undergrad hires for finance jobs in Manhattan is super competitive and the reason for long hours is like so many things multifaceted… First I would say that “Wall Street” really does not exist anylonger, the the old school downtown financial district job is mostly long gone replaced by machines and algorithms while the investment banking jobs have shattered across many new firms both buyside and sellside with the old dominant firms exercising great sway in terms of market share but ever shrinking fees… Alas the wall street of old is fading away and like Advertising did becoming less and less prestigious for young graduates (50-60 years ago too grads who came to mAnhattan wanted to work in advertising or architecture, not Wall Street)
Anyhow enough of my rant… Long hours persist for young graduates mostly for two reasons. First the inefficiency of business hours meaning that during the day bankers and traders do deals or think of new products and then assign the drudge and number crunching to analysts and associates at the end of the day for review the next day. Secondly there is some right of passage I suppose like young medical interns. Old farts sort of figure if they pulled those sick hours their younglings similarly must suffer… Hehe