It has long been a tradition of Wall Street to hire Ivy grads with name-your-social-studies major (History, Government, English, Philosophy) into investment banking analyst roles. These kids then proceed to live in Excel and Powerpoint for 2+ years. They get hired for the reasons that the parent commenter stated. It's different out here in the tech/startup world - you truly need the skillset beforehand to step into the role, but I imagine there are plenty of other industries similar to Wall St where they just want someone young and smart who they can train to do the job. The core curriculum gets thrown out the window - it's about time management, self motivation to be successful, smart enough to deal with ambiguity, etc.