When Asian American Grads Step Off the Prestige Career Track

At the most selective universities in the United States, the majority of graduates who enter the workforce move into just three industries: finance, management consulting, and technology. In 2024, approximately half of Harvard’s graduating class entered one of these sectors, while more than three-quarters of Wharton undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania did the same, many with median starting salaries of $100,000 or more. 

For a significant number of Asian American undergraduates — particularly the children of first-generation immigrants — these opportunities present a dual pressure. They intersect with cultural narratives that emphasize stability, financial security, and the social prestige of high-status occupations, creating an environment in which choosing an alternative path can feel both economically risky and culturally defiant. 

A landmark 2016 study on Harvard and Stanford alumni found that structured on-campus recruiting “functioned as a significant driver of student perceptions of status,” while informal peer networks “exacerbated the funneling effect” by implicitly ranking certain jobs as more legitimate than others.

Amanda Cui, 21, who is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and a recent graduate of the Wharton School’s class of 2025, remembers the moment she began to question the path ahead. After a summer at the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock Inc., and watching her classmates immerse themselves in the rituals of case interview preparation, she found herself opening an application for the Fulbright program, an international exchange fellowship awarded to students to pursue research, study, or teaching abroad. 

“You’re always thinking ahead — two, three years down the line — and when you’re going to land that next internship or that next job,” she recalled. “I think that’s the norm when you’re applying for colleges, like you’re always figuring out how to optimize for your future. In a very selfish way, I saw this as a break from the business world that I was kind of stuck in.”

The Prestige Career Pressure on Top University Graduates

Cui’s early life had primed her for the intensity of the so-called prestige pipeline. She grew up in New York City, one of five children in a household where, as she put it, “I grew up with a very immigrant mindset of go, go, go. I went into business, one because I really like it, and two because of financial means.”

Her high school, predominantly Asian American, was a place where the markers of success were visible and constant. “Seeing a lot of my friends’ parents and seeing how they valued success rubbed off on me, in terms of reaching social accolades or achieving names on your resume is what defines you as a successful person,” she said. “I used institutionalized success as how I viewed my own self-worth for a long time, which is a mix of being Asian American and from a FGLI, or First-Generation, Lower-Income, background, and feeling a need to prove myself through my time at Penn and beyond.”

That mixture of cultural expectation and institutional reinforcement is precisely what scholars describe as the engine of the funnel. Penn Career Services reported 19.2% of the class of 2024 graduates entered financial services and investment banking, 12% pursued roles in technology, and 11.4% went into management consulting. According to the Wall Street Journal, firms in the finance sector now recruit interns 18 months before their intended start dates, effectively locking in career paths before students have completed half of their undergraduate education.

For Ivy Deng, a 22-year-old artist who graduated early from Wharton in December 2024, this realization arrived quickly. She had already resolved that she did not want to be “trapped” in the finance tunnel, so she stepped away entirely. “After my sophomore year, I actually took a gap year,” she said. “I knew I wanted to pursue a very unconventional path, and I knew that if I had started into the finance tunnel after my sophomore year, it’d be very hard to get out.”

Pivotal Moments That Shifted Career Paths

Cui’s decision to apply for the Fulbright was a way to recenter herself and reflect on the reasons behind her choices. “My life is not set to get financial success, that is not why I was put into this earth, and that’s not what my parents want me to do,” she said.

The ethic of relentless effort, however, was difficult to set aside. She described a passage from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” about Guangzhou, the agricultural region of China where her family originated. In Europe, she noted, “they look up to the sky and pray for good weather,” but in Guangzhou, the prevailing belief is that “if you work hard, then you will get good crops that year. It’s not up to fate, it’s up to your hard work.” That philosophy, she reflected, “is really affiliated with a business mindset and a kind of grind core mentality.”

For Deng, the break came in the form of an unmistakable signal. After her gap year, she worked in private credit at Arena Investors, with plans to join full-time. In the weeks before her start date, she found herself torn, wishing for some sign to guide her decision. That sign arrived when one of her paintings went viral overnight, leading her to decline the full-time offer. 

Her parents’ response marked a turning point of its own. Initially cautious — encouraging her to “do a few years of investment banking first” before pursuing art — they reversed course once they saw the possibility of a viable career. 

“When my mom finally accepted me quitting my job, it was like this huge weight lifted,” Deng recalled. “They’ve been so incredibly supportive ever since, helping me package, process, and ship my work.”

How Graduates Are Redefining Career Success

Stepping outside the pipeline does not always require rejecting the corporate world altogether. For Cui, the goal is to return with a different set of priorities. After completing her Fulbright fellowship in Taiwan, she will return to Boston Consulting Group full-time. 

“I hope that I come back from Fulbright with the values that it taught me and apply them to the business world. I think it’s easy to get stuck in business when you’re in it, so that’s something that I’m trying to keep at the core.” She has embraced what she calls a both-and philosophy, resisting the idea that business and social impact must be mutually exclusive.

Cui is also active on social media, where she shares reflections on career development, cultural identity, and the lessons she’s drawn from her experiences. Content creation has always been her dream job, she admits. After finding the courage to pursue that interest more openly, she began documenting her days leading up to graduation and plans to continue sharing her experiences while in Taiwan.

The process of redefining success unfolded along a different path for Deng. She reflected that in the past, her approach had been driven by metrics and relentless hard work, often leading her to be overly self-critical. By early 2025, she began to ask herself whether she loved herself enough to hold out for something that was entirely what she wanted rather than settling. For her, fulfillment now lies not in the prestige of a role but in the ability to sustain her art and live in alignment with her aspirations.

She acknowledged, however, that the cultural weight of prestige still lingers. “For Asian culture in general, prestige and stability are so important,” she said. “You’ve got to be able to post about your children on WeChat. If you can’t gossip about your kids to your Asian neighbors, what’s the point?”

That expectation, she admitted, once fueled a subconscious shame about being an artist — an internalized fear that others would see her as less intelligent or accomplished. For years, she buffered her artistic identity with what she called an armor of accolades: business competitions, tech internships, and a Wharton degree. “It was a subconscious thing of wanting to prove I’m smart,” she said.

Her parents’ caution, she recognized, stems from their experiences during the Cultural Revolution, when education was scarce, and from immigrating across continents to secure better opportunities for her. They resisted her pursuing art until they saw a realistic path forward. “There’s a lot of guilt of ‘Oh I could make my parents’ lives infinitely easier right now and not be a problem,’” she said.

Shifting Attitudes Toward the Prestige Career Track

While some students are charting their own course, the structural infrastructure around the prestige pipeline remains firmly in place. The salaries are high, the recruitment pathways are clear, and for those from immigrant families or with significant financial obligations, the security these jobs offer is difficult to overlook. As The Economist observed, corporate recruitment has become “a dominant feature that shapes campus life from the moment students step into it.”

For those like Cui and Deng, choosing differently has required more than individual resolve; it has demanded a willingness to imagine success in terms that diverge from both campus norms and family expectations. Cui framed her choice as a recalibration of values within the corporate space. Deng has embraced the uncertainty of an artist’s life, fortified by the conviction that “being able to do what I love is so rewarding and immensely fulfilling that this feeling is success to me.”

Their stories suggest that the most significant shift may not be in the industries graduates choose, but in the quiet, personal redefinition of what constitutes a life well lived — an act of reframing that, in its own way, resists the funnel’s narrowing force.