LISTEN UP: GPA

GPA GPA GPA... three letters that can be the bane of one's existence if he or she did not apply him/herself during undergrad.  When I went into this process I thought to myself "Ok...well I'm older (29) so my GPA won't hurt me as much as someone else who is right out of school."  I mean when I hit the submit button I had been out of undergrad for 6.5 years.  What I came to understand was that... yes Richard.. it DOES matter.  It's another data point that they can then use to compare you to your competition.

Just like a 710 GMAT misconception... a 3.6 GPA is not a bad GPA, so if you think that it is... please rethink that asap.  You may even just alienate people if you ever tell them that.  People who may ultimately become member of your network and now they have that impression of you that you're a perfectionist or just misinformed.  I mean that's really a stretch, but yes people will think you're crazy if you're like my UGPA was a 3.7 and was so bad.

I remember a time right around submission day when I had two friends send me their transcripts because I had a program on my picture that could reformat them.  I saw their GPA's and was like "wow...this is my competition... ah crap!"  But you know what?  I then remembered the things that I did to kind of show that I had competency in certain areas.

I did take two classes at NYU School of Continuing Professional Studies.  I took an algebra class and a statistics for business class.  I also took some marketing classes but I knew that I had to do well in the math classes especially.  I was also able to call out classes that I took during undergrad.  I was an economics major so naturally I had a very very heavy quant-focused course load.  Upon further investigation of my transcript I saw that there were some key classes that are essential for business school and that I had done well in them.  For instance.... Financial Accounting - A.  Who would have thought?  I totally forgot about that!

Hhmm what else can I say about GPA?  For those of you who did well in undergrad - great!  For those of you who did not.  All hope is not lost!  Trust me, but definitely use that optional essay to speak about it.  With that being said there is a way that you have to speak about it.  You can't say "I did poorly in college because..."  there's definitely an art to writing essays.  ESPECIALLY THAT ONE!  but it can be done.  If you are curious as to how... just email me.