Not surprisingly, Harvard University and New York University are the best feeder schools for a Wall Street career, according to Wall Street Oasis’ 2022 Investment Banking Industry Report.
There are a myriad of factors that go into selecting the best MBA program for a particular student. Students worried about their debts could turn to schools better return on investment. Prestige-minded students might look for high rankings or schools with a stellar brand.
There are locationthe award and the schools with the highest average salaries after graduation.
For those who are drawn to the exorbitant salaries in investment bankingThe 25 Best Schools in the Wall Street Oasis Investment Banking Industry Report 2022 should be on your radar.
WSO is an online community, news site, and career center for people working and aspiring to work in finance-related fields. Its Investment Banking Report collects data from employees working in the field to determine which schools the Big 10 Bulge Bracket banks target in their hiring and recruiting. Unsurprisingly, Harvard University and New York University are the best feeder schools for a career on Wall Street.
Patrick Curtis
“The best feeder schools for investment banking rarely move,” Patrick Curtis, founder and CEO of Wall Street Oasis, told Poets&Quants. “NYU has such reach in almost every bulge bracket, and even for notable boutiques and mid-market funds. The location is a huge plus for kids at NYU, as they can meet people face-to-face, grab coffees, and just network. Being in town, right there, is a big advantage.
REPORT METHODOLOGY
WSO has nearly 900,000 registered users who report a wealth of data on the companies where they work. The WSO’s 2022 Investment Banking Industry Report uses this user-reported data to show which colleges and universities the 10 Bulge Bracket Banks are hiring the most. These banks include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and UBS.
WSO reports are constantly changing based on new information users report to the WSO Company Database. The report we’re looking at today is current as of this month and includes year-to-date data as well as data for the previous two years. For this reason, some of the latest trends reported by users will only begin to appear in later reports. (WSO uses Bayesian statistics to create percentiles for companies with few observations.) Learn more about WSO’s reporting methodology here.
TOP FIVE SCHOOLS HAVE MORE THAN 15% OF BIG BANKS HIRES
Of 2,578 WSO reporting users within the Bulge Banks, 91 are Harvard University graduates. NYU was just a bit behind with 90. The next three best feeder schools were the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) at 86, Columbia University at 70, and Cornell University at 70.
In total, these schools account for 15.7% of hires at Bulge’s top 10 banks. The top 12 schools on the list account for more than 25% of recruiting and hiring at major banks.
While the Northeast and Ivy leagues certainly have an advantage in recruiting big banks, if you click on the table above you will find other schools sending their graduates to Wall Street. The University of Michigan is eighth on the list, followed by the University of Texas at Austin. There are also several West Coast schools – UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, and UCLA – as well as the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia that rank in the top 25. The London School of Economics is also on the list.
In total, there are 99 feeder schools ranked by the WSO in its 2022 report. See the full list here.
NEXT PAGE: Where Top Feeder School Graduates Go To Work + Top Mid-Level Bank Feeder Schools
