Which is harder to get into: High Finance or Med School?

[Ronald Kris]

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[thesauce]

Medicine

 

[Promethean]

It depends on what you mean "get into."

There are fewer external barriers to finance than medicine. There are more objective requirements to get into medicine. You can have done everything right except one thing, and have your entire hope of a future in medicine ruined. For finance... one slip up, or a dozen, aren't necessarily career killers. No one cares about your specific grades in undergrad with finance. If you bring the talent, you can get an opportunity. It might cost you something, but there is always room to negotiate.

In medicine, your future is often (medical school, residency, fellowship) decided based partly upon arbitrary factors beyond your control behind closed doors by people you may not have met. That happens to some degree to everyone in life, but in medicine it is the rule rather than the exception. In both cases, a lot of talent and hard work are needed on the part of the candidate, don't get me wrong. But I think finance has less heartache built in.

 

[Ronald Kris]

It depends on what you mean "get into."

There are fewer external barriers to finance than medicine. There are more objective requirements to get into medicine. You can have done everything right except one thing, and have your entire hope of a future in medicine ruined. For finance... one slip up, or a dozen, aren't necessarily career killers. No one cares about your specific grades in undergrad with finance. If you bring the talent, you can get an opportunity. It might cost you something, but there is always room to negotiate.

In medicine, your future is often (medical school, residency, fellowship) decided based partly upon arbitrary factors beyond your control behind closed doors by people you may not have met. That happens to some degree to everyone in life, but in medicine it is the rule rather than the exception. In both cases, a lot of talent and hard work are needed on the part of the candidate, don't get me wrong. But I think finance has less heartache built in.

shouldn't objectivity make it easier? As in, you don't have to be an athlete, have had the right friends when you were a kid and knew jack about the world for medicine, both things which are important in the parts of finance which actually pay? Or what your parents name is? WASPs have a big advantage in finance that they don't have in medicine. If your name is Niedermayer III (I jacked the name from Animal House, its not a Jewish name, hence the two n's and the naming-after), some of the I-Banks think you're connected, tho thats no achievement of jack, no show of any character, personality. At least if you work hard in orgo chem, stats, you showed character, personality, hard work, etc. Or for that matter, your distant past with regard to internships, meaningless "achievements" that investment banking places want.

 

[Promethean]

All things being equal, I think that medicine is harder to "get into," with or without contacts on the inside. You can come from a wealthy family with many physicians in it, be hella smart, and be a legacy at each of the schools you apply to, and if you have severe test anxiety, an institutional action on your transcript, or a jerky attitude, it can keep you from getting into medical school. Same kid, same affluent background, going into finance: isn't going to have to sit for as many standardized exams, if any; isn't going to have anyone pouring over their transcript or even caring about that time they cheated on a test; might even get ahead faster if their jerky attitude is at least reigned in with superiors. Finance is easier for that kid to go into.

If you are going to compare an average kid's chances of getting into medical school with a gifted or connected kid's chances of a future in finance, then I don't think that is a reasonable comparison. There are some scenarios for which medicine might be harder, but I think that across the board, the time and resource investments made in the pursuit of a seat in a medical school class equal or exceed those required to get a gig at a major finance firm.

As for whether objectivity is advantageous or disadvantageous, I would say that it entirely depends on how far from average one is. The better the candidate, the greater the advantage... but then, the better the candidate, the easier both paths are, so the question becomes irrelevant. The more marginal the candidate, the more difficult, even possibly game-ending an objective assessment such as the MCAT may be, while the lack of such immobile gateways on the path to finance may mean that the marginal candidate has a better shot in that field, especially if they do have social connections or other resources that they can apply. Again, comparing apples to apples, it doesn't matter who you know or how much money you have if you can't break 17 on the MCAT. But you might know the right person or have enough funds to make the acquaintance of someone who could get you a key internship. So, for average to marginal candidates, finance is definitely easier than medicine, while the difference for average to superior candidates would tend to be asymptotic to zero.

 

[Promethean]

This is all very speculative and pedantic, though. The one that is easiest to get into is the one to which you apply yourself, heart, mind, body, and spirit, until you achieve your aims. The grass may look greener on the other side, but it actually becomes greener where you water it.

 

[Ronald Kris]

This is all very speculative and pedantic, though. The one that is easiest to get into is the one to which you apply yourself, heart, mind, body, and spirit, until you achieve your aims. The grass may look greener on the other side, but it actually becomes greener where you water it.

When you water brown grass, it mostly stays brown. No doubt its easy to "get a gig" at a finance firm, but there are gigs whose medical equivalent are nursing aids, like operations, retail stock brokering ie cold calling, and there are gigs like IBD/PE/ER/AM which are ultra-competitive and have been poaching pre-meds for some time now. This topic assumes no prior connections, just hard work.

 

[Promethean]

And why would they be poaching pre-meds, unless the medical path were so demanding as to be populated with high quality candidates?

You seem to have decided the answer to your own question. Therefore, I leave you to enjoy it.