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Yes, I would say they do. This is just based off of personal experience, from knowing so many Swat grads who went into ibanking (though they weren’t all economics majors; some were engineering, math or physics). This is one of the areas where Career Services actually seems to excel, as I believe I pointed out before. Apparently, 26% of 2004-2006 Swarthmore graduates who secured employment after graduation went into business, which includes consulting, finance, marketing and management.</p>
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<p>Of the 374 alums who have their resumes posted via Career Services, 119 have a 3.50 GPA or higher. Of those, 26 are economics majors so, in this sample, 22% of all Swarthmore graduates with a GPA of 3.50 or higher have a degree in economics. From what I know about economics at Swarthmore, it’s actually one of the easier majors to get a high GPA in. It’s a lot easier than trying to get a high GPA in engineering or one of the hard sciences, which are the other people most likely to end up competing for ibanking jobs. Most of the people I know who double-majored in economics and either math or a science said that economics was a lot easier. So, getting a great GPA as an economics major at Swarthmore isn’t out of the question.</p>
<p>To answer your question, I don’t know whether or how ibanking firms weight your GPA as a function of your undergraduate institution, but many of their employees – including those doing the hiring of new employees – are graduates of elite institutions, so they probably understand what that means.</p>