<p>I am a sophomore at a decent state school right now .
I had some personal issues in two years, so my gpa is horrible.
It is slightly over 2.0. But my gpa is getting better.
I think I can boost it up as high as I can.</p>
<p>I major in Management and minor in international affiars.
I am interested in management consulting in global firms.
I looked up several companies websites and they put a heavy emphasis on gpa.
The companies that I looked at were Ernst & Young and Boston Consulting Group.
I wonder if any company recruits a student with a low gpa.</p>
<p>Also, I am thinking about going to business school after having few years of work experience. After two years of wandering, I found out what I really want to do. Therefore, I think I can write productive essays by giving good reasons for going to business school. Additionally, I will take GMAT course at Kaplan in next semester. Although some schools have minimum GPA, I hope that some schols look beyond numbers. </p>
<p>GPA only matters when you got no experience to qualify for the job. I recommend you look for any internship or part-time entry-level job you can do while still in school. Study hard and improve your grades. You still got 2 years of school and you will do just fine if you know what you want to do. Getting into top 25 MBA programs is not easy, but that doesnt mean you cant. If I were you, I would first do some part-time job at a local bank and then after graduating, I would submit my resumes to consulting firms. When you get a real job, you should plan to stay with the same company for at least 3 years before applying to MBA schools.</p>
<p>What kind of things would I do if I intern at a local bank?
Like I said, I want to work in management consulting.
I don’t want to do things that I’m not inclined to do.</p>
<p>When you suggest me working at a local bank, is it because my grade is not good enough to get internship at other consulting firms?</p>
<p>I have to disagree with DC Guy’s post. GPA absolutely does matter. Fortunately, it’s not as important for business school as it is for other graduate schools (law/medical) but it still plays a factor, especially if it’s as low as 2.0. You DEFINITELY need to raise that GPA. Avg GPA at the top b-schools is around 3.5. You can obviously get in with a below avg GPA (ie 3.0) but the rest of your application must be outstanding (particularly your GMAT score).</p>
<p>Top consulting firms are more anal about things like GPA than other employers. Some even ask for SAT scores (which a candidate may have taken 10+ years ago). They are looking for candidates that they believe are truly the best of the best.</p>
<p>The higher the ranking of your MBA program, the easier it is to get a top consulting job. In a given year, a top consulting firm like McKinsey may hire 50 students from a particular top 3 school, but only hire 1 or 2 students from a particular top 20 school.
Furthermore, many of the top 10 schools do not publish grades, while many of the lower ranked school do (and considering they may only hire 1 or 2 students, that means your graduate school GPA needs to be top notch in order to be hired).</p>