Starting salary or expected for your child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Year of graduation: 24
University: Ivy
Current Income: $135k
Company Name:
Position: CS specialized in machine learning

This one sounds legit. Kudos to your kid!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

That's not consistent at all with "high six figures"...but is with mid six figures...for a small portion of the graduating MIT class. In this student survey, roughly 4 kids out of 132.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

That's not consistent at all with "high six figures"...but is with mid six figures...for a small portion of the graduating MIT class. In this student survey, roughly 4 kids out of 132.

That’s actually not an accurate takeaway. It’s entirely consistent with high six figures, for a specific subset of graduates. A $300K base in quant finance often translates to $600K–700K total comp, and that’s just at the 75th percentile. So yes, some grads are hitting high six figures, and it’s not implausible.

The “4 out of 132” from the survey likely reflects only a subset of the class that responded, not the whole population. It’s a mistake to assume that’s the ceiling or even representative. The reality is that high six-figure compensation is absolutely attainable for more than just a handful, especially in top quant roles. Looking at the full distribution, not just a single survey sample is more meaningful here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

That's not consistent at all with "high six figures"...but is with mid six figures...for a small portion of the graduating MIT class. In this student survey, roughly 4 kids out of 132.

That’s actually not an accurate takeaway. It’s entirely consistent with high six figures, for a specific subset of graduates. A $300K base in quant finance often translates to $600K–700K total comp, and that’s just at the 75th percentile. So yes, some grads are hitting high six figures, and it’s not implausible.

The “4 out of 132” from the survey likely reflects only a subset of the class that responded, not the whole population. It’s a mistake to assume that’s the ceiling or even representative. The reality is that high six-figure compensation is absolutely attainable for more than just a handful, especially in top quant roles. Looking at the full distribution, not just a single survey sample is more meaningful here.

If you click on a link someone posted earlier which listed internship salaries and then click on the quant firm paying the most (Radix) and look at their FT jobs, the total all-in comp was indicated at $450k. This is all a ridiculous discussion since these are fantastic first-year salaries.

It's actually pretty reasonable to assume that say 3%-4% of the class is able to get these types of jobs. That would come out to about 50 kids in total...understanding the vast majority of MIT undergrads aren't interested or capable of interviewing and getting hired for these jobs since you still have plenty of political science or life science or other majors that just don't prepare someone for quant jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

That's not consistent at all with "high six figures"...but is with mid six figures...for a small portion of the graduating MIT class. In this student survey, roughly 4 kids out of 132.

That’s actually not an accurate takeaway. It’s entirely consistent with high six figures, for a specific subset of graduates. A $300K base in quant finance often translates to $600K–700K total comp, and that’s just at the 75th percentile. So yes, some grads are hitting high six figures, and it’s not implausible.

The “4 out of 132” from the survey likely reflects only a subset of the class that responded, not the whole population. It’s a mistake to assume that’s the ceiling or even representative. The reality is that high six-figure compensation is absolutely attainable for more than just a handful, especially in top quant roles. Looking at the full distribution, not just a single survey sample is more meaningful here.

If you click on a link someone posted earlier which listed internship salaries and then click on the quant firm paying the most (Radix) and look at their FT jobs, the total all-in comp was indicated at $450k. This is all a ridiculous discussion since these are fantastic first-year salaries.

It's actually pretty reasonable to assume that say 3%-4% of the class is able to get these types of jobs. That would come out to about 50 kids in total...understanding the vast majority of MIT undergrads aren't interested or capable of interviewing and getting hired for these jobs since you still have plenty of political science or life science or other majors that just don't prepare someone for quant jobs.

That’s base salary though. I personally know Radix pays close to one million for kids out of college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Good luck with that. The Ivy League is tarnished. The job market is tough. AI is the elephant in the room. There are unemployed former Physics majors with real world experience that trumps freshly printed parchment.

He's doing just fine, completing 3 internships in quant finance. All his friends are employed this summer too, so it doesn't sound like you know much of anything.

There are few quant finance jobs. Your kid is lucky to have one but there are many kids from MIT who are doing regular jobs so "all" his friends may be employed but not necessarily at the same level.

So? Who doesn’t know this already? What’s your point?

Not the PP. My point would be that the number of posts re physics majors making bank as quants are excessive given we all agree on the rarity of these jobs. And now, in the wake of press that META is poaching top AI talent, someone's teeing up a thread to claim fresh CS majors are making mid six figures. (Doubt this is a parent, it's some long term poster with too much time on their hands, just my hunch.) Regardless, useless anecdata given these are uncommon.

Really? If you need data for typical average Joe, you just need to google. Tons of information out there.

Most schools do provide more granular career data for graduates by major.

As an example, if you want to see how the MIT graduating class of 2024 is faring as a whole then you can search this link:

https://ir.mit.edu/projects/graduating-student-survey/

As you might imagine, the median salary across the entire class that decided to enter the workforce (i.e., nobody that decided to go to grad school is in these numbers), is probably somewhere around $125k with kids going into finance having the highest median salaries at $187k and kids going to work in life sciences the lowest at $46.5k.

So it does say the 75 pct for finance is 300k. And that’s only the base salary. Very consistent with the reports on this board that people are making mid to high six figures (TC) out of college.

That's not consistent at all with "high six figures"...but is with mid six figures...for a small portion of the graduating MIT class. In this student survey, roughly 4 kids out of 132.

That’s actually not an accurate takeaway. It’s entirely consistent with high six figures, for a specific subset of graduates. A $300K base in quant finance often translates to $600K–700K total comp, and that’s just at the 75th percentile. So yes, some grads are hitting high six figures, and it’s not implausible.

The “4 out of 132” from the survey likely reflects only a subset of the class that responded, not the whole population. It’s a mistake to assume that’s the ceiling or even representative. The reality is that high six-figure compensation is absolutely attainable for more than just a handful, especially in top quant roles. Looking at the full distribution, not just a single survey sample is more meaningful here.

If you click on a link someone posted earlier which listed internship salaries and then click on the quant firm paying the most (Radix) and look at their FT jobs, the total all-in comp was indicated at $450k. This is all a ridiculous discussion since these are fantastic first-year salaries.

It's actually pretty reasonable to assume that say 3%-4% of the class is able to get these types of jobs. That would come out to about 50 kids in total...understanding the vast majority of MIT undergrads aren't interested or capable of interviewing and getting hired for these jobs since you still have plenty of political science or life science or other majors that just don't prepare someone for quant jobs.

That’s base salary though. I personally know Radix pays close to one million for kids out of college.

That's not what the site said...it said $150k base + $300k bonus. Admittedly it's difficult to understand exactly who is doing what with the various job titles.

This is for a Quantitative Researcher job. Says you should be at $750k all-in with like 2 years.

[Anonymous]

The median bachelor's at MIT was $105k. MIT probably has the highest starting salaries in the country. Hopefully this can ground everyone in reality. Most grads make significantly less than this across the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The median bachelor's at MIT was $105k. MIT probably has the highest starting salaries in the country. Hopefully this can ground everyone in reality. Most grads make significantly less than this across the country.

It’s meaningless to aggregate up all majors even for MIT. That’s why this thread has its value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me feel terrible. I’m a math/cs major from a T30, but plan to become a teacher, so I really only expect 50k. Feels like I’m behind everyone and doing something wrong.

Don't feel terrible. This is an anonymous thread, and so people throw things at you, expecting them to be true, which may or may not be the case. Half of the replies are not even close to reality. But, I must say they are always fun to read!

The minimum starting teacher salary in Maryland is $60k. The large districts are all more than $100k after 15 years with master's and National Board Certification. Unlimited opportunities for advancement if you are good, into an assistant principal, principal, or central office role. We have proven that the majority of kids can't learn well without a live, in person teacher. So AI is much more likely to remain a tool, vs. a replacement. For many new college grads, being a teacher isn't too shabby. It's not top quant, but that isn't an option for 99.9% of the population. Oh, and in Maryland you are pretty much guaranteed a full tuition + R&B scholarship from the state to any MD state school (or the same amount towards private) for 4 years, if you commit to teaching for 4 years.

[Anonymous]

What percentage of quants get laid off annually?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of quants get laid off annually?

94.36%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Physics major at Ivy. Expecting to make minimum 300k

Last school year I paid an Ivy 2024 physics grad $70/hour to tutor my child in Physics C for 9 months.
And trust me, he wasn't doing it because he loves tutoring.

Sounds like he didn't make the best of his opportunity or is a bit lost. Any physics major with applied coursework and computationally-backed research can find a job better than tutor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of quants get laid off annually?

94.36%

Quant firms don't really do massive lay offs. Even Citadel, known for layoffs, is improving significantly from the past. They've realized it's important to retain talent.