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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In my experience, if I was looking at two kids:

1) the quiet, studious valedictorian 2) the outgoing soccer team captain who was a B student

and I had to guess who would end up making a lot of money, I would bet on the B student. No question. Yes, a lot of big law people went to fancy colleges (or at least fancy law schools) but lots of people in finance and other fields are successful by being smart enough and having good leadership/social skills.[/quote]

I know lots of people in finance in NYC and they all went to top colleges and also were the outgoing soccer team captain or similar and the valedictorian.  Their firms don't hire people who did not go to top colleges and the ivies don't take kids who were "just" the valedictorian;  the kids who get into those schools have much more than top grades.[/quote]

That's exactly right.  I think there's a misconception here about ivy kids.  Most valedictorians never get admitted to Harvard or Stanford--they have their pick of them.  They are looking for either the next Nobel prize winner, the next world leader, the next mega billionaire, etc.  They typically admit kids with worldclass skills (such as one of the most promising musicians in the world, one of the best athletes in their sport, someone doing groundbreaking academic research, etc), kids of world leaders or mega billionaires (think Obama, Clinton, foreign leaders, etc), and then fill the rest of the class based on optimizing for geographic & ethnic diversity while picking people who are basically BOTH valedictorian & class president types.

Again, probably something like 50% of the people (and I can easily be convinced it's closer to 80%) in wall street went to top schools.  Every year Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc recruit new undergrads and grad students to join and they are only recruiting from certain schools--it's certainly possible for someone not from one of those schools to get a job there--it's just much more difficult and unlikely.  If you think an alpha investment banker is a former quiet, studious valedictorian then I can't help you.  A lot of them were valedictorians who were captain of a varsity sport or class president.[/quote]

This is a flaw in our culture.  Our best and brightest aim for i-banking?  SMH[/quote]

Absolutely...but that's a different discussion.  However, there has been a shift to Silicon Valley over the last 5+ years.  The marginal recruit is now going to Facebook or Google instead of Goldman or McKinsey--don't get me wrong though, investment banking is still getting their share of the best and brightest, just now quite as dominant as before.  Some of the comments on this board make me think that some people don't understand who goes to Wall Street.  I wouldn't be surprised if at the last peak (2006) something like 20% or more of the Harvard undergraduate class was going to either investment banking or strategy consulting (a common feeder into private equity or hedge funds after a 2-3 year analyst position).[/quote]

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