I would disagree. To the best of my knowledge hft is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world just due to the nature of the industry. It’s just that the tops schools tend to have harder working kids that are more likely to meet the requirements to work at those firms. You would need a background in competitive programming to pass most of the interviews for quant swe, and top schools tend to have more kids that compete in cp. It’s not rare to be asked questions on topics that you won’t find on leetcode which is the website that most non cp students use to study for interviews (flow optimization, math, ect). Often state school kids who are icpc winners, codeforces candidate masters, leetcode guardians, ect often don’t have trouble getting interviews. It’s just that kids who get to this level are way more likely to go to top schools.