I’ve been on this board since 2008 I think, and I don’t recall ever calling anyone “delusional,” and I try very hard not to engage in personal attacks. I won’t swear it’s never happened in 7 years, but it’s not my normal MO.
As far as Houston goes, I despise the place. Though I suspect it has less to do with the virtues of the city (and it does have some beautiful neighborhoods) and more to do with the fact that it brings back very bad memories of living in a musty smelling apartment while DH got cancer treatment during D1’s senior year of high school. Missing a lot of those all important senior memories, worrying for DH, and arranging for a constant stream of caregivers for my two kids while we fought the beast in Houston just doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies for that city.
@Nrdsb4: you are not the only poster to this thread.
FWIW I wouldn’t live in Houston, personally, if I had a choice. For a few reasons.
And when I was making that other post, I was actually thinking about an incident where a department head in my NYC firm sent someone to start a branch of our department in the firm’s Texas office. He talked to the guy about what a great opportunity it was. Then, when he came back into his office, which happened to be near my office so I overheard, he was talking about it to his pals as if he had just sentenced the guy to death.
Bu that’s me, and him, There are those who love it. Evidently. To each their own.
@JoanneB, there are many kinds of real talent. Some lend themselves to climbing corporate ladders, others to entrepreneurship, and still others to careers that do not involve top leadership roles in organizations.
I think that it’s easy to define “success” too narrowly. It differs from person to person.
The vice president in charge of the group I work in is married to a high school teacher who does not want to be promoted out of the classroom and has therefore put limits on his own career advancement. Both are very happy in their careers. Outsiders might think that she is more successful than he is. But they don’t see it that way.
Oh, I think it was very evident in this thread that there are people who view the GS investment banker as more “successful” than the high school teacher. Different caliber of job and all. I used to think like too when I was younger. I was a real snob, and I’m sorry I was that way.
The articles on those who graduated from top schools and went into finance are interesting. What isn’t clear from those articles is how many of those students majored in something other than a business-related or math or economics type major. Its quite possible that the recruiters know they can train the “best and brightest” who probably, even if they majored in Archeology or Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford took (and with a quick look at their resume/GPA can see if they likely did well in) core or distribution requirements if their school required them, or also in their HS AP classes in math, physics, you name it. Stanford’s General Ed requirements seem to focus on a student’s ability to engage in critical thinking, reasoning and writing, skills that are necessary for success in many arenas. While many do, not all starting jobs require specific educational requirements.
When I was in school, it was not uncommon for students majoring in philosophy or math to go into banking, as they were seen as having the ability to think and problem-solve. There happened, back then, to have a large # of department stores that recruited buyers from my college, regardless of their undergrad major. These stores had a good experience/success with the grads from our school, so continued to recruit young buyers from there. Its really not rocket science.
Exactly, nrdsb4. The I-banks know these students are bright, motivated, and eager and able to learn. And some majors are not as likely to lead to lucrative careers directly in their field of study (nor did they necessarily plan to stay in that field). A friend’s son graduated from Yale with a degree in Ancient and Modern Greek. He works as a consultant with a management consulting firm.
Meant to add, some of these students do get good summer internships in the business/economics/finance field, which puts the experience on their resume, even if they have majored in something esoteric.
It’s depressing to hear that such a large proportion of the graduates of top schools go into I-banking. I-banking requires such long hours that it’s almost impossible for a young person to have a life. I wonder whether these kids went into it because they didn’t have other options because they majored in subjects that didn’t prepare them for other careers.
My daughter was an economics major at a school one step down from the ones you’re talking about. Faculty and fellow students heavily pressured her to go into I-banking (the I-banks recruit at her school, though perhaps not as heavily as at Harvard). She chose a different career path and never regretted it. But perhaps the only reason why she had access to other career paths is because she majored in economics.
What are we talking about, 600+ posts in? There is no one perfect path in life. The people I know on Wall Street mostly came from non-Ivy League colleges. They’re fine colleges, and we can debate for years the definition of “elite.” Hedge funds, private equity, etc., I can point to many who did not attend the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT.
I don’t know about you, but the people I know don’t stay with one company their entire career. There’s also an enormous burn-out rate on Wall Street. Search for “Wall Street burn out” for oodles of articles about the phenomenon. If a kid wants to major in economics at Yale, and head to investing on Wall Street, fine. More power to 'em. On the other hand, if your child wants to become a high school history teacher, great! More power to 'em.
My only concern would be pressuring a child who was a natural high school history teacher to go to Wall Street, against her natural inclination and desires. I think you have to WANT to go to Wall Street. Your father’s wanting it is not enough. Not for the long haul. You have to find your profession so absorbing, it’s more interesting than all the things normal people do.
“B–b--but EVERYONE wants to do that! And if they don’t, it’s only because they can’t so they convince themselves they don’t. But they really do! And they envy me, too!”
DH pointed out to me that one of our former neighbors used to run the Dallas division of Goldman Sachs. He got his BS from U of Missouri in poly sci and his MBA from SMU.
I think there may be a bit of a chicken and egg problem in this discussion. I think one of the personal characteristics that tends to draw students to elite universities is competitiveness. Competitive people like to win. If they are interested in investment banking, they want to be hired by the best bank. If they are interested in law, they want to be Supreme Court clerks and get hired by a top firm. If they are interested in musical theater, they want to star on Broadway. That’s just how they are. And my observation is that the students at the most elite schools are more like this than they were back in my day. They want to work for Google; they don’t want to go back to their hometowns and work for a non-famous company.
So if you are a highly able and competitive-minded high school student, should you shoot for elite schools? On the plus side, there will be lots of opportunities for you, and you will probably have more access to those elite jobs and the like. On the other hand, everybody else will also be highly competitive and will be gunning for those same jobs. Would you be better off at a place with less fierce competition? Maybe, but a lot of these kids thrive on the competition.
I do wonder whether a kid who is really smart and accomplished, but not that competitive in personality, would be better off going to a less elite school. Perhaps he’d be pulled along and become more competitive (I think this happened to my son, to some extent), but perhaps he’d shine more someplace where he’s clearly an academic standout.
Okay, so I keep going back to the assumption that has been made here that GS is pretty much closed off to graduates of non “elite” schools. I saw this little article on how to get a job at GS:
I get that the top elites are going to be the majority of candidates hired, but I am finding the assertion that “skipping the elites closes doors” isn’t even true at the top level of big finance.
Maybe a door isn’t the right metaphor. What I would say is that you can get to any job from any college, but from some colleges you may have to climb a greased pole, while from others you can slide down a greased pole.