Guide to including your Grade Point Average on your resume
Written byCFI Team
Updated December 11, 2022
Should IPut my GPA on Resume?
In finance, if your Grade Point Average (GPA) is 3.5 or higher, then you should include it on your resume – otherwise, leave it out. If your major GPA is higher than your overall GPA, then you should include that as well (or instead of your overall GPA). Additionally, you may wonder, can you round up GPA on your resume? The short answer is yes, but only to one decimal place (e.g., 3.49 rounded up to 3.5). This guide will cover everything you want know about GPA on resume.
Example of GPA on Resume
As stated above, if your GPA is 3.5 or higher, then you should definitely include it on your resume and in your job application. If you’ve been out of school for more than 10 years, you can most likely drop it from your resume, as your work experience is probably far more important than your grades at university.
Below is an example of how to include your grade point average:
Dartmouth College | Hanover, NH
Bachelor of Arts, Major in Economics
- Cumulative GPA: 3.8/4.0
- Varsity Sport – starter on the varsity sports team all four years; 20+ hours per week
- President, Investment Club – responsible for financial modeling and analysis
Can you Round Up Your GPA?
Many students ask, can you round up GPA or should you round up GPA, on your resume, and the answer (generally) is yes. Be careful though to only round up to one decimal place. Below is a list of examples of when you can safely round your GPA up – or not.
Examples:
- Can I round a 3.49 GPA to a 3.5? Yes – this is an example of acceptable rounding since it is to one decimal place
- Can I round a 3.43 GPA to a 3.5? No – this number would actually round down to 3.4. Instead, consider leaving it at 3.43.
- Can I round a 3.99 GPA to a 4.0? No – That’s because 4.0 GPA is reserved for a “perfect” GPA, meaning it is not rounded and truly 4.0.
Examples of How to Round Up GPA on Resume
Below is a table that shows examples when to round up and when to round down your GPA. As you can see in the table, you start with your calculated GPA (take the average of all courses) and then take some “action” (e.g., rounding GPA up or down) to arrive at your resume GPA. Note: this advice is specifically for finance professionals.
Additional Resources
Thanks for taking the time to read CFI’s guide on calculating your resume GPA. To help you stand out from the competition in a crowded market, take CFI’s Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA)TM certification and learn the job-specific skills employers in finance want their new hires to have.
To perfect your resume, these resources will be useful:
