Undergraduate schools best for I-Banking
Hello guys, I was just wondering what undergraduate schools you all think will provide me with the best resources to get into investment banking, yet still having a good chance to getting into (so I doubt any Ivy leagues lol)! Currently, I go to Drexel University, which I only chose because I applied as a biology major since I had not started loving finance up until this past summer meaning that it was too late to change my college and major for the first term. But now I am thinking of transferring, but I do not specifically know where I can get into that would be as much of a target school for investment banking as possible. If it helps, I had a 3.74 GPA in high school and a 2080 SAT. My first term in college (which was as a bio major), I was still able to pull off a 3.703. I expect my GPA to rise since I am currently acing my business courses. At the end of this quarter, I should have ATLEAST a 3.75, maybe 3.8. I have attached my resume as well since I think it would help in determining what target/semi-target schools I would have the best chance to get into. Thanks!
Please... not one of these threads again...
What's wrong with it? I've seen many threads like this that got genuine replies.
First of all, you need much higher SAT scores to get in one of the Ivies/Ross/Stern etc. and then you basically apply to all of them and take it from there.
Most flagship state schools have decent placement into IB; however, you will have to get into the business program (and potentially the IB-specific program as well). I'm thinking of schools like Texas, Indiana, Michigan, UVa, etc. I have no idea how Drexel places (but would assume it's not great, based on the fact that you're posting here), but all these schools place pretty well into IB if you're in their honors or IB-specific programs.
Thanks for your response! Do you think that with my credentials that I would have a good shot at those schools, especially one like UVa?
Honestly, I have no idea - I didn't go to any of those schools. I just listed them since they're targets and are probably easier to transfer into than Ivies. You might want to just take a look on their admissions websites to see a typical transfer applicant looks like.
i went to an sec school relax its not just about what school you went to. Granted im in pub fina not the flashiest but i do enjoy all the people who are feel entitled to position because of their school.
I know UVa has like a 3.8 for the average transfer applicant. So hopefully you did a lot of other stuff because they said they don't JUST look at grades. They want interesting people too. Best of luck with switching schools though and don't give up. Worst case scenario, you don't switch but try to get internships in your area if you can drive. Fall and spring ones are possible too if you network right
I'm not sure anyone here can really answer your question... You want the best undergraduate school for investment banking? The answer is two blocks south and two blocks west of Drexel - Penn/Wharton. But the best school that you could get into? The answer is that none of us can tell you that. If even you don't know which schools you could get into, how are we supposed to know from a single paragraph long post?
http://www.collegeconfidential.com
Bump, thanks!
Apply broadly, to maybe twenty schools. Here's a list in no particular order: Duke Penn Vanderbilt Emory Brown UVA UNC Chapel Hill Michigan Cornell Chicago Carnegie Mellon Notre Dame Cal Berkley UCLA Claremont McKenna Any NESCAC that accepts transfers
god, please go to some other forum like college confidential...this is just wrong
Top University Producers of Investment Banking Analysts (Originally Posted: 07/29/2013)
I used LinkedIn to search for IBD analysts per university for all the Top 30 UNSWR schools to determine who the real target schools were using facts instead of speculation. For the Advanced Search, I used "Investment Banking Analyst" as the title so you can all cross-check my results. This study only takes into account total I Bankers currently employed and doesn't adjust for size so some of the private schools do better relatively speaking than some of their public school counterparts.
It's worth noting that non-BB 2nd tier firms constituted a majority of the analysts at places like Notre Dame, UNC, Vandy, Wake, JHU, etc. so don't go picking those schools over Princeton or Yale just yet.
Georgetown's placement is shockingly good. Who would have thought? It's not a big state school either...
Also, Columbia and Duke are probably better options for IBanking when you consider the size of the student bodies than any school besides Harvard or Wharton.
Great info. Seems pretty accurate in my opinion, no big surprise that Penn and NYU (Wharton and Stern, respectively) have the largest number of students entering banking.
Of course, like you mentioned, the numbers viewed should be viewed in context of student size, in which Duke and Georgetown clearly stand out.
I'm surprised there aren't as many Yale and Princeton analysts as I expected. After reading Leveraged Sellout I expected a lot more IB analysts from Princeton haha.
Someone on WSO did a similar study but used the number of incoming analysts coming from each school. Will post link if I find it.
It also depends on how many students actually call themselves investment banking analyst and how many actively use linkedin and all the information you need. While I think that this method seems to be scientific, there are too many outside factors that can affect your result. I want to refrain from saying that correlation =/ causation, but I think that's pretty much the case here. You just have too many variables that you can attribute for and not enough data points
Wait... no analysts from Stanford? What BS is this. I'm pretty sure they are Top 30 on USNWR.
definitely way more than #30 which has only 1.
This is hilarious. No Stanford huh?
These #s are bad, very bad.
1st, do you know how many people put Investment Banking Anslyst in their title, but they work in a support role to the IB group?
2nd, do you know how many people outright lie on LinkedIn?
3rd, I just did a search with same search criteria for Columbia and I found many more than 122. I have over 1k+ connections.
Any attempt to pass this off as a real representation of IB recruiting is self serving for some odd reason.
Lastly, this list is nearly as bad as your B school thread that doesn't show 1 military academy on it. Just FYI, I have at least 40-50 Academy grads on my LinkedIn who are at a MBA business schools">M7 school right now.
You'd be the last person I'd ever pick to lead a project or work with a data-set.
Now that the taste of urine in your wheaties is gone, please post your study. The man offered what is available, unless you're willing to do more/better instead of criticizing the stfu. Everyone knows linkedin isn't the end-all be-all source of data, but I bet you didn't think about other intangibles such as which alumni can reach out the easiest via linkedin?
it is what it is, and he isn't charging for it
Agree. LinkedIn can be vague - lots of people put "analyst" as their title, which can mean anything from FO to BO.
Whoa there, we got a bad ass over here.
Reread the OP and my post and take what you want from it.
Thanks for doing this! Great idea!
Would like to see this done solely for BB's + elite boutiques.
My apologies on Stanford, it had 61 analysts which would tie it at #21 for Dartmouth.
No study can be fully accurate but I made sure to only count individuals whose job title listed "Investment Banking Analyst". There are some people who only list "Analyst" on their profile and still work in IBD but I didn't include those just in case they were doing Private Banking or something.
I will redo the study and only count the Bulge Brackets and Elite Boutiques when I get a chance.
lol all these kids getting swindled into long hours and exit opps (even though most pplz interests lie outside finance)
Bankerella has an excellent post on this with verified data.
A good post. A nice, fun little experiment but no way should this be an accurate indicator of a school's "targetness". Anyways, round of applause for the OP to take the time to do this
I wish I had that much time OP
I am new here, and what does BB mean?
Big Boss - just like your profile picture - is it reasonable to assume u r azn ?
hah, awesome
Wow this is pretty terrible...
Where's UT?
Does this account for people who may have gone to/be in grad school but were still hired as analysts? This occasionally happens and the schools that have large graduate programs would be biased higher.
Also, there will definitely be a bias because students from certain schools are more likely to use LinkedIn this early on in their careers than others. My somewhat elitist assumption is that students from top schools probably don't feel the need to network as much as those from semi-targets, and therefore will use LinkedIn less.
For what it's worth, since your data may not be perfect, here's your data normalized for undergraduate student body size (# analysts per hundred students):
Source: Forbes top 100 list (except for Emory, who was banned from that list for making up numbers, shame on you)
i'm more interested in seeing how these schools would rank of a scale of 1 to preftigious.
get em trojans
Pretty weak but not a bad attempt, given that school size is only very weakly correlated with the number of students interested in investment banking. Should we be surprised that Cal-tech students just aren't as interested, or that only 2 out of NYU's 11 colleges ever place ANYONE into banking.
I mean I'm not going to do the research to see what parts of which schools place people in IBD. Too many exceptions (history majors from Harvard) and too much work. Be my guest to put in the effort though
This is the most comprehensive post with verified data (several hundred bankers in BB IBD only) I've seen on this topic:
//www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/what-banker-careers-really-look-like-the-d…
I went to one of the academies and even I don't have 40-50 academy grads as LinkedIn friends. Why would you?
Networking/LinkedIn Random Adding Ninja
This is heavily biased against b-schools. Penn places mostly from wharton (number should be revised down significantly), same for notre dame, nyu, uva, umich, unc, berkeley etc.
Doesn't seem very scientific, but results tend to very roughly agree with Bankerella's thread, which everyone also threadcrapped on because it didn't agree with the common HYPW being on top instead of Georgetown, Michigan & NYU making a killing.
Also, can you actually put Investment Banking Analyst when you're working MO or BO? I wasn't aware. In which scenario would that occur...? Front office = IBD, S&T, investment management and all other profit/product creators, while middle office would be risk, treasury, accounting (officially, "finance"), corporate strategy etc. and back office being operations and IT. It sounds awfully wrong and straight up douchey for an IT, Operations, Accounting, or Risk intern put Investment Banking Analyst just because they support one of these groups.
"Where did you summer junior year?" "I was IBD at UBS" "Wait...that doesn't exist anymore?" "Oh yeah, well I did the IT stuff. As they were scaling down and firing all the analysts, I made sure no one left with any of our confidential information. Pretty impressive, huh?"
Thanks for spending time doing research. Although this might not be perfectly accurate due to several factors, overall, it looks solid.
Investment Banking Exit Opportunities School Ranking (Originally Posted: 03/24/2015)
Could someone please rank these schools by their bulge bracket investment banking opportunities (all undergrad)?
Duke (Trinity)
Columbia
Northwestern (Weinberg)
NYU Stern
Cornell (Industry & Labor Relations)
Amherst College
Georgetown (McDonough School of Business)
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin Business)
Boston College (Carroll School of Management)
UChicago
UMichigan, Ann Arbor (Arts & Sciences, not Ross)
Babson
also, does anyone know anything about opportunities to go straight to a private equity firm or a hedge fund after graduation at these schools?
thanks!
is this assuming you get a 4.0 at all? otherwise you have no chance. You're in high school go get drunk have some fun get some friends dont worry about 5 years from now
dw dude i've been doin that.. but i still gotta pick a school by may 1 and i'm a bit confused. if there are two party schools but one has better opps then i gotta go with the better one, right? and I don't know about 4.0, but definitely 3.8+, hopefully closer to 3.9 depending on the school. and do you mean no chance for straight buy side, or for IB? @"pubfinanalyst"
have you been accepted to Columbia and Cornell?
not yet, i find out next tuesday
GTown, Columbia, Amherst, Cornell, UChicago, Duke, NYU are T1
WashU, BC, non-Ross UM are T2
The first thing to understand is that picking a school based on "IB Exit Opps" isn't the best thing to do. I'm of the opinion that everyone should come into college with an open mind and not to get stuck with tunnel vision. You may already know this, but I just wanted to put this out there because I certainly read this board prior to coming into college and was already "set on investment banking," which could be very detrimental to your own development.
That being said, these are all great schools, and to some extent they will all place into BB IB. My personal ranking would be: (Take these with a grain of salt, I'm a senior in college but have also had 2 summers in BB IBD)
Tier 1 (alphabetical): Amherst, UChicago, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, UMichigan
Amherst - i love LACs, have seen quite a few of these guys at top banks UChicago - incredible economics program, access to Booth courses/alumni, places decently (tons of CS/JPM) Columbia - places very well into top banks (GS/MS/EB), is in NYC Duke - undergrad experience is incredible, who wouldn't want to be a Cameron Crazy? also places well into mid-tier BBs (tons of DB, JPM) Georgetown - punches well above its ranking in placing kids into top banks, not the most amazing business school but great undergrad experience UMichigan - on a pure volume basis, Michigan places more than any other school on this post. really, its incredible. kids at Ross are bred to be investment bankers, so this may very well be the school if you are dead set on banking. Non-Ross? stay away. but Ross shouldn't be that tough to get into as a sophomore
I personally value a liberal arts education, and would go with Amherst, UChicago, Columbia or Duke for that reason. Probably would ultimately go with Duke for the undergrad experience, though it's probably the weakest of the 4 from an academics standpoint.
thanks so much, this is really helpful. i'll definitely keep an open mind, but i feel i should def have an idea of what I want to do, and as of now I'm pretty gung-ho finance. Duke/Columbia are probably my top choices, so if i get into both this info'll be super helpful. thanks again!
Ivey
Why don't you rank the schools accordingly to where you want to go (not for IB placement but for social/location/other reasions) From there we can tell you which school you should go to. For example if your top school is Columbia we would say go to Columbia but if your top school is Boston College and your second is Cornell we would say go to Cornell. Make sense?
Among all the schools you listed, Columbia is in a league of its own and it's really not even close. Conventional wisdom dictates that regardless of what you decide you ultimately want to do with your life, attend the most competitive school you get admitted to. It will challenge you intellectually and open up more doors long-term.
Duke/Columbia/Stern- Tier 1 UMich/Northwestern/UChicago/Amherst/Georgetown will give you a decent shot into banking as well.
Best Universities for IB/AM Placement (Originally Posted: 04/08/2014)
Hi Everyone,
I am trying to deciding whether or not I should transfer from my current University. I am a Finance major in the second semester of my sophomore year at a non-target in the upper midwest. The school I go to is competitive within the state in terms of business, but isn't so much nationally recognized. Last year as a freshman I was looking at schools to transfer to (such as Indiana, TCU, was accepted to both) but decided to stick it out for my sophomore year. I am looking to get into Investment Banking or Asset Management. I have a solid GPA (3.62), and interned at a VC/PE shop the summer between freshman/sophomore, and currently interning at a ML(and will through the summer). I've been networking all year, and will continue to do so regardless of where I go to school, as I am trying to land a solid internship for my junior year.
Let me know what you guys think, I would really like to hear your thoughts/comments. Is it worth it to transfer? And if so, to where?(Cali, Texas, East Coast)? (I know I am late in the semester and past some schools deadlines for fall, but I would still be able to transfer after the fall then). Thanks for the help.
**Side Note-My main resource for the schools I have looked at transferring to is the Business Week list the come out with every year... http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-04/the-complete-ranking-be…
This is the shit I'm talking about.
BTbanker--I understand where you're coming from but until that day comes where there is a compiled list for "pro IBD" universities then there will still be posts like this. Which in my opinion is not necessarily a bad thing because it is industry specific and related to this website. I'm guessing you're only complaining because this content doesn't relate to what you're looking for--and I sympathize with your frustration--but don't see how b%$#@&%$ on my post instead of commenting something practical/helpful is productive to WSO.
A bunch of posts on the site recently regarding your situation. Without you saying which school you attend it's hard to say if you should definitely transfer but I'm going to assume you go to Minnesota or UW-Madison. If you go to one of those schools then IB/AM is definitely attainable, you just have to work for it. Personally I think you should had taken IU last year assuming you were accepted into Kelley. If you want to transfer, look at IU, UNC, Vandy, or WashU.
I made a list. It's on the front page. The comments are also useful to read as well.
Need help choosing undergraduate business school for investment banking (Originally Posted: 02/27/2018)
I currently am a freshman student transferring from a community college to a University in the fall of 2018. I got into Syracuse University and the University of Miami. I am majoring in Business-Finance and need to know which school will set me up with the best education, alumni, and connections to work in the finance industry. I also want to know which school would have a better social scene, campus, activities, e
Syracuse has the Orange Value fund which would be a great connector to getting internships and experience and I've heard the Whitman School Of Managment is great but I've read online that the transfer dorms are pretty shitty and plus the weather is freezing there.
I don't know much about the University of Miami's School of business but at least it's in a big city and has nice weather by the beach.
I already have a paid internship at Merrill Lynch this summer in GWM and want to continue getting internships so I can get a good IB internship by my junior year so it is important to me which school will give me the best options.
Hey MXLLER, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your topic! Bummer...could just be unlucky but one of these topics will help shed some light:
No promises, but maybe one of our professional members will share their wisdom: buysideguy Aspirational sm4112
Hope that helps.
Picking between a bunch of schools for Investment Banking. (Originally Posted: 01/16/2017)
This question comes up all the time, based off the extensive research that I have done on this site. But I was wondering which undergraduate school, out of my options, would the best for me to go to in order to have a career in Investment Banking. All of these schools I have been accepted to and already put my major down as finance.
-Ohio State -Penn State -UMass Amherst -Michigan State -University of Maryland
Thanks everyone!
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