Although a large body of sociological literature has demonstrated the social, cultural, and institutional advantages leveraged by members of the middle and upper-middle classes in elite, highly-valued social institutions – like elite colleges and with elite employers – to obtain prestigious and high-paying jobs, and that working class students are underrepresented in postsecondary educational institutions – especially elite institutions – the mechanisms of the capacity of members of the working class who have been accepted into elite postsecondary institutions to use institutional capital to gain upward mobility is not well researched. In this study, I conduct in-depth interviews with finance students in Wharton – an elite, highly-valued institution in many key elite professional employer fields – comparing students of working class and middle/upper-middle class backgrounds, in order to compare and contrast their navigational practices – which I define as what decisions the students make, intentionally or unintentionally, throughout college and in the recruiting process that offer them advantages or disadvantages in the recruiting process – in their efforts to move through college in order to get internships and jobs, as well as how their background affects what skills they have coming to Wharton and how it hinders or helps them in learning new skills. 

So far, I have found that during the students’ first 3 semesters in Wharton, they are able to prepare for recruiting by environmental exposure, learning about the importance of recruiting and basic information about it passively, social capital building, where students make informal connections – particularly in information-rich environments like fraternities and pre-professional Wharton clubs – and learning, where they convert their social capital to knowledge about the recruiting process through conversations with people in their networks. The critical period for recruiting is Y2 Spring, in which the students network, apply, and interview for their post-Y3 internship, at which they are likely to receive a return offer for a full-time job post-graduation if they do well in the position. Middle and upper-middle class students have been more likely to have attended high schools with strong support resources for their careers, have reported ease in interacting with professionals in the field in networking and interviews, and have had more success in forming informal connections to gather information. In contrast, working class students have reported feeling daunted in the pre-professional environment of Wharton, struggling with professional interactions and with getting into key Wharton clubs and organizations to gather information. 

I conceptualize the recruiting system as a race to avoid “missing the boat” of the critical Y2 Spring recruiting cycle, where many factors collectively contribute to a student’s likelihood of success in the race to solve the “black box” of recruiting. In this race, I find that middle and upper-middle class students are inherently more comfortable in the elite environment of Wharton, putting them ahead and allowing them to do less to be successful, while also having more access to key tools. My preliminary conclusions are that Wharton should create more formal systems focused on teaching the most specific, useful recruiting information to equalize the playing field.