List of Targets and Semi-Targets

First off, I just wanna say that this forum has more influence than you think. I know multiple suckers, including myself, who have based content on this forum as one of their major factors when considering which school to attend. As a rising high school senior, I'm looking for schools to apply to and I'm trying to find all the targets and semi-targets. Now there are dozens of threads similar to this, but none come to any sort of consensus. I'm gonna start off with my original list, but then I'm gonna edit this post based on all the comments that I hopefully will receive.

Targets (in no order):
-Harvard
-Princeton
-Yale
-Penn
-Dartmouth
-Columbia
-NYU
-Duke
-Cornell
-Stanford
-Michigan
-UVA
-Chicago
-Northwestern
-Georgetown
-Berkeley
-MIT
-Williams

Semi-Targets (in no order):
-Boston College
-Brown
-Vanderbilt
-WUSTL
-Rice
-UCLA
-Emory
-USC
-Tufts
-UNC
- Indiana
-Notre Dame
-Lehigh
-Miami of Ohio
-Amherst
-Middlebury
-UTexas-Austin
-SMU
-Washington & Lee
-Wake Forest
-Villanova
-UWisconsin-Madison
-Carnegie Mellon

4 Clarifications:

-I'm not include alternative majors/programs for all the schools, no Penn non-Wharton, no Michigan non-Ross, etc.

-Don't recommend the school you attend(ed), sorry, but too much bias

-I'm gonna alter the list based on feedback, if the person above you commented the same change you were thinking, please repeat it. Also throw bananas and shits generously.

-This list is very subjective, don't take it personal

 

Go to UVA. You won't regret it. I've never met anyone who didn't have a blast there. One of my friends graduated from the Comm school and is working at Carlyle now making $150K as a 23 year old. Cville is dope also.

'"The floggings will continue until morale improves"
 

Human condition: my ego got damaged and I failed to filter out the emotions in my response. I apologize.

In all seriousness though, I believe UC Berkeley's undergraduate Business and Econ degrees are consistently in the top ten [if not top five].

 

Would consider top liberal arts schools a semi-target too. Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, maybe Wesleyan. MIT semi-target. Not biased as a student of one of those, just know that there are solid OCR opportunities there. Might consider Brown a target, not semi.

 

OK it's updated for now, left some obvious schools out. And yea semi-target is really vague, but just gonna list schools that have some OCR/ decent alumni connection but not up to par to the targets. Thanks for the input so far.

 

Notre Dame could be considered a target, at least a semi target

additionally, region can really affect whether a school is a "semi target" or not, such as these: Texas - O&G banking Claremont - West Coast U. Washington - West Coast Illinois (same level as Indiana?) - Chicago

 

Notre Dame - strong semi-target or weak target (depending on how liberal your definition is) Texas - definitely semi-target Claremont - no idea, too small to tell U. Washington - doubt it, maybe a regional semi-target Illinois - definitely not on the same level as Indiana. Maybe a semi-target for Chicago, same goes for Wisconsin. Non-target elsewhere.

 

Definitely agree about CMC, highly disagree about UW as somebody originally from the Seattle area. Would also consider schools such as W&L and Colgate as semis. Maybe Pomona too given access to CMC?

Ultimately once you get to the bottom of the list for semi targets there really is no definitive cutoff. Some are more regional for sure.

 

Either the bank / consulting firm comes to your school (therefore your school is a target for that specific firm) or it doesn't (your school is NOT a target for that specific firm). This applies in 99% of the cases (there's a few where a firm sets aside a specific school's resumes and looks at them but doesn't actively recruit or visit campus).

There's no such thing as a "semi target" or a "strong semi target" or a "weak target." At the end of the day, you're going to have to network if you want to work at a firm that doesn't come to your campus.

 

You are correct - schools are either targets or non-targets for certain banks. If you go to Harvard and every BB and EB recruits from your school, it's a target. If you go to Indiana - Kelley and 5 BBs and 3 EBs recruit from your school (just making this shit up off the top of my head), it's a semi-target. While 2 BBs, an EB and a few MMs recruit from my school I would consider it a non-target because it is clearly a tier below Indiana. Since there is a fairly distinct difference in the level of recruiting from these three schools they can be broken up into multiple tiers. I understand the point you're getting at but there is utility in creating labels based on the recruiting-level for each school.

 

It is also worth considering another important factor: once you get outside HSP different schools will do better in certain areas. For example your top engineering schools(places like Georgia Tech and MIT) will produce few bankers but a good number of quants....and for good reason. The guys from there are usually on a whole different level compared to your standard finance/econ major when it comes to mathematical analytical ability.

 

I do go there, but still I think by definition (not that there really is one) Villanova is a semi-target. We get solid MM OCR and have a good presence in BB (I'd say at least ~10 per year go to BB IBD at least the past 5 years.)

 

Williams, Amherst, and Brown may not have a large number of grads enter finance, but they hold enough prestige so that any student with an inclination to get on Wall Street can do so with ease. For that reason I think all 3 are targets, but then again it depends how you define target.

"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry."
 

Suprised Rutgers isn't up here at all. Although im currently attending and have 2 years left, I watched several of my friends do extremely well recently.

A few include: -JP Morgan Chase- 2 analysts and 1 who made it to the final interview -Goldman Sachs- 2 (sales & trading, loans) -Deloitte- 2 -EY- 2 -Consulting firm on Wall street- old roommate

Keep in mind, Rutgers is only a 45 minute train ride to NYC with a large alumni network. Other large banks host OCI's beginning in the fall, so I guess by that definition its at least semi-target..

 

Btw thanks for compiling this. As a rising senior myself, I've looked at similar lists in the past and this one seems the most comprehensive. This will be useful for the 15 and 16 year olds on this site.

"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry."
 

Great post. Pretty comprehensive list. I would say UNC-Chapel Hill should be a target (Rice as well, maybe?) You're also missing BU, Penn State for Semi Targets

I can't link to the post - not a primate yet :( but there is a thread on WSO about representation on the street from colleges. Georgetown topped HYP, Wharton at 10% Look it up.

 

Everyone has a different opinion. There are Target Schools and Regional Target Schools. Regional Target Schools dominate recruiting within the region of the school. Target Schools include Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Wharton, Stanford, NYU, Dartmouth, MIT, University of Chicago, etc. Semi Target Schools include Duke University, Emory, maybe Williams College? Regional Targets, which are often Semi-Targets as well, include UC Berkeley, UCLA, UT:Austin, etc.

 
protectedclass:
Just the biggest and the best universities in the country: namely University of Phoenix and DeVry's Keller School of Management.

Not to pseudo hijack this thread, but I'm curious if you guys would hire someone from phoenix or devry if you were interviewing them? Say they somehow got an interview and killed it. They knew their shit, were sociable, etc., but went to phoenix. Would you auto kill them on the spot or not care considering they were smart and would be a good fit? When I was an analyst and interviewing for my group I actually interviewed someone from phoenix. No idea how their resume got through and how they got through HR, but there they were. I'm not gonna lie, they really knew their shit. We went super brutal on them in terms of technicals and there were hardly any missteps. I was kinda dumbfounded.

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." Theodore Roosevelt
 

For the North East:

Targets would be Columbia / Yale / Princeton / Dartmouth / NYU / Harvard / MIT / UPENN

Semi-Targets/Regional Targets would be Villanova / Boston College / Bentley / UCONN / Baruch (prob. a few others)

 
Powa23:
Really depends on what level you are talking about. Are you talking about undergraduate or graduate?

If you are talking about undergrad wise, a few Canadians schools such as Queens, Ivey and McGill can be argued as being target schools and their placement is quite excellent. You might want to look into that as an alternate option.

For Canada. While I've seen some alumni in NY, they are about as common as Uconn grads.

 

Came from a NESCAC school...Williams/Amherst are semi-targets. The rest you really have to hustle/network out of to get anything. Given that some of them are in the middle of nowhere, it is kinda tough to pull off but not impossible.

 

Definitely go to Ross if you get in. It is far and away the best of all of the schools listed. If you aren't confident about your abilities to get into Ross, Michigan is probably still a better option than the rest, but none are really semi-targets even. Second to Michigan, I would probably say Univ. of Rochester is your next best bet.

 

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