Booth vs CBS for IB

Both are doubtlessly good places to enter the IB industry & I have the most recent employment report numbers below containing all identified bank names. Booth report shows names of companies that hired more than 3 people, CBS shows names of companies that hired more than 2.


Full-time class size at Booth was 621 & Columbia was with 782 (211 J-term + 571 August-term).


Based on these numbers, would I be correct to conclude that CBS has a slight hedge over Booth for people looking to do IB in banking at least this year? Thanks


CBS 2020 full-time

78 total = GS(14) + MS(6) + JP(6) + Evercore(9) + BoA(7) + Citi(7) + CS(7) + Guggenheim(6) + Lazard(5) + Moelis(5) + Barclays(3) + Houlihan Lokey(3)

Booth 2020 full-time

46 total = GS(7) + MS(6) + JP(6) + BoA(6) + Citi(6) + CS(7) + Lazard(4) + Moelis(4)


CBS 2020 internship

78 total = GS(17) + MS(10) + JP(9) + Evercore(6) + BoA(10) + Citi(10) + Lazard(4) + Moelis(4) + Houlihan Lokey(5) + PJT(3)

Booth 2020 internship

52 total = GS(9) + MS(7) + JP(8) + BoA(8) + Citi(7) + CS(11) + Lazard(1) + Moelis(1)

 

To control for the potential self-selection bias, I reached out to current students at both schools & it seems like the # of folks who seriously recruited for banking are roughly the same at both places.

 

I've been searching this Booth vs CBS for IB topic on WSO & other forums + talked to many MBAers and interestingly many of the feedback I got leaned slightly in favor of Booth. Yet when I saw the latest numbers, the gap between CBS and Booth seemed substantially wider in favor of CBS than expected, so I just wanted to sense-check whether I'm missing/misinterpreting anything, thanks

 

As you mentioned yourself, raw numbers are an okay but far from the best way to compare recruiting scenes because of self-selection. NYU sends more kinds to many banks than Princeton and Stanford but there is way more kids going for IB at NYU. Almost every kid at NYU would kill to go to HYPS because there's 300 kids gunning for IB at their school. Same for MBA, CBS sends more kids to IB than HBS and Stanford GSB but most people at the latter two aren't interested in IB.

 
Most Helpful

Current Booth student. Your numbers are off due to how many banks hire 3 (or less) for FT. I’m not seeing many of the major banks in your FT or internship statistics. I don’t even see Evercore on your list, which was founded by a Booth grad. It’s also difficult to analyze these numbers because the real figures you want are how many people pursued IB vs how many successfully landed a role.

Here’s the bottom line: You should not be making the CBS vs Booth decision over a perceived edge in IB recruiting. I can promise you that no banks are closing their doors to CBS and opening them for Booth, or vice versa. You are given the same opportunities at either school. Once you’ve narrowed down to CBS vs Booth it should become a question of culture/location/etc.

 

Thanks for the input, I agree that the CBS vs Booth decision should not be made over a perceived edge in IB recruiting. Just out of curiosity, obviously covid did affect the recruiting dynamics for the incoming associate interns but I was wondering how the recruiting dynamics were like pre-covid for Boothies. Based on my conversations with many kind Booties, I hear mixed things about people flying into NYC for weekends for networking - some say this happens often, some say this isn't necessary at all, so I'd love to learn what you observed as a general trend, thanks!

 

I wish I could be more help but I only went through virtual recruiting. As I’m sure you’ve learned, most of Booth IB prospects are focused on NY. I personally like the idea of networking extensively over phone/Zoom instead of being expected to constantly pound the pavement for in person networking (it’s frankly less work). But on the other hand I’m sure that CBS prospects are able to get a better culture feel for a bank by physically going into the offices. I’m not sure how common the NY trips were at Booth besides the NY treks that are organized through the IB group.

 

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