How much does GPA matter in MFE admissions

[AnkurDubey]

hi,

I am new to the forum and seriously considering to apply to MFE, my major concern is my GPA. My profile is as follows,
- I graduated in Engineering Physics from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India which is one of the most prestigious undergrad colleges in India with less than 1% applicants making through.
- Then I have worked for 2 years with analytics consulting firm, working primarily on statistical modelling to create retention and revenue elasticity models for Insurance domain (Farmers Insurance in LA being one of them).
- I have taken up MBA from Indian Institute of Management again a very premium B School in India, with less than 1500 out of 300K applicants making it to the campus.
- I am interning with HSBC India in their Commercial Banking Division, this summer

My main question is how much does GPA matter for admission to MFE (the admissions criteria says "usually a minimum of 3.0 in undergraduate", because my undergrad GPA is 6.5/10, however I have performed much better in Masters (MBA) with GPA of 3.5/4 being in top 10% of the class.

Also, I am about to take CFA Level 1 and by the time I apply, I should be through with Level 2.

So, kindly enlighten me what are my prospects.

 

[Eugene Krel]

gpa is generally not as important for people with relevant work experience. cfa doesn''t help or hurt.

 

[AnkurDubey]

gpa is generally not as important for people with relevant work experience. cfa doesn''t help or hurt.

@Eugene - Thanks for prompt help, but that leads to another question, what is "relevant" work experience. Whether my Analytics/modeling and Commercial Banking experience count as relevant?

 

[Dibbs]

I'm curious, why would you like to switch to a MFE after having finished your MBA ?

 

[AnkurDubey]

I'm curious, why would you like to switch to a MFE after having finished your MBA ?

@ Dibbs - Well, on two counts
1. In South Asia, particularly India capital markets are as not well endowed with opportunities as are NY, Lon, HK, Tokyo or SGP. And whatever there are, they leave only a few numbers hired from India to work on global desks (typically 70-80 from across Indian B Schools, where the premium ones produce about 4000 MBAs every year)

2. MBA gives mostly the crust like knowledge in Finance, I am interested in moving to Sales & Trading side and I think I can learn more before embarking on that path.

 

[Dibbs]

What do most Indian MBA graduates end up doing ?

 

[vivekj]

MBAs from top school (Finance Major's) end up in IB or high end KPOs. In some cases the profile need not be neccesarily that of an analyst.
People graduating from second or third tier schools generally they end up in Operational side of banks, KPOs or IBs like GS and Morgan Chase.
Some of them join IT firms as Business analyst :-D.

 

[AnkurDubey]

MBAs from top school (Finance Major's) end up in IB or high end KPOs. In some cases the profile need not be neccesarily that of an analyst.
People graduating from second or third tier schools generally they end up in Operational side of banks, KPOs or IBs like GS and Morgan Chase.
Some of them join IT firms as Business analyst :-D.

Thanks Vivek, you pretty much covered it all
I guess we have digressed a bit, and main question remains - How much does GPA matter.

 

[vivekj]

Ankur,

You had two queries:

1) Poor GPA’s: I think most people would agree to the point that a high GPA helps but no one would be able say for sure if a poor GPA matters...

2) What is relevant experience: My understanding is either work exp in IBs, financial institutions or lots of programming experience in languages like c, c++. (I think your experience in modelling might help)

My understanding is most institutions look at the entire profile i.e GRE, GPA, Work Ex (Relevant), Programming Skills, Recommendation letters, SOP, Research experience (if any).

Let’s take Baruch: Here the lowest GPA for 2009 was 2.72, this candidate had some other achievements to compensate for low GPA.
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/math/GPADetails.html

Unfortunately we do not have statistics for many institutions. Moreover institutions have different preferences…

If you look at UCB, there avg experience is around 4.2 years and also they seem to place a strong emphasis on CFA, so if you clear at least level 2 I think it would help.
http://mfe.haas.berkeley.edu/admissions/faq.html

NYU mostly has undergrads with little work exp, so here I guess GPA would matter most.
http://math.nyu.edu/financial_mathematics/content/05_prospectiveStudents/01.html

IMHO: GPA is one of the parameters for being admitted into a good school not the only one. Hope this was helpful.

 

[Joy Pathak]

^^

They don't get 300K applications. Everything is done through Entrance Exams. The students who place in the top quintile of the entrance exam get direct admission. Atleast I am pretty sure it is something like that. I don't think there are literal application packages of essays...etc. Write the entrance exam...place in the top 3000...gain admission. Many countries do that. Iran does that too I know.

 

[Dibbs]

^^

They don't get 300K applications. Everything is done through Entrance Exams. The students who place in the top quintile of the entrance exam get direct admission. Atleast I am pretty sure it is something like that. I don't think there are literal application packages of essays...etc. Write the entrance exam...place in the top 3000...gain admission. Many countries do that. Iran does that too I know.

Do these people have prior work exp ? or they go directly to an MBA?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

In general, GPA plays a small part of how we evaluate an applicant profile. Very low GPA is very indicative of one's academic performance. However, high GPA in many case does not translate to a higher probability of admission.

There are many things taken into account when we evaluate GPA. It's one thing having high GPA in a super competitive institution, it's another having a 4.0 from a community college. It's one thing to have high GPA from one of the Ivy schools that are known for grade inflation, it's another to have relatively lower GPA but with other credentials to make up.

We have read applications from the India's IITs, all the China premier schools, every imaginable universities in the US and the rest of world. It's a complicated process to compare GPA from X vis-a-vis Y. There are many things that we need to consider.

Reading the whole application will give us a better idea of the strength and weakness of the applicant. That's why it's impossible to give a useful evaluation for forum question where all you can see is the basic stats.

 

[AnkurDubey]

^^

They don't get 300K applications. Everything is done through Entrance Exams. The students who place in the top quintile of the entrance exam get direct admission. Atleast I am pretty sure it is something like that. I don't think there are literal application packages of essays...etc. Write the entrance exam...place in the top 3000...gain admission. Many countries do that. Iran does that too I know.

Typically Indian B schools don't have essays etc. it goes something like this
about 250 - 300 K students take an entrance exam called CAT (Common Admission Test)
some 6000 odd are filtered from above applicants on basis of test score and profile, [typically 60-90% test weightage + 40 - 10% profile (GPA+workex+post grad etc)] for second round which is group discussion and interviews (in many cases, spot essays and interview), then scores are given to various categories, e.g. 40% CAT score + 10% Group Discussion + 30% Interviews + 10 % GPA + 5% work experience + 5 % high school grades
This serves as third round and based on this final admits are given to some 1500 candidates across premium 6 IIMs and few other top B schools

---------- Post added at 10:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 AM ----------

In general, GPA plays a small part of how we evaluate an applicant profile. Very low GPA is very indicative of one's academic performance. However, high GPA in many case does not translate to a higher probability of admission.

There are many things taken into account when we evaluate GPA. It's one thing having high GPA in a super competitive institution, it's another having a 4.0 from a community college. It's one thing to have high GPA from one of the Ivy schools that are known for grade inflation, it's another to have relatively lower GPA but with other credentials to make up.

We have read applications from the India's IITs, all the China premier schools, every imaginable universities in the US and the rest of world. It's a complicated process to compare GPA from X vis-a-vis Y. There are many things that we need to consider.

Reading the whole application will give us a better idea of the strength and weakness of the applicant. That's why it's impossible to give a useful evaluation for forum question where all you can see is the basic stats.

Thanks Andy, I guess this answer helps a bit in terms of focusing on other aspects to make my application stronger (or atleast cover for lower GPA)

 

[Joy Pathak]

That's right. I forgot about the high school grades in India. The grade 10 exam grades are one of the most important things in any Indians application usually for applying within india only ofcourse. .


Also to add to the grades. It is a basic re-iteration of what everyone has said below. GPA is one part...but it is not the only part. I know of a student who had very low GPA ..but high Quant GRE...very good work experience...and got into one of the top 5 category programs as listed on Quant-net rankings.

 

[tradericf]

"Very low GPA is very indicative of one's academic performance"
Is there ne chance of getting admitted in a gud school with an exceptionaly low GPA?
I have a 780 Gmat but just about 50% in graduation....

 

[Joy Pathak]

lol 780 GMAT is amazing. If your overall application is good other than your GPA I think you have a shot.

I dont know if you will get in, but you might have a shot for sure.

 

[Subramaniam]

Most admitted students have some work ex, but not 100% of the candidates admitted to B-schools in India have work ex, (it is a little different from the USA)

Do these people have prior work exp ? or they go directly to an MBA?

 

[GenFinance]

"Very low GPA is very indicative of one's academic performance"
Is there ne chance of getting admitted in a gud school with an exceptionaly low GPA?
I have a 780 Gmat but just about 50% in graduation....

Wow! A 780 on the GMAT? That's really awesome! Yah, I would agree that a poor GPA might hurt one's application (to some extent) but a very high GMAT/GRE might give the admission committee something to ponder on -- because it (high GMAT/GRE score) reflects a person's intellectual capability-- and that's something the admission committee don't want to discard.

I also find it pretty funny that sometimes, admission committees don't accord any importance or weight age to extremely high GMAT or GRE scores. What I mean to say was that one has to find or concoct a way of offsetting his poor GPA, right?

I'm also in a condition similar to the tradericf . I have a pretty good GRE (1400), but I think my GPA is something like 3.2 (I don't know whether this is pretty accurate or not!)

 

[AnkurDubey]

In general, GPA plays a small part of how we evaluate an applicant profile. Very low GPA is very indicative of one's academic performance. However, high GPA in many case does not translate to a higher probability of admission.

There are many things taken into account when we evaluate GPA. It's one thing having high GPA in a super competitive institution, it's another having a 4.0 from a community college. It's one thing to have high GPA from one of the Ivy schools that are known for grade inflation, it's another to have relatively lower GPA but with other credentials to make up.

We have read applications from the India's IITs, all the China premier schools, every imaginable universities in the US and the rest of world. It's a complicated process to compare GPA from X vis-a-vis Y. There are many things that we need to consider.

Reading the whole application will give us a better idea of the strength and weakness of the applicant. That's why it's impossible to give a useful evaluation for forum question where all you can see is the basic stats.

@andy - when you write "we" do you mean UCB? I ask this because I am more concerned about UCB MFE, I was going through the "graduate department requirement" given on the site of UCB MFE in Admissions Criteria and they mention as requirement for GPA as "usually a minimum" of 3.0, that is what makes me little shaky, my gpa is on a scale of 10 as I have already mentioned converting to scale 4 doesnt make sense as scale 10 is more granular than scale 4, how much of this is relevant in my case?

I intend to cover for my low undergrad GPA with Higher Masters GPA+ quality work ex (Some major bank in commercial or ibanking div) + research publication in quantitative finance + high enough GMAT Scores, but if UCB has some sort of a lower bar at GPA, wll might go waste

 

[Andy Nguyen]

@andy - when you write "we" do you mean UCB?

NO

Whenever I write we, it means Quant Network LLC ("We"), the legal entity that quantnet.com is a part of. We don't represent UCB MFE, Baruch MFE or any program for that matter.

And when I write I, it means my personal opinion.

We have been providing admission consulting service for one of the quant master programs in NYC (not Baruch MFE, think Columbia, NYU, CMU) for the past 2 years with close to 1000 applications being reviewed. That's where the advice coming from.

As for your specific UCB MFE application, I don't know their admission criteria to be more helpful. In general, GPA is something you can do little about once you graduate. Try to focus on other area of your application. When we review applications, we don't look at any specific numbers as a cut off point.