Smu or umiami
I’m curious if SMU or UMiami is better for finance, specifically investment banking. Which school has a better undergrad program for business and finance? Which school do you see more of on Wall Street? I’m interested in working in nyc. Which school has better alumni connections and will prepare me better for the future?
Neither have strong presence. Both classic definition of non target.
I graduated U Miami in 2021. people do land IB roles but not that many. Miami and Citi have a strong connection through something called "Citi 'Canes" but most kids land in the treasury team or Corporate Banking and not IBD. I know a few people who got offers at Raymond James in Tampa and one kid got an asset management role at Lazard, maybe 2 got offers at FT Partners in San Francisco.
I worked at a small no-name boutique for a year that I landed through connections (so many kids at Miami have dads who either own their own firms or are MDs, it's absurd), and then I was able to lateral to a BB after that. A few of my friends did the same - starting at small shops then lateraling to places like BNP Paribas for example. I know a lot of people who go the Private Banking route and got offers at Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan, but that's not IB. The only UM people I know who work at Goldman Sachs are on the accounting/controllership team.
That being said, I had an amazing experience at UM. Incredible place to go to college, and if you're smart and don't waste all 4 years being a degenerate, you can actually made decent connections and should be fine breaking into IB, even if it's not straight out of undergrad.
Current UM student here, would say that the placements of the last 3 summer analyst classes have been extremely good (GS/CVP/EVR/GUGG/DB etc). There is another thread on here about UM with more updated info.
From what I’ve seen more SMU people (a lot go Houston though) but cross check with peak frameworks placement
I would go miami though way more fun and gonna be uphill battle regardless
SMU has an honors alts program that is a semi-target for IB in Houston specifically.
I went to SMU and graduated recently, everyone I know who actually wanted to go to IB, did.
Granted, 70-80% went to Houston but the best of the best, 3.9-4.0 students who grinded since Freshmen year, went to NY at firms like GS, MS, and CVP.
If I could estimate, I would say 30-40 students get into banking each year. While that seems small, not that many people at SMU target banking and most actually go into consulting.
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