Senior in high school who wants to be a Quant. What can I do to achieve my career goal?

[FenwickTrees]

I've already been accepted to UC Berkeley and plan to study CS & Applied Math. I believe my major selection will give me the background to do well in FE. In high school, I pursued research(Stats/CS project to prevent a medical condition from occurring(can't go into detail)) and internships(one at startup and other at a Fortune 100—contributed to a ML project) and competitions(AIME—2 time DHR qualifier, Platinum Medalist USACO, Awarded for research).

My question is primarily: what can I do starting now to get into a top MFE program like Cal Haas MFE or CMU MCF? And will attending Cal hurt me for getting into these top programs? Since it's a really difficult school and I don't think I can maintain a 3.8+ GPA. I really want to get into these top programs mainly due to the success of job placement from those schools. For example, Cal's MFEs get paid ~150k starting. Most other programs don't have this level success and many are even worse than Cal's Bachelors in CS who get paid ~100k on graduation, which would make getting an MFE worthless.

 

[volmacro]

If you are aiming for MFE directly after undergrad, then I think, as you suspect, you would need a high GPA (3.7+) and a perfect GRE Quant score. Since you're still in h.s., perhaps just focus on developing good habits for now so you can set yourself up for college. I would recommend Cal Newport's 2 books on college success and his "Deep Work" -- it might help you learn more efficiently and maintain a higher GPA.

If you don't achieve a super high GPA and end up somewhere around 3.6, you probably have a good chance of getting a decent first-job out of undergrad, and you can always re-apply after a year of working. The admissions standard is probably slightly lower for someone with work experience.

I would think that since you'll be a student at Berkeley, you can probably schedule a meeting with the MFE office just to chat about suggested preparation, like best undergrad coursework.

 

[IntoDarkness]

berkeley undergrad doesn't need mfe. i graduated from a lesser UC. even i managed to get into quant work without a master degree