S&T Target Schools List

I would say colleges with specific financial engineering/quant finance programs (Columbia/CMU/Princeton) would give you the biggest leg up in S&T recruiting. Not saying they are necessarily the most represented, but they are often targeted by the top BBs. Places like UChicago and Duke have a LOT of students aiming for S&T, so they obviously have high representation, but I think it is highly competitive and you have a better chance of landing a seat at a top BB coming from a top school that has less of an S&T culture. MIT is another school that doesn't have a ton of students specifically aiming to enter S&T, but supposedly JPM and MS hold specific superdays and recruitment events for them. It is much easier to break into the industry from one of these prestigious schools with a small supply of students looking to enter than it is from schools that are already highly represented. Networking might be a tad easier from UChicago, Cornell, and Duke given the amount of alumni in the industry, but I still don't think whatever edge you get networking outweighs the amount of competition you are facing.

Same thing applies to your comments about Villanova/BC and USC/UVA. I think this largely stem from supply side factors rather than the banks actually preferring Villanova/BC over USC/UVA. Villanova has a specific applied quant finance major, and there is a strong culture at both Villanova and BC of going into S&T (specific clubs/alumni networks/etc). USC/UVA, on the other hand, likely do not have a ton of students specifically aiming for S&T, so they won't see a ton of matriculation. But I would still say attending a more prestigious school like USC or UVA will be much easier breaking into a top BB for S&T. They simply just have a much smaller supply of students looking to enter the industry