Investment Banking Target Schools

I’m a high school student looking for the college that gives me the best shot at being an NYC investment banker.

Here are the schools I’m thinking about applying to:
-Wharton
-Stern
-Ross
-Georgetown
-Boston college
-UVA
-UT Austin
-Baruch
-Indiana U
-U of Illinois
-Carnegie Mellon
-Notre Dame
-UNC
-Brigham young
-Ohio State (safety cuz in state tuition)

I attempted to rank them from most liked by NYC ib recruiters to least liked; let me know if you agree or disagree with my ranking. Also let me know if any of these schools would make me extremely unattractive to investment banks or if there are any better ones that I missed. Thanks!!

Wharton
McDonough, McIntire, Ross, Stern
Carroll, McCombs, Kelley, Tepper, Mendoza, Kenan Flagler
Illinois, Fisher, Baruch, Marriott

Note that a university can be a “target school” for IB without necessarily being a pipeline to the NYC office. For example, Illinois and Indiana students might be more heavily recruited for Chicago offices, UNC for Charlotte and Atlanta, etc.

At Rice (daughter is current student), all the bulge brackets banks and plenty of smaller banks (Evercore, Lazard, Moelis, Jeffries, etc.) are recruiting this fall . . . but most of that recruiting is for the energy/oil & gas groups that operate out of the Houston offices of these banks. UCLA, USC, and UCB will be heavily recruited by banking groups in LA (media/telcom) and SF (tech).

In sum, there is more to IB than NYC. Of course, once you get your foot in the door at regional office, you can try to transition to NYC. My point is that even if you don’t end up at an eastern school that is a direct pipeline to Wall Street (Wharton, Stern, etc.), you still have a shot at IB . . . and even at making your way to IB in New York.

Many of the Nescac schools have alum in IB
Williams Midd etc

Any of these will do. My son’s class of 40 incudes 20 schools. Cornell, UVA and Wharton have 3 or 4 each. Note that, he kept bumping into Princeton and Harvard guys along the recruiting path. Your success will depend upon your ability to network. A 3.7 gpa is helpful. My younger boy feels he will have an easier time because his small LAC has a close network compared to his brother’s giant school.

BC has a strong finance program, but is less of an IB target school; it did very well for asset management. BYU has been doing quite well for IB placement. The ranking by @Alexandre is largely spot-on. The top 5 on the list are traditionally classified as target. The next group is more like semi-target.

Focused solely on the OP desire to be a NY banker…

Having spent the last 10 years working in Financial Services in NY I would rank Ivy and NESCAC schools as those with the best placement history. All of the firms have soft spots because they have a history of hiring from a few schools…from which the leaderships has come…and they like their own. If you go to (I’m just randomly picking for example purposes only) Tufts, or Hamilton, or Bowdoin, or Gettysburg, or Franklin and Marshall…they all have connections to a firm or two. If you do well, you will have opportunities. Bowdoin grads know Hamilton. Hamilton grads know Tufts. In the end, I don’t think you should overthink which school will give you the best chance. All of them will give you a chance. Grades and internships will be critical to landing a job in NY upon graduation.

Aligned to what others have mentioned above, the further the school is from NY the less likely they are to have connections and/or reputation in NY. Stanford, Northwestern, UChicago…yeah, no issue. Other smaller quality schools are hit or miss with HR and hiring managers when it comes to name recognition.

Appreciate that a lot of this discussion is about getting past the gate keeper. Relatively low level HR folks who do a lot of the initial screening don’t always appreciate niche schools.

2 more comments:

State schools have the same type of pockets. Michigan, UVA, Penn State, and Rutgers grads are everywhere. There are also SUNY folks all over…but they aren’t as cultish. State schools also have critical mass. Recruiters who are often trying to fill dozens of positions are more likely to get 20 prospects from Penn State than Bowdoin. Our firm has recruiting relationships with NYU, Penn State, Michigan, Clemson, and Temple. Those choices are a combination of proximity, reputation, size and alumni executives.

I have been amazed by the Stern grads. They are mafia-esque. It’s almost like they have an infrared tattoo on their foreheads that only they can see. They always know when one of their clan is in a meeting. I’m obviously overstating…but Stern grads are everywhere as well.

I think you gave too much credit to Baruch and Boston College. Baruch does well, but mostly for grad school placements and particularly for their MFE program.

Keep in mind, Rutgers may have a large presence, but their students seem to be getting less of the actual IB placements, and more of the ops, audit, and internal finance placements (which are less prestigious and have much lower salaries than their investment banking counterparts).

IMO, UNC should be above everything on your list except Wharton, Stern, Ross, Georgetown and UVA. A huge chunk of Kenan-Flagler goes to NYC every year, and I know people there that work at all of the BB.

There’s also Fordham-Gabelli and CUNY Baruch - Zicklin for localized semi-targets if you need a couple extra back-up schools.

Rutgers-NB also has a road to wall street program.

@MrSamford2014 retweet that a lot of recruiting is local rice, smu, and texas all getting major interest from housto banks as well as a few shops in dallas and other ones in the area like stephens in arkansas.

A good portion of UCLA Biz Econ students go into management consulting vs IB.

My advice is don’t pick a school SOLELY for investment banking. Honestly, IB is not the end all be all. Go for the best school you can and study what interests you. Trust me, if you are interested in investment banking, you’ll get it as long as you good to a good school be it Wharton or Brown University. By all means, if you want to study business and feel that that’s for sure what you want to do then go for Wharton.

Are you Mormon? If not, would you be happy at Brigham Young?

I don’t mean to rant, but I have to say, there are some schools on their not deserving the target status for NYC. First of all, Ohio State/UNC/UIUC aren’t targets at all for NYC. Sure, they send a good chunk every year but you need to understand that there are a higher number of students that you are directly competing with for OCR. And, if you look at LinkedIn searches or just the class data per bank, there were 2 people from UNC KF for IB M&A FT Offers being extended. What the person who has worked on Wall Street for the last 10 years should be listened to. The banks will always have a soft spot for Ivy Leagues and NESCAC’s over any of these state schools (excluding Ross obviously) and it’s a fact. The alumni database at some schools like NYU Notre Dame and BYU can make up for the lack of brand value. However, you should not put states schools like UNC or UIUC above or anywhere near the “target” status as an Ivy League. Sure KF students place well in Charlotte, but UNC doesn’t have a pipeline to Wall Street.

Clarification: the 2 people scenario applies to GS; sorry that I didn’t specify

Also, can you guys chance me back

PLUS, very important tip:
This site is bs for banking. I would strongly recommend WSO and Poets&Quants