Not surprisingly, Harvard University and New York University are the top feeder schools for a career on Wall Street, according to Wall Street Oasis’ 2022 Investment Banking Industry Report.
There are a myriad of factors that go into selecting the best business school for any particular student. Debt-conscious students might look to schools with the best ROI. Prestige-minded students might look for high rankings or schools with a stellar brand.
There’s location, price, and schools with the highest average salaries after graduation.
For those lured by the sky-high salaries in investment banking, the 25 top schools on Wall Street Oasis’ 2022 Investment Banking Industry Report 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 10 large Bulge Bracket Banks target in their hiring and recruiting. Not surprisingly, Harvard University and New York University are the top feeder schools for a career on Wall Street.
Patrick Curtis
“The top feeder schools for investment banking rarely move,” Patrick Curtis, founder and CEO of Wall Street Oasis, tells Poets&Quants. “NYU has such a broad reach into almost all of the bulge brackets, and even for just the notable boutiques and middle market funds. The location is a huge advantage for NYU kids, because they’re able to meet people face-to-face, have coffees, and just network. Being in the city, right there, is a big advantage.”
REPORT METHODOLOGY
WSO has almost 900,000 registered users who report a trove of data on the companies where they work. WSO’s 2022 Investment Banking Industry Report takes this user-reported data to show which colleges and universities the 10 Bulge Bracket Banks recruit from 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’s reports are constantly changing based on new information users report to the WSO Company Database. The report we are looking at today is up-to-date as of this month and includes year-to-date data as well as data for the prior two years. Because of this, some of the latest trends reported by users won’t start showing up until later reports. (WSO uses Bayesian statistics to create percentiles for companies with few observations.) Read more about WSO’s report methodology here.
TOP FIVE SCHOOLS ACCOUNT FOR MORE THAN 15% OF BIG BANK HIRES
Out of 2,578 WSO reporting users within the Bulge Banks, 91 are graduates of Harvard University. NYU was just a smidge behind with 90. The next three top feeder schools were the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) at 86, Columbia University at 70, and Cornell University at 70.
When totaled together, these schools account for 15.7% of hires at the top 10 Bulge Banks. The top 12 schools on the list make more than 25% of big bank recruitment and hiring.
While Northeastern and Ivy Leagues certainly have an advantage in big bank recruitment, if you click through the chart above you’ll find other schools sending their graduates to Wall Street. The University of Michigan is eight 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 – along with the University of Chicago and University of Virginia landing in the top 25. London School of Economics also makes the list.
In all, there are 99 feeder schools ranked by WSO in its 2022 report. See the full list here.
NEXT PAGE: Where graduate of top feeder schools go to work + Top feeder schools of mid-level banks
