Is everyone on WSO Einstein?

It seems like this site acts like getting into Harvard is a breeze as an upper class white male, or that getting a 36 ACT is like the fifth grade. Is everyone in IB just the best of the best, or is there a lot of exageration? I go to a prep school, but even getting into a lower tier Ivey like Dartmouth would be hard. Even getting into somewhere like U MICH or Boston College would be a toss up.

 

the more I read this forum the less impressed I am with the opinions/content. I think a lot of these members try to live out their IB dreams vicariously through the fantasy land known as the internet because it gives them this absurd, unfounded sense of security. Knowing about EBs/ top targets is fucking meaningless unless you have offers and are trying to decide between them whether people realize it or not.

 

I think the feeling has got to do with the kind of crowd that WSO caters to. Someone won't be here if they were not motivated to do well in Finance.

Another thing to consider is that Finance usually attracts the over achievers. Those who are determined to go and get what they think they deserve. Don't get me wrong. Other fields also have their fair share of over achievers but of a different kind.

For example in engineering there are over achievers but engineering has a more convenient operative culture compared to the cut throated culture prevalent in finance.

Also another thing to consider is that this is the only forum where you can come with genuine doubts and get answers from people working in the industry.

Hence, people who have done well in general come for counsel and this tends to bias our views. I believe there's a healthy mix of target and non target students here. But most of us tend to focus on people who come from Target schools and do well.

Those people who from non target do succeed show that they have overcome the odds and hence in general are also revered on the forum.

This I believe plays on our insecurities to make us feel that maybe we are not good enough or as intelligent as others. Which in turn leads to the opinion that people on WSO are Einstein's.

Tl;Dr It's just your perception bias that is forming the way you are looking at people on this forum.

 

Just my two cents: most people do not work hard enough to make intelligence the deciding factor in their lives. One's achievement is a function of hours one puts in, intelligence, socioeconomic status, network, and random variation.

I studied English as a second language and did not move to the states since 17. In 10th grade, I took the PSAT and got 1570. In my senior year, I got 2060 on SAT (not a great score, but it got me into top 15 schools). I usually only slept 6 hours during those two years. I have spoken with friends from Choate, Andover, and Hotchkiss; many of them even slept less during high school.

 

Yes, this industry does tend to draw a certain character, but I wouldn't use WSO as an accurate sample size of the population. Also, I think a lot of it stems from the connotation of your OP. Worded differently, I think you could have received a very different response..

Cultivating mass and wealth since '95
 

Highly unlikely there is any exaggeration here. You are only surrounded here by a bunch of money crazed little shits where Wall Street meets their high minded ambitions. This explains it, no?

Ok, all jokes aside you are in a field where typically the best of the best survive and prosper and thus becomes the role models that bankers aspire to. Some careers folks are 100% on 24/7.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
 

It is not a secret that "High Finance" and by extension Investment Banking attracts a certain type of ilk. However objectively seductive this industry is it does manage to bring forth those who seem to have a similar disposition. As for their motivations, well, I think some of us on the bottom of prestige totem pole can elude to what those may be.

Anyway most people who kinda of half-ass learn about the typical avenues to IB become desensitized to the difficulty of getting in top Ivy/selective universities. This is just probably an opening explanation.

Though there is some exaggeration - the number of people I come across from Semi-Target and Non-Target at BBs and even EB's is bewildering. But it happens, again, a lot more than you think.

"Man is split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever." ~ Ernest Becker
 

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