(And there are actually studies that tie intellectual curiosity to SES. Hart & Risley's book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children covers this very rigorously.)

A recent issue of Harvard's alum magazine talks about how about 35% of their undergrads going into 'finance'. I can't imagine anything less intellectual curious -- especially at the entry level.

Just because something is more easily measurable (ie, a math or engineering exam) does not mean it is less intellectually interesting. http://www.xkcd.com/451/

I meant at all top colleges, not just at MIT and Caltech. I agree with you about Harvard.

There are differences in how kids are raised. Working-class kids are raised to respect rules and follow orders, hence adornments like "the bell" in high school. Upper-middle- and upper-class kids are encouraged, in school, to be creative and critical thinkers.

I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens, when the types of people who attend elite colleges tend to develop independent minds regardless of how they were raised.

Agreed. The differences come from the parenting styles of high-SES parents, not the money itself.

"I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens"

The personality characteristics may or may not fade over time, but by the time kids reach their mid-teens the academic differences between high-SES and low-SES students are so great that most low-SES kids could never get into an elite college. We're talking a reading-ability gap of three or four grade levels, slightly less for math since most high-SES parents don't have their kids doing math over the summers.