<p>I'm a senior applying for full-time jobs so I've definitely taken enough course specific to my major. We were taught early on to lit cumulative GPA because at that point we haven't had enough major-specific courses yet.</p>
<p>My cumulative GPA is 3.53 and my Major GPA is 3.78. That's not bad by any means (or maybe some means) but in all seriously, listing only the 3.78 is a lot better and gives me more opportunities than a 3.53.</p>
<p>In addition, if I were to include only major GPA on my resume, how should I put it as?</p>
<p>Check your school’s requirements regarding using major GPA, if any exist. My school required that we specifically call it out as a major GPA, and we also had to list information about coursework done (not a list of all courses in major but something to explain what kind of work we had done). Some schools require that you list out every course that you have taken in your major; other schools don’t have any requirements at all.</p>
<p>If you choose to list only your major GPA, I think that, regardless of school policy, it is only fair to explicitly say that it is your major GPA. It’d be a little disingenuous if you didn’t!</p>
<p>Chrisw, since when does your college have any say at all on what you put on your resume? Obviously you don’t want to mislead or lie, and whatever you put should stand up to the scrutiny of someone checking with your college, but I would tell my colleges to take a flier if they tried to tell me I had to include coursework info with my GPA. Now… I am many years out of college, but I can’t imagine my undergraduate institution trying to restrict how I formatted or what I included on my resume in any way, even for interviews through their placement office.</p>
<p>OP, you can either say “Major GPA: 3.78” or “Major in GPA Courses: 3.78”. Or something like that.</p>
<p>It is very common for colleges to place restrictions on resume formatting. Obviously, they can’t control what you do, but they can control your access to their resources. At my college, if it were reported and proven that you misrepresented your GPA (even so far as rounding up to one decimal place instead of two, as it is reported on our transcripts), you would be barred from utilizing any of the career services resources. The reason for this is simple: when a company recruits through my school, they can be confident that the information they see on resumes is truthful and properly represented. If a student is able to misrepresent himself without consequence, companies lose an element of trust in the resumes that come out of the school, and that hurts every student utilizing the service.</p>
<p>GPA should be reported exactly as listed on the transcript, to the same number of digits. List it as “GPA through [term]” so that it will be obvious why it is different on a transcript issued after a later term.</p>
<p>I understand that, but please also note: I switched majors freshman year, so I have almost an entire year’s worth of courses that’s not really irrelevant to business.</p>
<p>Also think about it, if my Major GPA is 3.78, can my overall GPA be something as low as 3.2 or 3.0? The answer is no. Look at the trends: your overall GPA is never too far behind your Major GPA.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think my school has any requirements, or if they’re just not well enforced if they actually exist. Bottom line is when you’re searching for a job, it’s your future and life on the line and you’ve got to be willing to do anything.</p>
<p>My major GPA is 3.90, my cumulative GPA is 3.39. I’ve talked to career center staff, hiring managers, and read online about this same issue. Far and away the consensus is to put both. You can explain the gap in the interview. I changed my major as well, that doesn’t mean those classes you took before don’t count anymore, relevant or not. Relevance is the reason you have a Major GPA in the first place. If you list your major GPA as your “GPA” they could rescind an offer after checking on your transcript for being dishonest.</p>
<p>I put whatever is on my transcript (which includes only my current uni GPA). </p>
<p>And I include my overall GPA and my major GPA (I remove my major when I was applying for general part time jobs but added it in when I began interning)</p>
<p>Again, folks, if you are using your university’s career center, you need to research your school’s policies - we can’t do that for you… well, we can, but you should be doing it yourself. Even if you are not using your school’s career center, you should still be aware of their policies since they provide the best guidance you can get regarding what to show.</p>
<p>There are some universities that request that you put your cumulative GPA no matter what; others request that, if you use your major GPA only, you include certain other information to give context around the number; still others have no restrictions at all. </p>
<p>I suppose there is no specific rule around what you do when you transfer, but the most common guidance I’ve seen is that you have one GPA for one college/university. If you transferred from community college, you would, therefore, include your community college GPA with the line about the community college, and you would include your university GPA next to the line about the university. I would never average two GPAs from different schools - a 3.9 earned at a community college means something different from a 3.9 earned at a university (for better or for worse), so it is not appropriate to combine the two.</p>
<p>tl;dr - Look up guidelines on your university’s career services website. If you can’t find any, ask a career counselor.</p>