How much does undergrad matter after you get a masters/PHD

[AcademicVictim]

Just as title states, would like to know if going to a non prestigious uni matters much if you have a masters from decent uni/ phd. My lowest uni offer currently is KCL (Kings college London) for Math with Stats with year in industry, and am worried if I end up with no other offers/going here if it would deter me massively from quant trading. I assume (as the industry typically expect) a masters is basically necessary especially for non Oxbridge Imperial grads? Thanks

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The higher your education, the less your undergraduate matters. Everything else being equal, candidates who came from prestigious/well-known universities fare better.
This just means you must have strong signals on your profile. How about having a very strong C++ or Python skill? Have done some serious independent project?

 

[CrossGamma]

Yes, serious independent projects as @Andy Nguyen writes help but they are a much weaker signal than getting into top degrees, competitive internships or scoring high in competitions. The problem with projects is that most of them are completely uninspired / done a million times before. But even the better ones are much more costly (in terms of time) to evaluate vs. other more standardized signals achieved in a competitive setting. As a result, they often get down-weighted a lot.

 

[AcademicVictim]

I have luckily gotten an offer from LSE for financial math and stats which ,whilst it may not be quantitative enough for quants, gives me atleast better odds than KCL (I checked their course and the math is more or less similar but LSE has more networking and maybe quality). Im waiting on UCL and Imperial, but do you think the less rigorous math from LSE is made up from the prestige?