<p>I feel disgruntled after realizing what my friends from high school did over the summer. I found out two of my friends at Columbia and two at Dartmouth from high school had just finished their summer internships on Wall Street (Columbia - one at GS one at MS, Dartmouth - both at GS). Their stats were:
3.83 GPA (taken three econ classes at Columbia)
3.76 GPA (taken three econ classes at Columbia)
3.81 GPA (taken five econ classes at Dartmouth)
3.73 GPA (taken two econ classes, excluding pre-reqs, at Dartmouth)</p>
<p>I have taken five econ classes at UChicago and maintained a 3.87 GPA. Yet I didn't even get an interview when I applied past spring. Three of my friends at UChicago who have 3.8+ and two who have 3.7+ GPA didn't get any offers either (though one did get an interview with MS). We work our butts off while Columbia students attend musicals and Dartmouth students drink. Why are we still treated so bad by GS and MS even when we work so much harder compared to Columbia and Dartmouth students? I thought ibs cared the most about GPA, but why then do GS and MS prefer Columbia and Dartmouth students? I don't get it. I think I need to do thing differently now, not just study and try to maintain a high gpa. What should I do to become competitive?</p>
<p>oh yeah. I just realized this today. Before today, I thought students from every school fared bad due to the current circumstance because UChicago undergrads had a very bad year in terms of getting internships on Wall Street, but I always thought other schools fared just as bad.</p>
<p>…is this a joke? If not, dude…you seriously need to put things into perspective. Everyone you’ve listed has a GPA similar to yours and obtaining such a high GPA at a school like Columbia or Dartmouth is no walk in the park. Who are you to say you’ve worked harder than them? Have you seen their resumes? I’m sure GS & MS want well-rounded applicants so perhaps your friends had some type of unique experience. If you want to be more competitive you’re going to have to bring a lot more to the table than a GPA. And if C & D students can go to musicals and drink while maintaining 3.7+ at two of the top schools in the country, then more power to them for finding a balance of academia and enjoying their college experience!</p>
<p>The stereotype is that U Chicago kids are really nerdy (my experience unfortunately gels with this, I have Chicago kids really socially awkward). Columbia and Dartmouth kids tend to do a lot more than just study, many columbia kids take advantage of the massive resources new york city has to offer, like internships during the year, going to weird restaurants, musicals, broadway shows, art museums etc etc. Dartmouth kids are known to be outdoorsy, a little fratty and just like having a good time. So wall street does not recruit as hard on Chicago’s campus as it does on Columbia and Dartmouth’s. Historically, they might not have gotten students who fit the industry from Chicago. While Columbia and Dart do better pre-professionally, chicago probably has slightly better phd program placement in like econ and physics than either school.</p>
<p>seke67 - No. This is no joke. It’s hard to keep 3.7+ at UChicago, and most of my friends feel this way. Because we heard, from career advising and college confidential, that having a high gpa is of utmost importance when applying to Wall Street IB. We study a lot to do well in all of our classes. From what I heard from my friends, we study way more than those at Dartmouth and Columbia. I thought having a 3.87 from UChicago, the most famous case of grade deflation, would get me in for sure, but guess not.</p>
<p>confidentialcoll - I don’t know if UChicago can live up to its nerdy and intellectual repuation 100%. People here do seem to study a lot. I don’t really consider myself nerdy; I just study so much because I really want to get into Wall Street IB. Beside, UChicago is no where near an intellectual place (though probably more intellectual than Columbia and Dartmouth). A lot of kids here do really want ib jobs on Wall Street. Speaking from my experience (which is heavily influenced by people I hang around with), wanting to go into investment banking is probably the biggest thing on campus.</p>
<p>I just wish career advising can be more helpful because their current strategy of telling students to keep up their GPA doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t think increasing my extracurricular while risking my GPA is a good idea either. Can any UChicago undergrad alums out there who make it offer some advice? What should I do differently to become more competitive? All help from anyone is welcomed.</p>
<p>And, by the way, are you being serious, or are you just ■■■■■■■■? Because I just have a hard time believing that anyone with 3.87 from Chicago don’t even get called. Just seems implausible, given how tough the school is.</p>
<p>herrsque - No. I’m not joking, and I’m not ■■■■■■■■. I don’t have time to ■■■■■ the internet.</p>
<p>3.87 with no phone call. This is why I’m really upset about how unfair the world is. Out of five of my close friends with 3.7+, only one got a interview with MS. And herrsque, gpa at UChicago doesn’t represent how smart someone is; it represent how hard someone work. This world is so messed up. I mean, come on, even of people think of us UChicago students as a little more nerdy than ones at our peer school, companies like GS and MS need a few nerdy ones to figure things out, don’t they?</p>
<p>Three of the five friends I mentioned at UChicago and I are international students. However, career advising said being an international wouldn’t matter when the GPA gets high enough.</p>
<p>Ohhhh…the plot thickens. Being international is a huge disadvantage! Banks are hiring to check you out for full time employment. Given how impossible it is to get visas, it limits where a bank could deploy you. Unless you have something highly unusual–and a high GPA isn’t unusual–they’ll always choose a domestic.</p>
<p>Tey for a banking job in your home country next summer or in that region.</p>
<p>I would be interested to see how important GPA comes into play. Daughter has a 3.5 in math and econ (double majors). All of those firms recruit at her school. I would like to see if she’ll be able to get an internship next summer by herself. She just interned at CS, but it’s through personal connection. I know two kids from her school (Hotel & ILR) got internship at GS, but both of them had very high GPAs.</p>
<p>hmom5 - but one of the Columbia kid was an international; one of the Dartmouth kid was an international, and the other one was a permanent resident. Besides, I don’t really need visa because my father works in the US. I’m not even on a F-1 student visa; I think that’s why career advising told me that being an international student doesn’t matter. But, I don’t know if that played a huge role…</p>
<p>Sometimes we will like a resume enough to say OK, we can see putting this kid in HK, London or Beijing, but a domestic gives us the most flexibility and will win all things being equal. I think once you turn 21 your father’s visa won’t help you.</p>
<p>oldfort–my D, an ILR major, has gotten many interviews and several offers w/ no connections. She interned at GS after sophomore yr–back office. She interned this past summer at JPM-front office- and got an offer. Yes, she has a high gpa.</p>
<p>She is in Switzerland this semester and has already been wined and dined at “the best” club in Zurich by a bank connection. He told her, and three of her friends who will not be working at the bank, you are officially my client now. The tab was in the thousands, my D figures. She feels as if she lives a charmed life. I say she has worked for it.</p>
<p>I took 2 kids from Cornell Engineering school to work in my bank’s IT group. One of them is continuing to work for us part time remotely. The kid is better than my full timer. We flew him down for 2 days and put him up in one of our approved hotels downtown. He was thrilled.</p>
<p>It sounds like your daughter is doing great. I tend to go to Geneva, not Zurich. I took my D1 this past summer. She went out with us a few times, since she was legal in Europe. She said, “You guys party harder than we do in school.”</p>
<p>I am a bit worried with D1’s GPA for her junior year interview season. Her rotation through CS gave her a very good exposure through many areas of the firm - S&T, IB, structured product…but mainly in the equity area. After every rotation I would ask her, “So, what do you think?” She would say, “Hmmm, not for me.” Then finally she said to me, “I really like this, I understood everything they were doing. It’ll let me use my math background.” I had to laugh because it was what I did 25 years ago, and I loved it. Hopefully it’ll come through during her interview.</p>
<p>oldfort, morrismm - You are really making me want to transfer to Cornell. Too bad I can’t transfer anymore, unless Cornell take senior transfers. I’m really disillusioned now, after studying so hard to get 3.8+ at UChicago and still being ignored by Wall Street investment banks.</p>