It's no surprise that 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 Report.
There are a myriad of factors that go into choosing the best MBA program for any particular student. Debt-conscious students may look into schools with better return on investment (ROI).. Prestige students may look for high scores or schools with a great brand.
Exists locationprice and schools with the highest average salaries after graduation.
For those who get carried away by the high salaries in investment bankingthe top 25 schools in the 2022 Wall Street Oasis 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 report on Investment Banking collects data from employees working in the field to determine which schools the Big 10 Bulge Bracket banks are targeting in their recruitment and hiring. Not surprisingly, Harvard University and New York University are the top feeder schools for a career on Wall Street.
Patrick Curtis
“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 across almost all anchors, even just the respectable boutique and mid-market funds. The location is a huge plus for NYU kids because they can meet people face to face, have coffee and just network. Being in the city, right there, is a big plus.”
REPORTING METHODOLOGY
WSO has almost 900,000 registered users who report a range of data about the companies where they work. The 2022 WSO Investment Banking Industry Report takes this user-reported data to show which colleges and universities are recruiting the most for the 10 Bulge Bracket banks. 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 that users report to the WSO company database. The report we're looking at today is updated as of this month and includes year-to-date data, as well as data for the previous two years. Because of this, some of the latest user-reported trends won't start showing up until later reports. (WSO uses Bayesian statistics to generate rates for companies with few observations.) Read more about WSO's reporting methodology here.
TOP FIVE SCHOOLS ACCOUNT FOR OVER 15% OF MAJOR BANK LEASES
Of the 2,578 users reporting WSO within Bulge Banks, 91 are Harvard University graduates. NYU was just behind at 90. The next top three feeder schools were the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) at 86, Columbia University at 70, and Cornell University at 70.
Combined, these schools account for 15.7% of the top 10 Bulge Banks hires. The top 12 schools on the list account for more than 25% of hires and hires at major banks.
While Northeastern and the Ivy Leagues certainly have an edge in big bank recruiting, if you click on the chart above, you'll find other schools that send their graduates to Wall Street. The University of Michigan is number 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 the University of Virginia that land in the top 25. The London School of Economics also makes the list.
In total, there are 99 feeder schools ranked by the WSO in its 2022 report. View the full list here.
NEXT PAGE: Where Graduates from Top Feeder Schools Go to Work + Top Mid-Level Bank Feeder Schools
