Top 5 Undergraduate Schools for IBanking

College Search & Selection
1

<p>OK the title's a little dramatic but I think I might have come on to something. I am currently an analyst in the investment banking division of Lehman Brothers and 2 of my friends from college are also analysts from the IBD of Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. Today, out of curiosity, we compiled a list of the top undergraduate schools based on the analyst classes at our respective banks. Suprisingly enough, the 5 best represented ugrad schools among the analysts in our banks were exactly the same, with regards to the order in the top 5 as well.</p>

<p>Here is the top 5...
1. Harvard
2. UPenn Wharton
3. Princeton
4. Duke
5. Dartmouth</p>

<p>After these 5, I would say that Columbia, Yale, Stanford, MIT and UMich Ross were the next 5 most represented schools although it didn't seem as set in stone as the top 5. In the next tier, Brown, NYU Stern, Chicago, Berkeley, Virginia, Northwestern and Vanderbilt seemed to also have good representation and sometimes did better than the 5 schools I listed above them depending on the bank.</p>

<p>Of course this list isn't comprehensive by any means and it is clear that there are as many as 20-25 schools that can provide a route to success in the banking field. Hopefully, this provides more insight however for college juniors/seniors vying for an i-banking positions. Please feel free to ask me any questions of what being an analyst at an i-bank is like. It's been a positive experience for me although it definitely isn't right for everyone.</p>

2

<p>How did UT Austin do?</p>

3

<p>umm, Cornell has got to be ahead of Brown and Northwestern...</p>

4

<p>dearest mike_ny</p>

<p>your list seems to neglect the rest of Penn. It has a rather stellar economics department and since all students go through the same recruiting system, they all do quite well. There is simply no way the wharton grads would be #2 and Penn writ large would not even be mentioned. Simply put this is empirically incorrect</p>

5

<p>ilovebagles, they left Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan out ofthe equation. I don't know about Wharton, but in the case of Ross, those three, along with Credsit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are the heaviest recruiters. I am pretty sure that if they added those three or fourother IBanks, the bottom line would change slightly.</p>

6

<p>I was just checking out the career survey for UPenn CAS and based on the number of people they are putting in the top investment banks, they would be around tier 2 (based on the OP's tiers). HOWEVER, this is including Wharton students who graduated with a dual-degree, which accounts for about half the UPenn CAS degree placements in those banks. Discounting the Wharton people, UPenn isn't as high up, but is at the very least on par with Brown.</p>

7

<p>jnpn, that's the case with most universities with top ranked Business schools, including Cal, Georgetown, Michigan, MIT, Penn and UVa. That's because in those universities, students interested in a career in IBanking typically major in Business so that they can benefit from their high-profile career offices.</p>

8

<p>Yep, and there are even more reasons beyond that. I just wanted to check just how many fewer UPenn CAS sends in comparison to Wharton. However, the real question is what percentage of the people applying for jobs at the top banks from these schools get offers. It's too bad there's no way of finding that out.</p>

9

<p>Check UPenn's SEAS (engineering school) they have pretty good placement into I-Banking. In fact, pretty often they beat out the Wharton kids...</p>

10

<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Wharton</li>
<li>Stern</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
</ol>

11

<p>Penn needs to be recalculated to consider SAS and SEAS along with wharton, given their commendable performance in the i-banking death march. Does Wharton perform better than SAS and SEAS? I don't doubt it--but that is due to its very narrow specialization. SAS and SEAS would still be among the best given the innate intelligence, talent, and drive of their student body</p>

12

<p>i wouldn't call it a death march as much as a Jacksonian trail of tears</p>

13

<p>clubbiscuit,
Is that your opinion or are you basing that off of numbers from somewhere?</p>

14

<p>I remember seeing another list, but from a different iBank based on entering classes.</p>

<p>Harvard was number one, Wharton and Stanford tied for two and three. I can't remember the rest though.</p>

15

<p>It's a general consensus from WSO and other few websites. The top three are untouchable: Harvard, Princeton, and Wharton.</p>

<p>However, the bottom two can of top 5 can be volatile. The ones that would qualify the bottom two spots are: Dartmouth, NYU Stern, Columbia, Duke, Stanford, and Yale.</p>

<p>Ross, Chicago, Haas, and Northwestern may follow closely.</p>

<p>The only non-Ivy caliver school from top 5 list, NYU, is heavily recruited because of the experienced body of the students (they get internships very easily because of the unbeatable location). Although NYU is considered not that prestigious, Stern is composed with high-caliver students. Average SAT score of incoming Stern students was actaully higher than that of Wharton's.</p>

16

<p>Guess that just goes to show you there's more to college than SATs! ;)</p>

17

<p>Why is Duke so high, and why is Columbia not?</p>

18

<p>I'd be interested in numbers for Goldman Sachs, can somebody help me?</p>

19

<p>columbia should be in place of dartmouth and stanford instead of duke.</p>

20

<p>Keep in mind that a lot of this has to do w/ the no. of students from the NY/NJ/Conn area w/ family ties to i-banks who attend these various schools.</p>