I'm at Goldman this summer and come from a pure mathematics background (in an area that's not very quant-focused, by choice). The first part of the article is unequivocally true. Most in my area are incredibly interesting, diverse individuals with non-finance backgrounds.
I think it's somewhat fitting that these comments are made at the best university in China, however. It's emblematic of one of Goldman's recruiting challenges: those who have done interesting things prior to college, often continuing through college, may be less likely to get into top schools and if you aren't from a top college it's demonstrably harder to get your foot in the door with these summer internships.
This is one of the recruiting challenges to solve and companies have not that much of a incentive to alter it. As most of us agree, colleges has simply become filters and kind of a costly filter from the students perceptive for most of the cases.
I think it's somewhat fitting that these comments are made at the best university in China, however. It's emblematic of one of Goldman's recruiting challenges: those who have done interesting things prior to college, often continuing through college, may be less likely to get into top schools and if you aren't from a top college it's demonstrably harder to get your foot in the door with these summer internships.