From the tone and what he has said, I highly doubt carl has any job offers from any tier 1 firms, nor did he graduate a "pedigree" school in Chi-town in 3 years. Nor did he intern at GS. He simply lacks the understanding / knowledge that someone who interned would have. Also, how smart is a kid who says he graduated in 3 years from a high-end school, which would have tremendously deep career counseling staff, and instead of seeking their thoughts on this, he starts asking on this website if GS is worthy of his time and efforts? FWIW, last years recruits from quant schools at GS are making all-in substantially more than any numbers posted so far on this thread.
very true, most MBAs dont make that as first yr associates and they work 100 hr weeks. hes looking at 75-80 plus bonus which might get him to 100k, divide that by number of hrs worked, and its not that much better than Mc Donalds.
key to getting into good MBAs these days is good GMAT thats standard and diverse background. Standard 2 yr analyst i-bank program even from GSCO doesnt get you much these days if thats all you have, there are simply "too" many of these people applying. someone mentioned that its easy to get an MBA now, even with apps declining most schools accept less than 10%, so i guess if u make it in trading you'll make it to business school joke!
Your B-School admission stats are simply not true - the top 3 schools accept 10%-15% - by the time you get to #10-#15 you're looking at 20% to 40%.
copernicus--your salary numbers are a few years behind the power curve. Your assumptions on top tier b-schools are not valid
Ronin Capital is quietly huge. John Hughes and a few other CRT guys there. They don't have any pit traders at the CBOT, but are the biggest upstairs options traders in the Treasury options and are enormous in Eurodollar options as well.
This is a f--king no brainer. Goldman on your resume is pretty much your passport to every job later in life. Turning down Goldman to go to a place like Group One would be like turning down Harvard to go to city college.
Deringer- that is my first instinct as well, but both trading and banking have become commodities in many ways. If I do trading and succeed, I could earn what a VP in banking earns by my fourth year in trading. If I am not good at trading I will still have time to study for my GMAT, get my CFA, and then hopefully get in to a good business school from which I could hopefully join an investment banking again but as an associate. Thus it makes the decision more murky.
If you try trading and fail, you're not getting into any associate program, dude. It doesn't work that way. Even if you do remarkably well, you might still not be attractive to them. In fact, you'll probably have one of the weakest resumes coming out of business school because you will have accomplished nothing. If trading doesn't work out, you'll be perceived as just another failed trader while everyone else in your class had already done their rigorous 2-year programs at Goldman or Morgan and can talk about all the deals that they participated in.