This weekend I was at an event at the CME and several firms that sponsored it had employees and/or recruiters come to talk with us. Optiver had a guy from Harvard, Peak 6 had a guy from MIT, and there were several other firms there. Do these firms pretty much exclusively look for candidates from those top tier target schools? Most of the guys I talked with basically said if you are reasonably fast at basic math calculations and are a quick learner then you have good odds of getting on regardless of the school...obviously that meant very little to me considering they were from those top schools. I also talked with Eldorado and Akuna, I really enjoyed talking with both.
1) Do you attend DePaul? 2) Besides "academic pedigree" and scoring "off the charts" on standardized math tests, they all tend to want programming ability too. 3) I don't know if Optiver still administers "The 3" math tests to applicants. I scored too low on the first to be considered any further. Do a search here for the math simulators to practice the test and see how high you might score. 4) Be willing to apply anywhere & everywhere and hope for the best.
No, I go to school in TN. I was in this trading competition the CME puts on for students and placed in the top 10% so they had a big event for all the teams. Programming was definitely mentioned by many of the firms but not all of them said they viewed it as necessary to get a position. I think I do need to work on learning to program though. I just don't have the time currently, but hopefully this summer I might be able to dedicate a little time everyday after work to start learning. Optiver did mention the math tests. He said basic math to see how fast you are, some statistics, and then a test on sequences I believe was the last one. I definitely am willing to apply everywhere. I should graduate next summer, so I am going to start working on applying to firms now.