comes up, they might give you a shot even if your stats come up a little short. The best way to get noticed if you do have a low GPA is to network with the people in charge of campus recruiting at your school. If you have 2 candidates on the margin that have all else equal but different GPAs, the lower GPA gets tossed. This is where networking pays dividends because it can move you over the line one way or the other if you are borderline. After we found out how many more slots we had after all of the selected resumes were accounted for, we would hash out the remaining maybe candidates. Those that had mixed reviews went into a maybe stack the remainder were tossed. If everyone agreed, then the candidate gets put into the selected stack. Our team used to have each person make a pile of yes, maybe and no and then we'd go through all of the names alphabetically. They cull them down to the number of slots available for on campus interviews, which depending on the school may be anywhere from 10 or 12 to 30+. It is easier for someone who understands how a school works to find the highest quality candidates there.Įach team receives 100s of resumes and simply flips through them discarding as many as possible based on things like GPA (major considered as a factor), work experience and leadership/extracurriculars. Banks use graduates of a select set of schools to recruit those same schools year after year.

This is a big part of where the target/non-target question comes up. You are being considered against other kids from your own school, typically by analysts that are also graduates of your school. The issue with low GPAs is that you will not stand out during resume selection for campus recruiting teams. Banks prefer good experience to good GPAs (subject to a minimum in the 3.3-3.5 range). If your reason is the latter, always frame it like an issue that was in the past towards the beginning of college.Ī video below further explains how to build your answer.Īs someone who used to review target resumes at a BB during my first and second year as an analyst, here is what we did.Ī GPA of a 3.7+ can make up for weaker experience, but is by no means a gimme. Difficulty adjusting to college / workload at beginning of college.Family trouble (illness or death in the family).If you have anything near what could be considered a low GPA, you need to have a prepared explanation for why your GPA is low. In two years of being on the recruiting team at a BB we only gave interviews to about 3 people with under a 3.0 (they all had major connections) and a handful with less than a 3.5.Ī GPA of a 3.7+ can make up for weaker experience, but is by no means a gimme. Once you have a pile of people you think are strong (approximately the number of interview slots open), you sit down with the rest of the team and compare notes. You take the remaining pile, which is now probably half of the size and cull it based on overall quality.You look to see if people in that range also have amazing experience, then they get kept around.If you meet the it was a hard major I'll give you the benefit, you get kept for another look. You look at the people with between a 3.0 and a 3.5 and you see if they are in a really hard major (double econ/major or something like that).You take your pile and get rid of everyone below a 3.0, unless they have a connection on the recruiting team pulling for them.Candidates with harder majors (hard sciences, engineers) will likley be given more slack about their GPAs as well. PowerMonkey - Investment Banking Vice President:As someone who used to review target resumes at a BB during my first and second year as an analyst, here is what we did.

Low gpa venture for america