Best Universities for Entrepreneurial Undergraduates

College Search & Selection
1

Pitchbook posted their “Top Universities for VC Backed Entrepreneurs” in 2014 with the top 20 schools being the following (excluding foreign universities):

  1. Stanford
  2. UC Berkeley
  3. MIT
  4. Harvard
  5. University of Pennsylvania
  6. Cornell
  7. University of Michigan
  8. University of Texas
  9. Yale University
  10. University of Illinois
  11. Carnegie Mellon
  12. UCLA
  13. Brown University
  14. Princeton University
  15. Columbia University
  16. University of Wisconsin
  17. Duke
  18. USC (SoCal)
  19. BYU
  20. NYU
    The most VC funding was raised by Stanford undergrad entrepreneurs, who raised a collective $3.5B while the least VC funding was raised by NYU undergrad entrepreneurs, who raised a collective $493M. The 4 schools who raised the most money were Stanford, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard, however according to an article by Max Woolf “Which Universities Produce the Most Successful Startup Founders?”, the most ambitious founders who raised the most Venture Capital in the 1st round were Carnegie Mellon and Princeton, where the average VC funding in the 1st round per startup is $12M and $11.4M respectively. Which leads me to my original question. Which universities are most conducive to creating successful startup founders who want to raise VC funding? Is it the schools that raise in aggregate the most money such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, or UC Berkeley, or is it the schools that raise the most VC funding in the 1st round of VC funding such as Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, or UCLA? Or maybe this method of selecting a college for a prospective entrepreneur is flawed, and different metrics should be looked at such as specific research opportunities, fit, financial aid, location, etc. Is looking at billionaires who graduate from the university a better metric of quality, or is it best to follow the advise of Malcolm Gladwell and become a big fish in a small pond during college. Anyway I hope CC can break this down and discuss this post thoroughly.
2

What does 1st round mean?

3

The top 4: Stanford, Berkeley, MIT and Harvard looks pretty solid.
It is not mere coincidence that they also appear as the most prestigious schools in the world by the Times Higher Education of London survey.

4

Series A, the first institutional round most high tech companies will receive in VC funding.

5

I think this field and criteria is very niche, but it also doesn’t tell the full story. It’s not about the big fish that get out, but how the average fish does (if you are assuming that the school makes the student).

It also disregards things like tech getting more funding as it is a booming industry, but many entrepreneurs will not be in tech. I’m guessing there’s a reason the top 3 schools have top CS and engineering programs. But, for those not interested in that market, this list is incredibly skewed.

Babson seems to be a very odd school to be missing from this list - while I can see why based on the criteria, I think it points out at least one of the flaws in the criteria here.

Edit: Disregard Babson - it seems they only are ranked for their MBA and show up on the top 20 there. Still, I’m not sure this is an ideal metric. The site (Pitchbook) seems to be selling itself through the data it has, and while yes this a factor in entrepreneurship, I’m not sure if this should be the single ranking factor. Especially if you ascribe to the idea of colleges adding value to students rather than a school’s external output.