UCLA Biz Econ vs. Berkeley Econ for West Coast IB

I recently got off the waitlist for UC Berkeley for economics and am currently committed to UCLA for Business Economics. I went to high school on the West Coast and want to recruit for West Coast investment banking, ideally LA or SF.

UCLA has been a dream school for me, but I’m trying to think through this from a recruiting standpoint. I’ve seen older threads comparing UCLA and Berkeley for IB, but would appreciate a more updated view on how both schools have placed over the past few cycles.

Is there a meaningful difference between UCLA Biz Econ and Berkeley Econ for banking recruiting? Which school sends more kids to the top banks, especially on the West Coast, and which one is likely to open more doors long term?

Also curious how both schools compare for buyside recruiting / direct to PE out of undergrad.

I’ve also heard both schools have a pretty intense finance club culture, so any context on that would be helpful too. If anyone has recent placement data for LA / SF offices, that would be super helpful.

9 Comments
 

Their M.E.T program was founded by Michael Grimes, who (according to my high school buddy in the program) meets with the students several times a year. Haven’t gone through the effort of looking through LinkedIn, but it’s completely reasonable to assume that MS Menlo gives super special treatment to M.E.T kids. With a program size of 50 kids - 90% of whom legit only recruit for big tech -, I’d say one’s odds are great

 

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