Comprehensive Undergraduate Target Schools Tier List 2020

rankings are usually stupid but tbh this is pretty accurate - one change is that Princeton isn't really a super target for most firms in finance

Wow. The first tier list I have ever seen on this site that is at least somewhat reasonable

Very good but I would move Amherst 1 up to Target and Emory Goizueta up to Tier A semi-target

Brown, Haas and Georgetown seem a tad low. Brown for sure.

This is just from my personal experience in finance seeing these slums over there years. Also a little controversial, but Stanford’s distance from NYC and focus on tech make finance recruiting sort of second tier there and take it out of the spotlight. There’s a lot less in the way of resources so while the opportunities and OCR are certainly there, it’s marginally tougher. Would say they are prestige-wise still a super target but from a practicality perspective getting to where you want in finance - a smidge below HPYW. VC and West Coast is a big big exception of course and you get to come up with the easiest story for why you want to do TMT/Tech banking.

I think BC Carroll should be moved up. I’ve seen a lot of alum on LinkedIn. Pretty comprehensive list tbh that should be able to help a lot of people in decision making progress.

Rutgers to A-, B+

As a Huntsman graduate (so I'm not biased), College students have the exact same opportunities available to Wharton students. More Wharton students recruit for banking jobs, so more end up at the most coveted firms on campus (GS, JPM, PJT).

Given my experience on both sides of the interview table, a College student who is studying something unique (e.g. astrophysics, history) and has demonstrated interest in business would be a more attractive candidate than the Wharton student studying finance, accounting and management.

Brown is definitely a bit low, no way any Ivy can be considered a semi target. Placement there on a per student recruited basis is very strong, much stronger than Cornell NYU etc which are 1 tier above it as is. Would put it 2 tiers higher towards the bottom of the target category

UPenn and Cornell should probably be one tier higher, as every Ivy is a target.

Seeing these lists makes me realize how much I wish I went to a target lol

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I hate to get baited into something like this, but you are going to have to move UVA up to Tier S or S+. This year, UVA became a target for Goldman Sachs. Target for literally every BB except MS (still sends 1 to 2 kids per year) and every EB except Moelis (because UVA students stopped signing return offers there so Moelis stopped recruiting). UVA recruiting is lights out.

Edited: Removed KKR - was misinformed at the time, my mistake.

would push back on stanford being the top tier. There seem to barely be any alum on the street

Move up UVA, Georgetown, and Cal, drop Northwestern down a tier (more a target for consulting than IB, and friends I know there have had trouble recruiting on the street).

UVA and Georgetown's non-business schools also place as well as the b schools at analyst level (Georgetown SFS has most of the top econ/IR kids and most recruiting at UVA is wrapped up before junior year when people start McIntire classes anyways)

Graduated from Stanford last year. This is going to be super long, but I just want to paint the full picture about the school because I've recently noticed a bunch of prospective students are posting on this website, and I want to give a full, updated view (I was on here years ago as a high school senior and remember second-guessing myself for months after choosing Stanford over Princeton and Wharton).

Out of the firms that recruit there, GS MS and BAML have the best presence for NY (bankers fly out and do breakfast sessions, dinners in Palo Alto, etc.). Good chunk go to JPM NY and SF, but not really relevant anymore with their whole removing target schools thing. GS TMT and MS Menlo also have the biggest West Coast group presence for Stanford students. Have seen kids do CS NY and SF. Barclays recruits for Menlo. UBS and Deutsche actually have no presence (saw a rich African international kid do UBS NY SA once, maybe connections). We have a funny thing with Citi where their VC arm did (and still does) projects during the semester for Stanford kids that anyone can sign-up for, and heard people get fast-tracked for NY IB first-rounds if they just do that.

Evercore, Lazard, Centerview and Greenhill have the best EB presence but try to initially recruit you for West Coast offices. These firms do on-campus coffee chats, etc. though so you can easily ask the West Coast bankers and Stanford MDs there to put you in touch with their NY counterparts (I did this as someone targeting NY EBs). Every year there's a few kids that interview/do (~3) Evercore NY.

For buy-side, KKR, Bain Cap, Ares, Permira, Silver Lake and Audax have a great presence, especially Bain Cap (All 2 FT offers last year went to Stanford). General Atlantic and Insight do on-campus coffee chats and GA especially has always taken at least 2 for their 4 or so-person analyst class. JMI and BDT do resume drops and interview kids. All these for NY/Boston, with the exception of Ares, JMI and BDT. Couple of Golden Gate-spinouts would always take 2-3 kids per summer analyst class. Someone correctly pointed out that Blackstone doesn't officially recruit out of Stanford, but every year a couple go to BX superdays before getting rejected. Vista Equity also handed out interviews. If you want to be 100% certain you lock something up in NY, Stanford also has a "study abroad" program in NYC, which boosts your GPA and gets you a ton of free time to network.

For hedge funds, Point72, Bridgewater, DE Shaw and Citadel have a huge presence. VC-wise, Accel and TCV come to mind that recruited heavily for investing, while Andressen tried to get you to do some BS consulting-y portfolio support work.

Not going to touch the quant firms.

So, TLDR, all the above opportunities are available to you as a Stanford kid, and the insane thing is that there's only 50-60 people who're actually gunning for all these things because most business-minded kids are either 1. Gunning for MBB or PM, or 2. Convinced one of Stanford's Mayfield Program/Sequoia/Peter Thiel that you and your half-working brain are good enough to be in a fellowship program, which secures you an ungodly amount of funding for a couple years, parades you around VCs and tech execs, and spoon feeds you to develop a startup post-graduation.

If you have your shit together, you have a great shot at some elite banks and at elite buyside funds, NY or otherwise. And for the few elite firms (ex. PJT and BX) that don't officially recruit, it’s not hard to get interviews. When I was a Senior, I knew some people in my grade and grades below who's dads were heads of IB at places like Lazard and GS, and children of execs (Founders and CEOs) of one of TPG/Warburg/H&F and of two very well-recognizable UMMs. My buddy landed an SA gig at a very, very recognizable PE fund because he boozed regularly with the CEO's kid. Conversely, also heard of a kid who landed a business-y gig at Microsoft and was tight with Gates's daughter. No doubt these kinds of things also happen at a HYP, but think this is the underrated plus-side of top schools no one mentions.

move rutgers up to B+

Georgetown should not be below Michigan, NYU, and Northwestern

good list. would also throw Johns Hopkins on the Tier A- list (non target but aroundish). it's historically much more of a premed/academic school but those that do get interested in finance and put in work to network can land at top tier banks due to academic reputation and recruiting has gotten significantly better since i was there years ago. would not lump it with the tier b's looking at that list of schools.

total crap - how the f are high schoolers coming here listing target schools. WSO is getting ridiculous

Any other thoughts on BC Carrol? Planning on attending there in the fall. Definitely not trying to shill for the school, but from my research I thought that it stacked up well with the likes of Emory, Indiana, and Vandy, while being roughly on par with Notre Dame for NY. Would appreciate any insight just so I know what I'm getting myself into. Thanks.

Having spent a few years on the street (but mostly because i'm stuck inside and WSO has been helpful to me previously) I thought i would add a few corrections with context here based on my experience:

MIT is not a big feeder into corporate finance jobs (save for life science / tech VC). For quant jobs yes. Bring down to Tier S

Yale / Princeton / Stanford - should probably be a tier down. I remembered meeting a Stanford kids during recruiting years ago telling me how hard it was for him to break into finance (IB / PE) - think it has to do with general student interest / network. Seems like kids there are more into tech / entrepreneurship / getting funding for whatever app they are working on. H/ W students are more corporate fiance / consulting gunners than kids at Y/P/S.. Basically having an existing strong network in finance matters but can be overcome through outreach effort especially if you are from a good school. Bring down to Tier S+

Cornell / Stern / Ross - consistently sends too many kids to Wall Street (top 5-6 most years along with Harvard Wharton and Columbia) with unbelievably strong networks to boot. These are very strong targets. Bring up to Tier S+

Northwestern - very strong school but not as strong placement as others in the tier. Bring down to A+.

Georgetown / UVA - Both have very strong placement. Bring up to Tier S. Only reason Haas is not here as well is because being on west coast finance opportunities are less than on east coast but obviously a very strong school with outstanding students.

BC Carroll - bring up to Tier A. Closer to the names here than they are to Tier A-/B+

Please don’t be this much of a virgin this early on.

Jeez this is a long post. I guess you’ve already done the work, so I’ll give my two cents.

I’m assuming your ranking uses usnews’ ranking as a foundation. Wall Street doesn’t target schools based on their usnews ranking. Your S and S+ tiers should really be merged because there isn’t a material difference between going to a mid vs lower Ivy, Duke, UChicago, Mich, Stern, or UVA. I posted KKR’s (a top MF PE firm just FYI) target school list somewhere else in this thread. It’s Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Penn/Wharton, Stanford, and ‘other’ in that order. Mixed bag and doesn’t follow a traditional usnews ranking at all.

Williams and Northwestern are amazing schools, but their numbers don’t come close to the others in those two tiers. Even Yale probably has fewer people on the Street than Cornell or NYU do. People aggressively push for their own alma mater and that triumphs going to a higher ranked school sometimes.

LACs are so overrated here its a joke

UNC and Vandy need a bump

I can't believe I'm letting myself getting pulled into this.... Genuinely no offense meant to OP, but this is why freshmen shouldn't be making rankings of the best schools to get into finance from. Even if this list accurately reflects the overall proportion of the student body that ends up in these roles (which it doesn't, though to be fair it's not terribly far off), that still should NOT be used as a decision-making guide of where to go to school.

That would assume that each student body is equally likely to aim for these positions, which is patently false. What should be considered is your LIKELIHOOD of getting into these roles from these schools, which is markedly different than what has been displayed.

Someone who chooses to go to Wharton over Stanford solely because of the finance representation would be a moron in my book. Frankly the odds of getting a top finance position are significantly higher out of Stanford since there is less competition and the prestige is only rivaled by Harvard. The right metric would be to look at the percent of students who get top banks and buy-side positions out of those who actually want it. I guarantee that proportion is higher at Stanford than even Wharton. Especially if you look at the buy-side numbers (don't forget VC).

Same story with MIT vs Duke. I guarantee you'll have an easier time getting a top buy-side gig out of MIT than if you go to Duke. People in top finance firms are smart and want the best. They're not going to pass up the most brilliant and accomplished kids simply because they're from schools that have less relative representation due to interest.

I'm going to push back a little on the ranking of some top schools. Places like Cornell and Brown should absolutely be ranked higher than somewhere like UVA/Ross or even NYU stern. Sure, Michigan probably sends more kids to Wall Street than Cornell/Brown, but I promise you that on a per capita basis Brown and Cornell heavily outperform those other schools. The average kid at Brown has a decent shot at a top banking job, whereas its only the cream of the crop from places like UVA/Mich that get these looks. This ranking is looking too much at absolute numbers vs ease of landing the job.

SMH these threads need to stop. Some kid is gonna read this shit and go to IU over Hopkins b/c they think its a better school.

Note: Not affiliated w/ either school -- go to a "Tier S/S+" and I didn't even get into Hopkins lol.

Any UK input?

Ill Start: S++: Oxbridge, LBS, LSE

S+: Imperial UCL

S: Edinburgh, St andrews, Warwick, Manchester. Bristol

A: Nottingham, York, Kings, Durham

B: Glasgow etc. please add up

Move Stanford to S++ (Super Target) -- HYPS Super Target also should include UChicago (These schools are also big, so recruiters come to recruit with a larger pool of applicants)

Williams/ Amherst is a Target, not Tier A+, move to Tier S.

Confused with UCB for a sec, can you please change it to UC Berkeley - Haas?

Move Johns Hopkins up to Tier A (Semi-Target)

Move Lehigh, Babson and Gabelli to Tier A-/B+ (They're very business focused private schools. With that move, I would also say move Colby/ Bates up to Tier A-/B+