Southern Investment Banking pay vs NYC pay

Hello I am a senior and looking into colleges and I have spiked an interest in investment banking. I was looking into some southern schools and was wondering how much of a pay difference is there for ib in a place like Atlanta or Houston or Charlotte compared to nyc or San Francisco pay. Also I understand that there are far more options in nyc but are this still a lot of opportunities for southern ib too? Also what kind of schools would be good for southern banking? Thanks in advance!

48 Comments
 

Wells folks tell me pay is same in Charlotte as in NYC. You save way more with cost of living. Course, the south isn't everyone's cup of (sweet) tea and you do have decreased exit opps.

 

I will be honest my grades and act isn’t the greatest so would a school like uga or uf set me up for Atlanta or Charlotte ib. And also does tamu place really well in Houston besides ut and rice obvisouly

 

UF is kinda far from Charlotte, but I think SunTrust (ATL/CLT) recruits outta UGA. UF places into....St Petersburg? Not sure how much IB is in Florida.

 

Wells & STRH both recruit from UF. Specifically UF's MSF program that many go into straight from undergrad. @flexkeet, I would recommend you go to LinkedIn and search "Investment Banking" filtered by UGA and UF. That should give you an idea of their placement, where students are placed, and if they are placed directly from undergraduate or through MBA/MSF.

 

South Carolina is soon to become a target school for Wells,. They just dropped a school, Notre Dame I think, from their recruitment cycle.

Debt isn't the only thing distressed at this shop
 

After going through the recruiting process with my friends for Houston, we realized that 85k was base salary for the area. However, you can live like a king down in Texas because the cost of living (and everything in general) is much cheaper. Also the fact there isn't income tax is quite nice.

 

Thanks for all the responses! Ur advice is very much appreciated! Agreeing with most of u I grew up in a cheap town in the heart of America and I still want to make the big bucks without taxes and cost of living killing my bank account. That is why I have been considering ib in Houston Charlotte or Atlanta because to my knowledge they have the lowest cost of living for places with a decent amount of investment banking. I have one last question. So I recently have been admitted to uga, Texas a&m, uiuc, and Indiana. My question is would I have a better chance to get into Houston ib at a&m or Atlanta ib at uga or Chicago ib through uiuc or Indiana? Thanks so much!

 

That just depends on which city you really want. If you really want texas, go to A&M, if you want Atlanta, go to UGA etc. Now if you're asking for highest chances of IB, that is strongly dependent on you and how you perform in school and network. In terms of statistics I believe UIUC or UGA would be your best bet into getting into an IB.

 

For the Atlanta and Charlotte markets for IB the "current" southern ivies are the best places to go.

MF and MM PE firms that are recruiting in the south for analyst positions go to Emory, Vandy, Duke, UVA, UNC, and Davidson (surprisingly).

These schools traditionally place 1-3 a year in HF positions as well.

For IB all of these schools are "safe choices".

For an IB/PE focused finance degree, no one competes with Emory currently in the south. They place people everywhere in IB, PE, REPE, HF, AM, coast to coast and they restructured their curriculum to place more graduates in these roles annually. They are the only top talent and high-finance focused programs in the south IMO currently.

 

Does anyone know what cities recruit Vanderbilt graduates? I am applying to internships and don't know what cities I should be applying to for the best chance.

 

In general, you should be able to find a job in any city across the country. That being said, most students end up going to one of these places: Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, NYC, Houston, or Dallas.

 

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