<p>nsennott: to your direct question, they all seem about equally impressive to me for different reasons. All three will get you past the “is this person smart enough?” hurdle and into “do I like this person?”, “does this person fit the culture here?”, and “is this person hard working and competitive?”. Your alma mater only answers the first question, while the other three are actually more important.</p>
<p>As to your broader observation, the best way to make lots and lots of money is to start your own business. There are literally millions of millionaires in this country that are not qualified to work in high paying Wall St positions, or book-smart enough to gain admission to any Top 20 college or university. The gained their millions by working hard running their own small or medium sized business over a 20-40 year period. In fact, I’ll bet less than 1% of the multimillionaires in this country have ever seen an investment bank until it became time to investigate the options for selling their business.</p>