Absolutely, this is something I've been saying for ages. People from upper middle and upper-class families know what it takes to land a prestigious job at the

Absolutely, this is something I've been saying for ages. People from upper middle and upper-class families know what it takes to land a prestigious job at the banks / law firms / consulting firms / etc. Chances are they themselves work at such firms, or that family members / friends do. Kids naturally want to do what their parents or other mentors do, so they get exposure to those professions early on, just by association. The parents will start investing early on, and depending on where you live, it can start already at pre-school age. Sounds ridiculous, but that's how it is in some circles. So by the time they're 13, they know how important grades are, along with the correct extracurricular activities. Everything is laid out for the kids to succeed and maximize their chance at top schools - which in turn feeds them into the professional world. I'm from a very rural place myself, where like 5% of my HS class went college or university - and it could go years between students that went to prestigious schools, and even less that joined the ranks of investment banks, HF, PE, management consulting firms, biglaw or boutiques, etc. By luck I got in touch with a good mentor that had worked in high-finance for years, and had the same type of background as me. His advice was for me to play the "country boy from nowhere, trying to make it big in the city" image, because it was so removed from the homogeneous mass you'd see in the financial district. Firms love to prop up people like that for PR and hiring. "Look at us, our hiring is so diverse and inclusive - here's our analyst form a third-world country, here's our minority, here's our first gen college grad! ...But never mind that 80% of our hires share the same socio-economic background..." When I got accepted into a top school which feeds students into finance and consulting, I immediately noticed that the majority of kids came from the same wealthy areas. Had to forego a ton of off-campus student activities, because I couldn't cough up hundreds to thousands of bucks for skiing trips at luxury resorts, sailing events, etc.