MBA GPA Important?

I'm finishing up my first year of a professional MBA program at the Cox School of Business at SMU. While not in the league of the top schools, it is a highly ranked and regarded b-school.

My first semester I got B's, but have since gotten straight A's and have pushed my GPA up over 3.7.

I'm wondering what the consensus out there is on how important the GPA is upon graduation? At very least, I feel my hard work is gaining me a good amount of what I consider valuable knowledge. I'm just wondering if obsessing over the A is worth it...

From my b-school experience (finance and accounting at University of Rochester in 2001), I would say that the importance of GPA varies by industry. Some i-banks will ask your GPA right off the bat. Consultancies will often ask too. I went into industry instead, and I was never, ever asked my GPA, nor did I put it on my resume.

I think your GPA is not as important as to where you graduated. I read the last issue of Business Week and Harvard, Yale and Wharton are listed as B schools. I think your completion of Graduate school shows future employers your commitment to your field. Good luck!

Austin said:

I think your GPA is not as important as to where you graduated. I read the last issue of Business Week and Harvard, Yale and Wharton are listed as B schools. I think your completion of Graduate school shows future employers your commitment to your field. Good luck!

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Sure, but not everyone can go to those schools. And he's already at SMU, so at this point, that isn't likely to change.

Grades are often seen as important by potential employers - while they don't necessarily guarantee that someone is going to be successful, they can be viewed as an assessment of someone's ability/work ethic etc.

If you have good grades, your application will always be stronger than someone who doesn't. Also, an A average is something you will never have to explain or make excuses for. I also thing good grades are even more important if you're not at a "top school".

While we can debate whether grades should be given a lot of weight all day, the fact is that some people/organizations think they're important and you can't go wrong with having good marks.

I'll offer my $0.02 on this topic. As a business school academic / administrator myself, I'll offer what insight I have developed over the years.

Grades play a role in recruiting, but the impression you create during the interview process is ultimately more important. Of course it would be wonderful to shine in an interview and have a great GPA, but you'll fare better overall with average grades and a great interview than having a 4.0 and no personality.

To be sure, some employers of choice can be very selective and hold-out for the few candidates who score high on both fronts. However, good preparation, the right attitude, and great interpersonal skills will go a long way.

Good luck!

Cheers,

dszpiro said:

However, good preparation, the right attitude, and great interpersonal skills will go a long way.

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And, of course, a good shave helps too!

Suzuki said:

....an A average is something you will never have to explain or make excuses for.

....you can't go wrong with having good marks.

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Sage advice.

Don't worry about if good grades are helpful or not. Try as hard as you can, bust your butt and the good grades will come. Once you attain those good grades, the point is moot and you will have more time to stress other positive aspects about yourself that a future employer will find beneficial to his/her company.

Good Luck!

From my own experience on both sides of the interview table I have to say that interviewing well will carry you much farther than your GPA or what school you attended.

Work on your interview skills, as they will benefit you the most.

I believe that Mason has a point, but I also put a strong believe behind GPA. Interview skills are very important, but many employers associate GPA with work ethic not intelligence. Intelligence can be conveyed in an interview, but if it's matched with a low (relatively) GPA, the interviewer could think that you are lazy or do not wish to work hard.
I went the psych route, but many of my friends went on to get their MBA's. They found that GPA was more important they thought. Nearly all of them were good interviewees. Honestly, I would focus on the interview and the GPA. Nearly all of people I know personally who got good jobs without a high GPA got the job through nepotism.

TimmyBoston said:

Interview skills are very important, but many employers associate GPA with work ethic not intelligence. Intelligence can be conveyed in an interview, but if it's matched with a low (relatively) GPA, the interviewer could think that you are lazy or do not wish to work hard.

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I agree that employers often view GPA as a proxy for your work ethic. Having good grades means that you had the intelligence and were willing to work hard enough to achieve high work standards.

The importance of your GPA depends a lot on your experience level. If I'm hiring someone just out of school, then their GPA is a fresh, relevant factor. I want to know how willing they are to work hard. If I'm interviewing a candidate with a lot of relevant professional experience, I probably don't really care what their GPA was from 5+ years ago.

(I graduated from B-school 6 years ago. I don't even remember what my GPA was.)

I just conducted an informal poll around the office. MBA programs represented were:

Harvard
U of Chicago
Dartmouth
ASU
BYU
U of Arizona

The Harvard, Chicago and Dartmouth guys said there are only two grades in the MBA program, A's and F's (meaning that anything less than an A is viewed as an F). The B-school crowd said it didn't matter nearly as much.

Here is a ranking of those people's titles in my organization:
Harvard
ASU
U of A
Dartmouth
BYU
Chicago

Here is a ranking of the same people by how much I think they make:
Harvard
U of A
ASU
Dartmouth
BYU
Chicago

They are all about the same age.
Cheers,
Jeff

Buzz said:

The importance of your GPA depends a lot on your experience level. If I'm hiring someone just out of school, then their GPA is a fresh, relevant factor. I want to know how willing they are to work hard. If I'm interviewing a candidate with a lot of relevant professional experience, I probably don't really care what their GPA was from 5+ years ago.

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I couldn't agree more, very well put.

I have three degrees (including an MBA), all with GPA's of 3.6-3.7. I've never been asked about them. The one thing I would recommend is that if there is an award/status for graduating with a certain GPA, make sure you get it. I didn't know this during my MBA and finished .01 away from graduating with honors. If I would have known this, I could have easily upped my GPA enough to get it.

As someone who works minutes away from your school and in touch with the community here....

Why leave it to chance? Considering what you are paying, do your best. If you end up with a B or two, then at least you gave it your best. When it comes to your future, make sure you help yourself out as much as possible.

As you see from this forum....some care about GPA while others think it can be overlooked for great experience or good interviews, etc. Do you know who you are interviewing with and which side of the fence they sit on?? Best to take matters into your own hands and make the best grades possible.

Shermdog

letterk said:

I have three degrees (including an MBA), all with GPA's of 3.6-3.7. I've never been asked about them. The one thing I would recommend is that if there is an award/status for graduating with a certain GPA, make sure you get it. I didn't know this during my MBA and finished .01 away from graduating with honors. If I would have known this, I could have easily upped my GPA enough to get it.

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That works unless it was like my case. When I was doing my BS I was all set for honors until my final semester when I the bane of my existance was my professor for yet another class (I couldn't get an A in his class to save my soul). It is because of his class (last semester before graduation) that I dropped below honors by like .01 points. The funny thing is the transcript I have says I graduated cum laude (must never have been changed), but the graduation program and diploma say I didn't get honors.

I've never been as pressed for time as I was when I was in business school. So let me add that determing if it's worth going for straight As also depends on what the alternative use of your time is. If you'll be hanging around B&B instead of going for the A, then you're making a mistake. But if going for the A instead of the B means you spend less time on your job search, then you're making a mistake. I'd even go so far as to say that if the difference between an A and a B is the difference between going out with your b-school friend on Saturday night instead of staying in and studying, then I'd say that's a mistake too. After all, the relationships you develop with your classmates will pay off later in terms of networking.

I think GPA will be inmportant in finding a first job. That may very well determine who gets an interview. After that, it all comes down to experience.

But...I do not think a 3.7 in any MBA program is going to keep you from getting an interview. Just keep plugging along, you can't change the grades you got in the first semester, not that a B is something to be ashamed of.

I am involved in recruiting for a professional firm - we get hundreds of applications for entry level positions every year.

When deciding which candidates we want to bring in for interviews, we look at the entire application package (cover letter, references, resume and transcript). Like it or not, grades are important - anyone who has less than a B+ average is unlikely to get an interview unless their resume indicates that they have other things going for them (work experience, evidence that they have successfully balanced multiple committments/time demands, etc.). As a rule, we'd rather see people with B+ averages who have done lots of other things before and during school than someone who just has good marks, but doesn't seem to have done much else besides get good marks.

However, once someone makes the initial cut, it is interview skills that decide whether they get the job. I can say with 100% certainty that, regardless of your grades, if you blow the interview, you're not getting a job. On the flip side, if you have mediocre grades, you may not get an interview - in which case, regardless of whether you have the world's best interview skills, you're not getting a job.

So, while your interview skills are what will get you the job, your grades help determine whether you get an interview in the first place.

Like I said before, we can argue about the role grades should have in the process, but aside from being an interesting topic of discussion over a couple of drinks, that doesn't change how things work in the real world.