I have also seen that GPA can determine starting salary more than acceptance in some companies. A certain GPA is needed as a cutoff to receive a given starting salary and dropping below it by graduation can reduce your pay.
You need to. Often times, resumes end up in the trash before they are carefully reviewed if you don’t list a GPA or if it is under a 3.0. Since your GPA is 3.0+ this is nothing to worry about.
I was just reading articles about this yesterday, including one about a study that was done to determine which GPA ranges get the highest request rate for an interview. The articles revealed that the highest GPAs did not get the most requests for interviews, but that the GPA did need to be above 3.0 for the best response. The speculation was that perhaps those people with GPAs above 3.0 but less than 3.75 were also the most active, taking on roles and responsibilities aside from academics that affected their GPA.
I think you should definitely include the GPA for these reasons: it saves someone the trouble of asking for your GPA to find out if you meet the minimum requirement (and instead of going through the trouble of asking, they might decide it’s easier to toss your resume); it’s actually a good GPA for an engineering major; and it avoids having someone make assumptions that are not true, like that your GPA must be below a 3.0 and even embarrassingly low.
So while I think you should include your GPA, I wouldn’t put it across the very top of your resume as a highlight, but rather have it mixed in somewhere so the person reading your resume clearly sees all the other things you have going for you along with academics. That way they can assume that your GPA would be even higher, if not for all your other stellar activities.