Tips on schooling for entry into the prop world

Hi there,

Looking for some tips on getting into trading. Here are my stats and interests:

Have been in the work force for about 7 years; Public accounting, big 4 firm, CPA, managed financial statement audits at financial firms (mutual funds, private equity, an exchange, etc.). Moved into IT Audit over the past 3 years. Undergrad double major from Big 10 in Accounting and Finance. Overall 3.3, Major 3.5; Starting the MS in Comp Sci at U of Chicago in the fall. Considering the MSFE @ Chicago immediately after the CS.

I'm admittedly not that familiar with the intimate details of the various options, i.e. working at a hedge fund vs. a prop trading firm vs. a big traditional IBank like GS, etc. I do however have some friends that work at prop firms, and that environment is what I'm looking for. Fast paced, highly technical - both on the IT and quant fronts, small (100 - 500 ppl), casual (jeans / tees), not client facing. Some examples that come to mind in Chicago would be Peak6, Jump Trading, Wolverine, etc.

My general question is, does anyone have suggestions given my existing experience to break in? Any opinions on the University of Chicago CS and / or MSFE program? I have no desire to go to NYC. I'd stay in Chicago, or go to London, possibly. Also, does anyone know what the pay is like for those type of traders? How it's structured (i.e. bonus based on firm performance, or pay based on your own pnl, typical %'s, typical base, if any, etc.)

Lastly, what distinguishes the traders from the developers from the quants? I.e. if your system is executing trades in milliseconds that depend on algorithms, I can see where the programmer and the quant come into the scenario, but then what need for a separate guy doing the "trading"? There wouldn't seem to be room for someone to manually execute a trade trigger in those types of situations?

Thanks in advance!