Ranking The Top 10 Non-Target Colleges To Attend If You Want To Break Into Investment Banking (And Got Rejected From All Targets Like Me)
There has never been a better time to be a Non-Target kid looking to break into IB.
Hope is not lost if you don’t get through the crapshoot freshman admissions of the elite colleges.
Target schools may have more reserved spots, alumni & direct recruiting than us Non-Target peasants…But our programs are growing faster than the biceps of the local gym-bro loaded up on steroids.
A recent study analyzed total hires at “elite institutions” in investment banking over the past 12yr by school. Here were the top Non-Targets in their rankings:
- University of Texas at Austin
- Hires: 332
- Acceptance Rate: 31.4%
- IB Program: Wall Street for McCombs (https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/alumni/new-york/wsfm-leadership-program/)
- Led by Xavier Sztejnberg (former Blackstone MD)
- University of Virginia
- Hires: 123
- Acceptance Rate: 19%
- IB Program / Pipeline Equivalent: McIntire Investment Institute (MII) (https://mcintireinvestmentinstitute.org/)
- Brigham Young University
- Hires: 119
- Acceptance Rate: 66.7%
- IB Program: Investment Banking Association (https://financesociety.byu.edu/investment-banking-association)
- Indiana University
- Hires: 118
- Acceptance Rate: 85%
- IB Program: Kelley IB Workshop (https://kelley.iu.edu/faculty-research/departments/finance/undergraduate/career-prep-workshops/investment-banking-workshop.html)
- Led by Sunil Kumar Tuli and Steve Sibley
- Southern Methodist University
- Hires: 82
- Acceptance Rate: 52.3%
- IB Program / Pipeline Equivalent: SMU Finance Club (https://www.linkedin.com/company/smufinanceclub/)
- Boston College
- Hires: 80
- Acceptance Rate: 16.7%
- IB Program: BC Investment Banking Association (https://www.linkedin.com/company/bciba/)
- UNC Chapel Hill
- Hires: 73
- Acceptance Rate: 17.1%
- IB Program: UNC Kenan-Flagler Investment Banking Club (https://www.uncibc.net/)
- Penn State University
- Hires: 70
- Acceptance Rate: 55.2%
- IB Program / Pipeline Equivalent: Nittany Lion Fund (https://nittanylionfund.psu.edu/psia/)
- Texas A&M University
- Hires: 50
- Acceptance Rate: 62.6%
- IB Program / Pipeline Equivalent: Aggie Investment Club (https://www.tamuaic.org/)
- University of Georgia
- Hires: 44
- Acceptance Rate: 42.5%
- IB Program / Pipeline Equivalent: UGA SMIF (https://www.terry.uga.edu/current-students/student-orgs/smif/)
Honorable Mentions: University of Florida (35), Middlebury College (34), WashU St. Louis (34), University of Wisconsin-Madison (34), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (31)
Takeaway If Rejected From Targets Like Me: Go to one of these schools. Work you tail off in their pipeline program starting semester one FR year. You’ll be in good shape to land a solid offer.
Bro a good amount of these are semi-targets. But overall the best schools that are non targets are SMU AND BYU thats really it, İVY grad.
Both good points. Would also add that it is bank dependent as well, depending on where each school has SR bankers at.
Not even an honorable mention for Ohio State 😥
Fisher Futures is an amazing program too! Know a bunch of kids that placed super well out of that program.
Glad to hear you say that. I’m applying in the fall 🤞🏻. Idk the exact number of placements but every year most of the 25 from Futures get placed and I’ve met several others who break in every year without Futures. So our number should be at least ~30, but no way to know for sure
should add the acceptance rate into the business school vs overall school
^^
Gets complicated quick with in-state vs out-of-state rates too but that’s a good point
I always regarded UT Austin and UVA as targets similar to UMich, most state flagships are at least semis
IU and UT Austin are Moelis pipelines. Heard IU had 7 Moelis offers, with 2 rejecting it for PJT RSSG and Allen & Co
Low Caliber Talent take notes
If you go off IB placement as a % of total student body population, Middlebury College wipes the floor with all these schools
Mormon wall street mafia goes hard
Texas A&M ib equivalent would probably be aggies on wall street program
The UNC link is the MBA club - undergrad placements are here: https://www.uncufs.com/about-1-1
Yall are cracked but please make the formatting prettier 😭
UVA is a 100% a target school
Great list overall - just one side note:
With a lot of state schools, in-state vs out of state acceptance rates are widely different, and even these non/semi targets become very competitive to get into.
Think UT is a great example - in-state if you graduate top 6% of your HS graduating class you get into UT (major tbd) but out of state its a crap shoot.
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