All college admissions and personal branding are determined by age 16 at the latest. Records considered prior to the seminal test given at that age include: ear

All college admissions and personal branding are determined by age 16 at the latest. Records considered prior to the seminal test given at that age include: early high school grades (ages 14 through 16), extracurriculars and sports (ages 3 through 16), and middle school placement tracking (ages 10 through 13). These are all factors either directly or one step removed in the process. So the question has to be asked: Are these brands as childish as what formed them? This "elite school" concept could probably be considered a "simulacrum" in the Baudrillard sense. Let us stipulate: working for Goldman isn't the only way to make money; it is for the people who are branded by these schools. Would your parents or friends be happy to hear you're starting a startup that anybody without that branding could start? I think not. Your destiny then rests on increasing your liquidity by working the same 100 hours a week (doing nothing, mind you, because Wall Street produces nothing) for people who are also members of your brand. Then you get to live your ideal life in your Manhattan flat: meet your trophy wife: with a weekend house in East Hampton: re-live all the mistakes your parents made: propagate and create dysfunctional children... The corollary then asks: Does the brand define one's life as their Geworfenheit? With such fixed determinism from such a young age, were you ever truly free? Is your quest for freedom what these employers are truly capitalizing on?