How much does going to a top school matter for top firms?

1. Generally speaking, the more "prestigious" (and I put these in quotes for context of a different connotation), top school is going to matter more. For instance, top prop shops in Chicago like Optiver, IMC, etc are very well regarded within the trading industry but aren't as typically "prestigious" in the sense of name value in traditional BB's like Goldman Sachs, etc. Places like Citadel, Two Sigma are again, generally, going to be a bit more nitpicky with the initial screening process. I would wager prop shops are going to be less stringent about these than your name brand HF's & other big banks, and yes I'm sure they'll probably care to some degree, but definitely lesser. If I recall, Jump for example, recruited decently from UIUC, which is a top notch engineering school but perhaps not necessarily a target in the traditional sense like HYP+ Stanford + MIT. I'm speaking in very broad and relative terms, please do not put too much weight - I'm certainly not suggesting name value trumps all. Just to reiterate, this does not mean you can't get in these places because you didn't attend a top school. There will always be exceptions and more power to you if you can become that exception.

2. After the interview, almost entirely irrelevant. Sure, perhaps the Head of Trading you talk to at one point might've gone to the same alma mater as you and you guys can have a nice chat reminiscing but for the most part, once you get your foot in the door, really not going to matter whether you went to Oxford or some community college. In fact, I would argue some people might be more impressed you made it this far from a lesser known school.