Going from 3.5 to 5.5/6.0 in 2 years?

[Faker]

Everyone has their own fit when choosing college but some of this stuff is clear from data the feds require colleges to provide....

If not run by toothless woodsmen they going to know that for a graduating HS student, Amherst, Swarthmore and Williams are significantly *more* selective (as measured by SAT scores of incoming students) than UCLA, UMich and even Berkley. Book it. They are all great colleges and will not hold anyone back if applying themselves.

The CEO of Morgan Stanley Asia also is an Amherst alum... if only she'd gone to UCLA, who knows how much she might have accomplished in business!

Apologies for furthering this threadjack...



They're not *more* prestigious but they are at least *as* prestigious. Assuming the HR department isn't run by toothless woodsmen, they're going to know that the Amhersts, Swarthmores, and Williams' of the world are just as selective as the UCLAs, Berkeleys and UMichs of the world.



It's not *necessary* but it certainly helps a lot... if that's what you want to do; that is, work 100 hours per week for 6-8 years doing largely work that a monkey could do (although it hasn't been tried). Then you become a VP for a few years, then a Director, then eventually an MD... oh wait, statistically speaking, you probably got fired before most of that happened. And then even if you grab this "golden ring"... you're still just working all the time, at the beck and call of your "valued clients" (many of whom are complete d-bags), and navigating cut-throat internal politics ("Why was Chet's bonus bigger than mine!?"). Anyhow, some folks are happy with this life - I haven't met many of them, but I presume they exist.

You mentioned earlier that a disproportionate number of big company CEOs came from ivy league MBA programs, which is true, but... most people get the cause and effect backwards. Most of these folks were going to be big time CEOs regardless of where they went to school - they happened to punch their ticket at an ivy league MBA program on the way up; they self-selected this path. They didn't become CEOs *because* they went through the ivy league, it's the other way around. Graduating from an ivy league MBA program is very helpful for your first one or two jobs - then it's up to you. If you lay a few career turds, you'll find out just how valuable that network of cronies is that you spent all that time cultivating. I've met some brilliant folks from ivy league schools but I've also met plenty of unconscionable nitwits - anyone over the age of 30 on Wall Street or in consulting has had the same experience.

Just my view, but you might want to consider focusing on the learning and the knowledge itself, as opposed to the provenance thereof. Things will work themselves out or they won't - where you went to school probably won't matter much in 15 years. Just my two cents, of course.

Yes thank you guys for finding the 1/1000 exceptions that exist everywhere in life. Did I say it was impossible for Amherst alum to succed in wall st? No. Did I say it is unlikely compared to UCLA? Yes. If you can make the connections necessary for wall st while at Amherst then great, but obviously it is harder to do that than at UCLA.

I'm sure all of you personally have or know a lot of people who are in these colleges right now or are actually working higher up in wall st making you all very reliable sources for information. I concede to all of you since I'm sure all of you know personally know more than a handful of people or personally have graduated from a liberal arts college and are earning at least 700,000 right now.Thank you fellow prestigious, honorable, humble, and respectful talk tennis members!

 

[navigator]

^^ [*Rolls eyes and chuckles*] Oki doki... maybe this discussion is better over at "Odds and Ends" to avoid perpetuating this threadjack... I know a smidge about Wall Street, but it sounds like you've got it all figured out (while still in HS no less!)...

 

[Faker]

^^ [*Rolls eyes and chuckles*] Oki doki... maybe this discussion is better over at "Odds and Ends" to avoid perpetuating this threadjack... I know a smidge about Wall Street, but it sounds like you've got it all figured out (while still in HS no less!)...

Nah i don't have it all figured out. I'll figure it out in college and along the way. Will I even go into wall st? Maybe not. But the reason I am leaning to wall st is because I have a parent who works there and many many family friends who work there who basically told me everything to know. Do I have first hand experience? No but I know many many people who are very high up who have first hand experience.

 

[GuyClinch]

Word to the wise - Wall Street isn't what is used to be. Banking is a heavily regulated industry where the profit is being legislated out. It's being worked with fewer and fewer workers every year (automation) and features long hours in a place with a very high cost of living. Most Wall Street guys are more for a lack of a better word - geeks nowadays. Its not like Wolf of Wall Street anymore..

Long story short - those people protesting down on Wall Street would have been better of coming to Cupertino, CA to complain.. That's a company that's making good money.. Back in the 80s you could make good money for just showing up.. Not anymore..

Lots of the obvious trading strategies are illegal things front loading, short selling etc etc. These sound like crazy jargon to you maybe..but lots of 'common' sense ways to make money are illegal.

 

[Faker]

Word to the wise - Wall Street isn't what is used to be. Banking is a heavily regulated industry where the profit is being legislated out. It's being worked with fewer and fewer workers every year (automation) and features long hours in a place with a very high cost of living. Most Wall Street guys are more for a lack of a better word - geeks nowadays. Its not like Wolf of Wall Street anymore..

Long story short - those people protesting down on Wall Street would have been better of coming to Cupertino, CA to complain.. That's a company that's making good money.. Back in the 80s you could make good money for just showing up.. Not anymore..

Lots of the obvious trading strategies are illegal things front loading, short selling etc etc. These sound like crazy jargon to you maybe..but lots of 'common' sense ways to make money are illegal.

Yes I know. We obviously all saw what happens with deregulation back in 2008. But at the end of the day wall st is still wall st and here we are in 2015. You still make big bank from wall st and there is no denying that, not as good as a 1-3 decades ago but still a lot obviously. If I get into a good undergrad maybe I'll become an analyst straight out of undergrad maybe I'll go to Chicago for consulting or maybe I'll have pursued a different path already or maybe I just don't get into a good undergrad and fail .

 

[Topspin Shot]

Wall Street can be a fine path for some but there are other fine paths too. It's about doing what's good for you that can hopefully help others.