<p>When you are calculating your engineering GPA, do you include your Calc, Chem, Physics, etc. grades or is just the classes that are in the Engineering School?</p>
<p>I know they will take your Calculus, Physics and Chemistry grades into account when calculating your technical GPA. So I would assume (I know never assume) that they would also take them into account in your engineering GPA. Hopefully someone who is better informed will chime in.</p>
<p>Thanks! My son is making a resume for a summer internship with just one semester under his belt. As long as he takes his freshman english grade out, he is looking pretty good but it seemed silly to just put his grade point average for one engineering class on there. I will tell him to put GPA and Technical GPA.</p>
<p>I would be a little careful about including Math, Physics and Chemistry grades when calculating an engineering GPA since these subjects are not exclusive to engineering. My son is taking Calculus, Physics and Chemistry and he is a Geology major. These same courses are taken by students majoring in other physical sciences as well like Astronomy. I think you should list them and make clear that while they are not engineering courses they are important prerequisites for Engineering majors. I think most internship programs would realize that most Engineering majors spend most of their first two to three semesters taking basic Math and Science prerequisites as opposed to actual Engineering courses.</p>
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<p>For a resume, you generally only put your overall GPA. If they are interested in seeing course performance, they will ask for a transcript.</p>
<p>If he is doing a resume, he should present his best self. So long as he is not dissembling, he can certainly present his stats as they best serve him.</p>
<p>I recommend his putting the Technical GPA first (since that will be his strongest) and his overall GPA below it. </p>
<p>My S’s situation was a little different, but parallel. He had transferred and his overall GPA was higher than his final school GPA alone. So he put the overall GPA on his resume, for his internship and career job applications, with good results.</p>
<p>Yes, he had to provide transcripts and the resume GPA did not match the GPA on any one transcript… but if any employer bothered to calculate it out, it would have computed (I doubt that they did).</p>
<p>Your resume is yours to present yourself.</p>
<p>Good luck to him.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input. I will let him decide what to put on there but I think either way would be fine. My older son is a chemistry major and they’re all about their “science GPA” so I figured engineers were the same way. His grades are actually very good with his 4 hour B- rhetoric grade but they’re even better without it.</p>
<p>Your overall generally makes the resume, as does major GPA (courses that start with your major school’s designation, so for ME it would be only courses like ME101, etc.). I’ve also seen (much, much more rare than the first two) Math and Science or Technical GPA (Math + Science + Engineering courses), and Engineering GPA (all courses taught in the engineering college). I’ve only ever seen it once, but I’ve also seen “Core GPA” (courses considered “core” as opposed to electives). </p>
<p>But, overall and major GPA are the two that are universally listed and the others are a rarity. As a freshman with only one engineering course under his belt, it would be fine to only list the overall GPA.</p>
<p>@ Izzie: As a dad of a freshman and Manager of a group that hires regularly summer-interns, I can assure you that the GPA is NOT the most important criteria in a candidate’s resume. </p>
<p>What I appreciate in a resume is a listing of the courses the candidate took in his major and the previous experiences. I’d find it ‘funny’ to see a differentiation between GPA and “Technical GPA”; if you’d like to point out that your son is good in the technical areas but had a drop in English (which you evidently consider less important) I’d rather list the grade for each subject … </p>
<p>Again, for me, grades are not as important for a summer-intern position - but that’s probably quite personal.</p>
<p>For an intern, especially a freshman intern, GPA is the most important aspect of their application. Really all you have to go on when choosing interview candidates is GPA since most don’t have experience and most aren’t the best resume writers (boy, have I seen some terrible ones from freshman co-op applicants). </p>
<p>Not only that, but every large company I’ve known has HR set a minimum GPA for interviews (usually 3.00, but 3.50 and 2.70 sometimes come into play). You could be the greatest candidate in the world, but if you have a 2.99 and my company’s cutoff is 3.00, your school’s interview system won’t let you submit a resume (or your school won’t hand me your resume, depending on the system they use).</p>
<p>However, once you get in an interview, your GPA is not that important. It’s all about the competencies demonstrated in interviews and the interest you show in my company.</p>
<p>I certainly do not think that English is less important than any other class, however he is the kid that he is and his skills lie where they lie, so we’re trying to work with what we have. He took accelerated rhetoric which is two semesters in a one semester class, and he worked his buns off for that B- and we are pretty proud of him for that. I have been a housewife for 21 years so haven’t had any resumes cross my desk in a while, but I did work in a technical field before having my children and I recall GPA being pretty important. He will be competing with students from a much higher ranked engineering school for one of these internships so his “technical GPA” is what he has going for him, plus he is a super hard worker which I think is also reflected in a GPA.</p>
<p>He already has a resume that he did in his freshman engineering seminar class and he just needs to add the GPA on there. I haven’t seen it yet but it has been approved by his advisor.</p>
<p>I would be careful with a Technical GPA. When you do non-standard things (and Overall GPA and Major GPA are standard), people get suspicious. </p>
<p>If you include a Technical GPA, make certain to also include an Overall GPA. But he might be better off with Overall + Major GPA if he earned a B+ or better in his major class. Since he won’t have much work experience, he can list “relevant coursework” in his education section and it will be clear that it is only one major class.</p>