Comment by storgendibal

Exactly this. I have family (through marriage) who grew up in the New York / New Jersey area and went to nice public schools. Many people they went to high school with ended up in finance on the buy-side. They knew the path from high school onwards: Get into an Ivy League for college, major in CS, EE, or Math (but with no intention of working in those areas) get recruited by a top 3 bulge bracket (MS, JP, GS) in either M&A or LevFin, put in your two years, network with the people a year or two ahead of you in college who then went onto private equity or hedge funds, get an interview there, make bank.