<p>haha, that is funny. (I have no idea?) Great, you have some experience working at a bank in Chicago and there was no one from Wisconsin, all that tells me is that they didnt take anyone from Wisconsin that year. I have spent my last 3 summers at BBs in NYC, Goldman/JPMorgan/Merrill and can tell you with 99% certainty (all else equal) with the exception of school and gpa that a student with a 4.0 (A average) at UofW will get looked over a student with a 2.0 (C-/D average) at Harvard. </p>
<p>Going to Harvard does not automatically qualify you for banking and that is what alot of you do not understand; while it may help given the school has plenty of alumni/recruiters coming to campus, the selection process is relative. As in the people reviewing resumes are typically Harvard alumni who get a large resume book filled with Harvard students resumes and flip through them and select the best ones. Therefore 9/10 times, unless your fathers last name is Blankfein, a 2.0 you will get tossed. Networking typically helps for people who fall short in a certain area (lack of work exper/ lower gpa 3.0-3.3 not a 2.0) and can show their passion/interest by getting in touch with an alumni.</p>
<p>How many people at Harvard actually have a 2.0 though; you’d actually have to make a conscious effort to get a GPA that low there. B is just about the lowest grade given (essentially equivalent to an F) and the average GPA at Harvard is like 3.7+ or so isn’t it? 95% of students get latin honors… or some ridiculously huge proportion I can’t recall the exact number.</p>
<p>80% of grades given are B’s or A’s (2.66 [B-] - 4.0 [A])
The average self reported GPA is 3.6</p>
<p>Many Yale students are encouraged to not put their GPA on their resume at all unless it is extremely high (3.9+). Thus its within the realm of possibility for someone with a 2.0 at Harvard to slip by the cracks and get an IB internship if companies do not ask for an official transcript (I’m sure this varies from firm to firm).</p>
<p>it may be easier to get better grades at harvard than wisconsin…
hate to say it but stanford > my school (cal)… my professor who has taught at stanford before says it’s much easier to get better grades at stanford even though it’s ranked higher.</p>
<p>^^my profs at MIT say the same thing. I think it has a lot to do with the support and the amount of help offered at schools like MIT or Stanford where you have a ton of people that want you to do well. my $0.02</p>
<p>dude2009 - sounds like you need to work harder at finding the right people in the office of finaid to talk with, unless you attend Cornell, which is a school much less wealthy compared to the rest in the Ivy League in terms of per-capita and known for bad finaid.</p>