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<p>But you didn’t have to do any of those things (other than working 60+ hours a week), if you had gone to the right college. For example, I can think of plenty of people who had a very enjoyable time in college, and certainly did not have anywhere near to perfect grades, nor did they join any school finance clubs, yet are now extremely highly paid financiers. </p>
<p>Of course, the fact that they went to schools such as HYPSM may have had something to do with it. </p>
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<p>Perish the thought - the financiers who crashed the economy, required a taxpayer bailout, yet continued to draw giant - indeed, record-breaking- bonuses anyway might actually be overpaid? Meanwhile engineers are actually underpaid? Nah, of course not. </p>
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<p>No, I’m afraid to say that I still think you are deeply out of sync. To be clear, where we agree is that those jobs are indeed for the select few. But where we disagree is that being admitted to one of the top schools in the country already makes you one of that select few. The thousands upon thousands of students at the average schools who dream of finance jobs will unfortunately have to keep dreaming (or at least wait until they are admitted to a top MBA program), because their chances are nil. But the chances for the students at the top schools are very strong. </p>
<p>I would assert that during any nonrecessionary economy, any HYPSM engineering student with moderately decent (i.e. B average) grades can get a relatively high-paying finance job. It may not necessarily be at the best firms, but it will still be a decent finance job. It’s hard to even walk around the MIT Career Center without tripping over a finance recruiter.</p>