Here's my recipe 1. Double major in mathematics and something offbeat - like English or Medieval Studies or History of Art. 2. Get into at an Ivy 3. Take a minor in CS, learn coding 4. In your spare time, trade in your own account (talk to your parents about it - ask them for $$) 5. Work 1 summer at a hedge fund - volunteer to do anything for free. Work 1 summer at an investment bank if possible. 6. Hang out with the strange kids at college who sell exam notes on the sly and run a marijuana business from their dorm rooms. Phew .... Sounds like a lot, but here's why 1) & 2) will get you that position at a fund or bank. Doing Medieval Studies will help you stand out from the thousands of Ivy Leage Mathematics/Economics graduates 3) Being able to code is very useful in getting a job at a big hedge fund if you choose to go that route. They always need code monkeys. 4) Will burn through your money when you have the least amount of money to burn - and therefore is the cheapest point in your life to purchase market experience. 5) will open your eyes to how the institutions play 6) is critical to maintaining independant thought. This is the "safest" way to do things. Alternatively you could just drive a cab and trade commodities on the side like Bruce Kovner
I read all the posts to get some background. When a person who is whom you wish to be sits around and discusses what going on with associates, there is a definite cultural bias. It seems to come from several quarters. How you were brought up with traditional family responsibilities. Wealth has its obligations. Your in-laws will share all of these values as well once you acquite them as you finish up school. New England prep schools will get you ready for university and they will sort you into the right pathway. Dating seven sisters is the eastern way to go usually. When you find yourself, your schoolmates will let you know how it all comes down. There is a plan afoot and it has been going on for a long time. For many, there is nothing wrong with being a C+ history major who has a lot of friends. Nobody is going to talk about quant in your set at university. Pay big time attention to the guys two forms ahead of you in prep school and really get down who you associate with early in university. People mostly get asked to join firms. It is expected that you have brains and can pay dues. What you did in university was ace every single thing that came up with grace and ellegance. Especially, you gave all for the alma mater. That is the tradition of the noblese oblige. Lets say you want to do it the hard way. Go the genius route instead of the patrician route that wealthy people follow. You may not be born with great wealth. It some times happens. A person needs to become a Soros or a Seykota for that. You need to excell from day one in prep school and have advance placement college courses by form V at least. Your Science Fair awards start that year too. You will find recruiters getting you connected to faculty right off. Then you tailor your studies to producing for the "beautiful minds". Deep is how you perform. You then hit the trail for a few years. Fed grants are best. Fulbrights are a natural. Or WH scholars. this is a top notch route for regular guys with brains. The middle road is where most travel. To fast track, go to MIT. Do EE and hook up with the crew running the ESP* stuff which is an outgrowth of the life-cycle Hypothesis crew. This is the HOTtest financial center of brainpower in the US. Subscribe to the MIT news groups and 100 Top performer lists. Do Alexander and his crew at berkely if you like the west. Do the military route at Carlyle if you like big money planning. you have to get into the stream of expertise before you leave university. it is not a major thing. *A financial planning juggernaut being bought by all the guys you think you want to work for. It is in Beta now. It is after quant.
I was talking to some ppl I know over at LEH and from what I gathered was that if you wanted to get on their trading floor u HAD to have an MBA. Even if you were willing to take an inter with no pay then u had to at least be an MBA student. It just that there are soo many ppl to choose from that are all smart and have the paper to back it up that you need to have every piece of paper possible (aka MBA/Phd), so that is either a PhD in Maths or an MBA (2yrs, vs. possibly 5 for PhD in Maths). Even with the MBA it can still be difficult. The best thing is contacts, if you know the right ppl you can get anything! Some guy mentioned that you should go to firms and talk to ppl and ask them, that is a really good idea, start networking and meeting ppl at every chance u get.
I dissagree. if you really would like to make over $100million per year then you MUST HAVE AN ADVANCED DEGREE IN PHYSICS! you also must be able to travel back to 1994 so that you can go to Morgan Stanley and apply for thier "back door" job as a risk "arber" to calculate the currency/international stock index re-allignments. ofcourse the firm would make $$$$BILLIONS of your brain but what the heck you just made $100million. Even if you had to collapse a countries financial infrastructure to do it. does Orange county and USSR come to mind? how about Argentina? I digress.
Just do something competitive, such as sports, or whatever suits you, because trading is just competition.
I was at a IB for years. Our ideal candidate was a 1st year MBA student with a emphasis on Finance and a 1250+ SAT score. Exceptions were made on the major, but we always had to see evidence of success within a competitive framework. If they looked good, they'd get a summer internship. If they performed well during the internship we'd make an offer for them to start after graduation. About 7 out of 10 decided after the internship that they didn't want to trade. Our research guys were mostly quants with PHD's.
Why in the world would you care what SAT scores they got?!?! Considering that you are looking for MBA students. I just can't believe you have the inside info (or you have morons for recruiters). I have never heard of a company even caring what you did when you were 16 years old if you are an MBA student (28-35 years of age.)