Where are America's best and brightest college graduates going?

Obviously back before 2007, most ivy league HYP college graduates were heading to Wall St. But what about today? Are they still heading there in droves or is VC/Tech in SF attracting more talent? or graduate school or TFA?

6 Comments
 

Many of my friends want to go to grad school in STEM. Tech is drawing a lot of CS majors. Quite a few others take a fellowship/internship for a year before going to med or law school. Consulting seems more popular than finance, to be honest.

 
Best Response

Well what's your definition of best and brightest? I don't think it has ever been true that most of the "brightest," measured by intellect, have been heading to work on Wall Street after graduation. Kids taking Math 55 are not going to be interested in IB. I'd imagine most super high IQ kids are attracted to either grad school or tech with a few going into finance roles requiring quant skills.

But if you're talking the whole population of the top Ivies, you can find some numbers and they show that finance still attracts a huge percentage of graduates but not nearly as many in ~2006-2007.

 
Extelleron

Well what's your definition of best and brightest? I don't think it has ever been true that most of the "brightest," measured by intellect, have been heading to work on Wall Street after graduation. Kids taking Math 55 are not going to be interested in IB. I'd imagine most super high IQ kids are attracted to either grad school or tech with a few going into finance roles requiring quant skills.

But if you're talking the whole population of the top Ivies, you can find some numbers and they show that finance still attracts a huge percentage of graduates but not nearly as many in ~2006-2007.

Agree and agree.

 

You never know. I know several prize winners from international Olympiads (top 5 students in their country in math/physics/chemistry in high school) who want to do finance. I know at least five students in that category...

 

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