Moderator Note (Andy) this was originally posted by bankerella on 9/5/12
All right, folks, got some hard stats here. Read 'em and weep, or rejoice (you know who you are).
Reminder: this is longitudinal career data from a sample set of several hundred bankers in bulge bracket IBD at all levels.
Make sure to see my previous posts in this series: 1. introductory post and 2. schools and promotion rates.
Also, I should say that I got no dog in this fight and couldn't care less where the talent comes from. Just trying to get some hard data out there so that, in the future, people can use it as an objective data point as they consider life choices. And so that working professionals can get back to doing what we truly enjoy doing on WSO: dicking around.
Undergrad
~10% of all individuals in the sample:
Georgetown (Yes, I was surprised too. I scrubbed these numbers personally and stand behind them. I am also not aware of any bias in the sample that would cause this. I think Georgetown might actually place more than anywhere else. Thoughts?)
~8% of the sample:
Penn
~6% of the sample:
NYU
~3-4% of the sample:
Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Boston, Illinois, Texas A&M, Texas, Michigan, Canada (all schools)
~2% of the sample:
Dartmouth, Northwestern, Cornell, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Emory, Vanderbilt,
~1% of the sample:
Chicago, Stanford, MIT, UCLA, Wash U, Southern California, Berkeley, Virginia, India (all schools), US military academies
7%: Other US private colleges (i.e., Amherst, Tufts, Hamilton, Brown)
9%: Other US public colleges (shout out to Miami, UNC, Wisconsin-Madison, Ohio State)
3%: Other international colleges
Bonus points: First monkey to point out that this adds up to more than 100% gets a monkey shit for displaying MD-level analytical ability far too early in his career.
Graduate school
% of individuals in the sample with graduate degree: roughly 50%.
96% MBA
1% JD/MBA
1% JD
1% MD
0% all else
~15% of MBAs:
Wharton, Harvard
~10% of MBAs:
Columbia
~5-10% of MBAs:
Kellogg, Ross, Booth
~2-5% of MBAs:
Cornell, Haas, Sloan, UCLA, Darden, Duke, Georgetown, Tuck
~1-2% of MBAs:
Stanford
Surprisingly underrepresented:
Stern, Yale, McCombs
You'll notice I'm not sticking exact percentages on this shit. That's because I know you guys love numbers the way I love numbers, and I don't want us arguing over one percent of difference between one school and another. I also don't want some kid choosing one school over another based on some superfluous difference. (Although wouldn't it be funny if our top talent started swarming Canadian undergrads as a back door onto Wall Street due to this thing?)
Direct promote to associate:
~8% of all analysts in the sample go on to become direct promotes to associate (same firm, not necessarily same role/group)
~15% make it to associate or better without MBA in a different role/firm
Exit opps
At the analyst level, of those who exit:
35% exit to MBA programs
26% PE/VC
12% HF
10% other investment mgmt
5% corp dev, corp finance
5% equity research
All the rest:
Strategy/consulting, sales and trading, startup, tech, etc.
At the associate level, of those who exit:
PE: 25%
Corp dev: 20%
Corp finance: 10%
Investment management: 10%
Strategy/consulting: 5%
All the rest:
Startup, tech, other corporate roles
At the VP level, of those who exit:
30% corp dev
15% corp finance
5% strategy/consulting
All the rest:
Kinda disappear. Chicks especially seem to disappear at higher rates here. (Now I wonder why that might be...)
At the director/MD level, exits are pretty rare, but here's what I got:
Corp dev: 15%
Corporate finance: 20% (usually pretty big titles)
Investment management: 5% (I'm assuming they bring clients over)
All the rest:
Disappear, play poker, buy/sell real estate, run for public office, run a charity, sit on some boards of directors, etc. Pretty posh exit opps here.
FAQ:
Why didn't you mention my school? Your data has to be completely full of shit, because my school is a straight-up escalator to the top of the heap. Chill out, my friend. Maybe your school is too baller for BB IBD. Maybe they recruit straight to the buyside.
What's up with Georgetown? I don't know. Somebody's got connections somewhere.
What's up with Boston? Apparently it's the "Jesuit Ivy". Who knew?
What's up with UT Austin and Texas A&M outrepresenting the Little Ivies? The Texas schools are 10x-20x the size of the Little Ivies. I absolutely buy that the guy who is top 0.1% out of 10,000+ at UT Austin would wipe the floor with the guy who is top 10% out of 400 at Amherst. PSA: Before you choose UT Austin as your onramp to BB IBD, just remember how much ass you're gonna have to kick in order to stand out in a class of ten thousand people.
Where are all the masters in finance? Not in BB IBD.
Where are the black colleges? Sorry. There are essentially no black colleges in this data set. But while I was scrubbing, I personally observed that a whole bunch of the Harvard undergrads are black. So my best advice is: if you are black and headed for IBD, don't count on Morehouse (or no house) to get you there. Suck it up and go to Harvard.
Where's the Little Three? Amherst seems to do okay. The other two are no-shows.
Where's Oxbridge? Somewhere over there. Not here.
Any more pressing questions you guys would like me to answer? What's still a priority at this point?
Love,
Auntie
who has a good theory on Georgetown at ~10% ? sb for best answer
3 -5 years ago Georgetown a hired a very well connected bank recruiter to lead their economic/business career center
They have big-league recruiting going on, due in large part to the connected banker they hired years ago, as noted above. BB PE and IBD, as well as elite boutiques, on par with Ivies.
Also, Ted Leonsis did not go there.
Imma take a stab at this.
1) First of all, it is important to understand that WSO as a community is a relatively small sample of people with limited experience / connections to BB IBD or even MM IBD. There will be at least a few of these individuals an even experienced professionals with information straight from the street. Thus, the overall thought that HYPW are the be all end all of breaking into IBD is the agreed upon thought here since 1) Those are the best well regarded schools in the country, 2) People here think banking is "the job" to get 3) People that come to WSO to learn about IBD and breaking in are going to hear this. And after a few months or so, when new kids come in, they repeat the same thing. Cycle repeats.
2) The typical GTown MSB student would not give a crap about trying to argue with a college / high schooler / newb WSOer about whether they consider their own school a "1st Tier Target" or a "2nd Tier Target." They'll only know how well their own class did relative to other past GTown MSB classes. NOT compared to say Wharton / Ross. They just dont give a shit as long as they are given opportunities. And they probably won't logon to WSO just to argue this point either. Thus, the misconception that HYPW are the largest feeders (Wharton still being a huge feeder) continues
3) And like another user pointed out, HYP students have more to pursue than banking. Sure banking was one of the hottest jobs to get back in the early 2000s, and maybe even still now considered by many as a damn good job to get, but HYP and even Wharton students have an abundant amount of other opportunities to pursue. The typical HYP and (arguably) Wharton student are not the typical WSOer beating off to the dream of a BB IBD job upon graduation.
4) Probably only HR people or people with enough industry experience will have some basic grasp of which schools BB IBDers came from. And I doubt once you've broken in, it would be a big deal unless they decide the switch jobs to a place that give a crap about your school "prestige."
My take on this. My takeaway: WSO is a goldmine of resources. You just have to sift through a load of junk (like ranking "tier 1/ tier 2 targets and semi-targets" and "prestige of banks and banking groups) and take things with a grain of salt. A GTown MSB student that broke into BB IBD would not be on here arguing about their school but rather busting their ass at work, making bank, or something.
Absolutely. Gtown places really well on Wall St. This is a tough year so right now there are limited FT recruiting but I can say for sure with the exception of a few new-born elite boutiques, pretty much every BB and boutique you can name recruits summers on campus for IBD. Most of Gtown kids are just too busy networking and busting their ass getting to the top group than to come here to debunk a few freshmen' s assumption about which school should place more. For those who still find a high Gtown rep surprising, Linkedin is at your disposal.
georgetown is an "old money" type place similar to many of the ivies, despite a somewhat lesser academic reputation, it's still got a fantastic rep and a lot of history, great location, etc.... it's extremely expensive to live downtown in D.C. too... lots of people with connections go there, people from private schools, people who's dads work in finance, who's dads are lawyers, politicians, etc.... also, unlike harvard/stanford/princeton and a few other top schools you won't see many georgetowners get hired directly into PE
I've given my theory on the slow "mediocritization" of the bulge brackets in the past and will refrain from doing it again, but that's my guess at why Georgetown is where it is. That said, I love GTown kids and they're very competent in my experience.
I haven't heard your theory and would like to. I'm also too incompetent to use the search function (coming up for promotion in the next 12-18 months and need to start acting the part). Can you point me to the thread?
Edit: Better yet, can you just print it out for me, bind it, send it to my house, and follow up with Luisa to make sure she received it? Out of pocket for next few hours. Thx.
the georgetown representation reflects an obvious sampling error in what may be a decent sample otherwise. why is it that nobody here has ever noticed this or anything even close to this level of representation? where people went to school is like a badge on the street, not hidden information.
Then why did this post (which I just saw thanks to BlackHat) show similar results back in May from one kid's starting BB IBD class?
Link is: //www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/your-target-schools-lists-are-outdated-a…
Here's what the kid found in terms of analysts placed per school:
Notre Dame, Georgetown - 10 Cambridge, UPenn, Vandy, Cornell - 9 Dartmouth, Duke, MIT, UT Austin - 8 University of Chicago, Brown, Columbia, Stanford - 6 UC Berkeley, NYU, USC, Northwestern - 5 Yale - 4 Harvard, LSE, Wake Forest - 3 Princeton - 2
I think the point is that we are all subject to confirmation bias, which is the natural tendency to disregard data that fails to confirm long-standing beliefs.
Can you break it down by each bank? Some banks have more people from certain schools than others. I'd like to see those results.
For example, my school is popular with JP Morgan but weak with Credit Suisse.
Great data set, thanks! I find it interesting that ZERO associates leave for an MBA. This touches more on the direct promotes (as obviously the post MBA associates have already acheived the degree). Where do direct promos end up? Just foregoing the MBA totally?
So masters in finance, no go?
No clue why it is so popular in banking. But it is, without a doubt, an excellent school. I remember reading that Ted Leonsis and something like 5 other major league team owners are Georgetown Alumni, it might be first in that category too.
thank you for this
Great work pulling up the stats. Thanks. Just curious, what is the size of the data set (you say several hundred, but anything more specific?) and also the distribution among levels(like 50% analysts, 30% associates etc)? Just to get an idea of how much to read into the stats :)
Thanks for the work again bankeralla.
By "Boston" I'm assuming you're referring to BC and not BU.
The Georgetown number seems too high to me. Even though a fair amount of undergrad Gtown students get IBD roles, i'd say a large amount of the BB opportunities are ultimately wealth management and middle office gigs - OP, perhaps some of those roles are being conflated?
Overall, great insights tho, so thanks for sharing.
Nope, there are zero wealth management, zero middle office roles here. Only IBD. That's the point of the whole exercise -- to get it down to front-office IBD roles only.
Is this data for a single bank or aggregated across multiple banks? All banks? If it's one bank, then the Georgetown over-representation might make more sense (a senior HR alumn or something similar).
At the two BBs I worked for Georgetown was represented, but at nowhere near the level that's indicated above.
Thank You!
Give it up to Rutgers and Georgetown. Talk about punching above their weight.
If you're going to name a school the "Jesuit Ivy", Georgetown would be the right way to go, no? Look at Rutgers coming in hot...
Interesting about Associate exit ops. Its so commonly reported that your exit op is to VP or to a new career.
Was there any clarity in the data about how many of the Associates that exited (from your other post, it looks like this is 10% of all Associates) were direct promote, vs. MBA -> Associate?
I found this interesting as well. Especially the 25% to PE from Associate. The members in the PE section on WSO seem to say repeatedly that you have to make the switch as an Analyst to Analyst, pull off a miracle out of your MBA(if you have no PE experience) or wait until VP/Director level to make the switch.
I really don't think you need to make the switch as analyst. That said, you need to HAVE BEEN an analyst.. that's the key, not being an analyst when you go... if you spend 3 years as analyst, go to biz school, 2 years associate, you're still fine for associate in PE... the real reason is, in my mind, they know analysts crunch the most numbers and will be financially sound, so long as you've gotten through a program, i don't see why they won't take u a bit later... assuming you're not getting old and you're in the right bank etc.
What level did most of the Georgetown folks get in at? Analyst, Associate or above?
Good question, I dug into that myself.
Obviously, most Georgetown undergrads who entered the data set did so at the analyst level, and to a lesser extent, the associate level (after doing their MBA somewhere else). Of course, you could say that about essentially all of the schools in the set.
What's interesting is that Georgetown undergrads are slightly more highly represented than average among MDs, and those MDs on average (just eyeballing it) are older and have also survived for more years at the MD level.
Is the analyst:associate entry point ratio for G'town significantly different from those for colleges almost universally recognized as targets? Let's use Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia for reference. If you have the time a t-test for statistical significance would be even better.
Also, this could legitimately move the needle for G-Town applications. You need to capitalize on this Bankerella. I bet you could get an honorary PHD in canoeing or something.
Very good point Considering how much of a fuss people make on here about non-targets, semi-targets, semi-kinda-not-really targets and whatever other BS labels, this is a top, top quality post that could make serious waves on here. Georgetown now a target? Rutgers now a semi-target? Awesome stuff Bankerella.
Only know one chick at Gtown. Smoke show with a HF baller dad that did her sophomore year internship at BX
Georgetown MSB and the SFS / College are huge feeders to Wall Street. Almost everyone in my class there got jobs at BB firms and have lasted in banking or gone into PE.
Bankrella, are you taken already or single?
Think you're the first person ever to ask me that here.
No person is ever "taken", just "taken for now".
That said, it would take a buyout of significant size and personal relevance to change where I lay my head at night. As ever, I'll listen to whatever people want to pitch me, but I just don't think it could be done at a valuation that anybody would consider attractive. And even if it could be, post-merger integration would be a real bitch.
looks like this is gonna hafta to be a hostile takeover...i just hope i dont find any poison pills in my afternoon tea
Still... the preliminary due diligence could be fun and worth the impending breakup fee should the confirmatory yield unsatisfactory results...
I don't think that the masters in finance really started becoming popular up into about 3-5 years ago which could explain the lack of showing in the data.
Would you consider doing some data mining for elite boutiques?
PM me the names, I'll look.
Georgetown? I wouldn't let my maid's kids go there.
-LSO
LMFAO best post ever
I'm disappointed that an ibanking OP posted all words, and no charts. Come on mannn we love excel graphs and pts!
Good idea. You take a first crack at it. Excellent opportunity for you. Shoot it over to me by, say, 8:30 PM tonight? Thanks.
lol, no thanks md bankerlla. gotta make some company financial models instead.
I've seen this movie before... from what I recall the dialogue and witty banter carried a sub-par plotline...
thanks bankeralla.
what is the sample size? you mentioned "hundreds" in your initial post but this could be 250 or 950.
Bump, this is pretty important. A 250 person data set gives 25 Georgetowns which could just be a statistical anomaly, but a 1000 person set gives 100 which is harder to ignore.
Hi, guys. What I can say on sample size is limited. Complicating the issue is the fact that data is spottier in some areas than others. For instance, the undergrad data is extremely strong. On the other hand, the data for the first city a person moved to if exiting NYC is pretty spotty.
I recut the data set for every question I test, so for some questions the sample size will be very large, and for some it'll be tiny. That's why I just said, "Hundreds" and left it at that.
I don't include any results with tiny sample sizes here, though I have done so in some PMs (with proper caveats to those who asked the question).
What I can say about the undergrad sample size is that it is between those two numbers you mentioned. The Georgetown thing could be a statistical anomaly. If I get a chance I'll run a T-test on Georgetown being significantly different from the other top schools, as well as from the entire population.
Bankerella, u missing duke, rice and uwstl.
No, I'm not.
WUSTL is Wash U and is in the game at the undergrad level at ~1%. Duke makes a respectable showing at the MBA level at 2-5%.
Wash U MBA and Duke undergrads aren't big enough to break out in this sample.
Ditto Rice. It's small enough to get lumped in with "other private US colleges."
Probably less HYP cause they already buyside
what's the breakdown of washout rates by race? my money is on indians/asians mostly gone by associate level.
problem must be that indians and asians are too moral...they don't call it vice president for nothin
maybe. i just didn't see too many parks and patels making it up past VP.
As an alum of Georgetown ('11) working in finance, I am not surprised by the representation.
The only BB's that didn't recruit for IBD for FT in my senior year were MS and GS.
Just looking at statistics from my class, I have to think G’town has huge representation at 2nd/3rd tier banks (think BAML, DB, Citi, CS) relative to other schools – I’ve heard that G’town is #1 most represented at BAML, but again that’s anecdotally.
Here are my hypotheses for why it’s number 1:
1) Georgetown, especially the MSB, attracts an extremely pre-professional crowd filled with kids focused on getting into IBD from Day 1 of freshman year. HYPS and the like have many students who are "above" banking or who refuse to go into it in order to chase "loftier" pursuits (at least in their mind).
2) Other than Wharton, G'town MSB is the best regarded undergraduate business school on Wall Street (attn Stern/Ross students - you have a great school - but ask any partial observer working on the Street and they will confirm this). This, combined with DC location, bring almost every BB and elite boutique on campus to recruit for IBD.
3) G’town is packed with upper-middle class kids from the NYC metropolitan area who have parents who are higher-ups working in financial services. In fact, I’d say the average Georgetown student is richer and more well-connected than schools ranked ahead of it. (Again, I'm saying "average" student excluding outliers - I get that the children of Billionaires are at HYPS - but this is diluted by greater economic diversity among the students at those schools).
As to why Wharton isn't number 1? My guess is that MBB and P/E have little to no recruiting at Gtown. I know of 2 kids who went to PE straight out of undergrad, and 2 who went to MBB. At Wharton, I'm sure these numbers are much, much greater.
Hoya Saxa!
As an impartial observer, I'd say that Ross is more highly regarded. Those partial G'town grads would obviously think differently.
It probably helps that Georgetown undergrad (as a whole) is better regarded, on the East Coast at least, than both NYU and Michigan.
Someone else asked about this, but is it true that no associates go back for MBA?
I am truly surprised not to see my Alma Mater, University of Wyoming.
I'm not.
But Dick Cheney is.
If only there was someone to do this for consulting.
hail to the victors
Am I gonna be the first dick to point out that Fuqua is the name of Duke's business school?
Nice catch, SB for you.
I’ve met quite a few smart analysts from Rutgers, and while I am somewhat surprised to see Rutgers as high as it is, I am not THAT surprised. My reasoning is as follows: 1. It is a huge school with over 30,000 undergrads 2. Is in a geographically desirable location, close to NY 3. It has many students from lower middle class families from NJ who got into much more selective schools but went there on scholarship or to say 25k/year. Anyone have any other reasons why it could be this high. I wouldn’t think BB’s recruit much or at all at Rutgers?
Could you tell us from where they are?
Are the nationalities included in your database? It would be great to know which countries are represented the most.
Thanks
just throwing this out there but id guess the canadian undergrads break down as ~75% from ivey ~25% everywhere else. all the BBs and elite boutiques show up at ivey and theyve been placing 5-10 kids at (for example) GS on the reg. they also just completed a brand new extremely grandiose building and are expanding the class size to 800 (from half that a couple years ago). tuition is 40k for the latter 2 years and like 10k for your 2 pre ivey years. its not hard to be in the top 10% of your class cuz most kids take totally unrelated shit for those first 2 years, so if you can 'walk through dcf' by beginning of year 3 youre way ahead of the pack. all this to say that back door is pretty undervalued and i would not be at all surprised if some sort of migration did get underway. not to mention the broads at uwo are straight rockets, HYPS dont even know
I wasn't going to publish a breakdown because I didn't want the discussion to devolve into the comparative rankings of Canadian schools, but your estimate is pretty spot-on. A pretty good chunk of the Canadians are from Ivey.
Canada better prepare its back door for the American invasion.
last 5 seconds
I forgot his name but one of the mortgage guys that appear in Liar's Poker (Salomon Brothers -> Goldman Sachs) is on the executive board or something at Gtown's SFS. They have a separate hall dedicated to him.
There's no way Dartmouth and Duke are that low. Even at the absolute level, these two schools are far better represented than almost every university save a Wharton or a Stern. Georgetown is definitely a strong feeder school to IB though.
LOL at Wash U and MIT being ranked at or above Dartmouth and Duke!
I just did a search on LinkedIn and typed in "Analyst" under the Position and then the school name with the CURRENT setting and here's what I found for these 4 schools:
Bank of America Merrill LYNCH Dartmouth: 11 Duke: 15 Wash U: 2 MIT: 1
Deutsche Bank Dartmouth: 11 Duke: 15 Wash U: 1 MIT: 2
These are all just profiles of people that are current investment banking analysts by the way. I"ll post the rest of the BBs tomorrow when I get a chance but the trend won't be much different. This data is a complete sham.
JPM and BAML don't even recruit at Ross for front office IBD positions. Its definitely a target school but its no Georgetown.
That's f'ing absurd. It hasn't always been that way; pretty sure ML used to recruit heavily at Ross for IBD back in the day.
I'm pretty sure I remember eldiablo as the guy that shits on U of M to make Duke look better whenever both of their names are whispered in the same thread.
Hey sorry if this has been answer before I didn't have time to read all the posts and I appreciate your effort bankerella, are the banks in the data set just American banks? I'm surprised Ivey isn't place higher among schools. This year they pretty much dominated all the Bay street recruiting, sent lots of kids to the U.S. and also quite a handful to banks in Europe and Asia, (i.e. CS London, DB London, Barclays London, JPM HK, Nomura JP and few to Singapore).
-doublepost-
If you are a believer in the scientific method, you need to test some hypotheses. Unfortunately (fortunately?), these are social sciences, so you have a lot of room to bullshit. Maybe those are the best schools? Maybe banking isn't the most desired job? Maybe both? Given our room to bullshit, it looks like we can still debate endlessly.
Or we can get back to Ass and Titties. Your choice.
this is kinda weak
I'm pretty sure this thread is a fabrication. There's no way to prove that any of the data or conclusions here are factual. You've all been had, haha.
You have entirely too much time on your hands.
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