If you’re seeking a role in the highly competitive field of investment banking, business school represents an excellent opportunity to gain the skills (and networking contacts) required to land a top-tier position.
But how should you go about school selection—or how do you determine which MBA program will enhance your intended career in investment banking?
The employment reports published by MBA programs are a great place to start to learn about the total number of investment placements or to view lists of “top employers.” However, you’ll also want a breakdown of placement results by firm to understand the full story of each MBA program’s career placement achievements.
Enter Menlo Coaching’s detailed analysis of post-MBA investment banking placements. Menlo Coaching’s research team has analyzed 51,991 student profiles (and counting…) to give you information about each MBA program’s job placement history in investment banking, with data grouped by:
What we found in our analysis may surprise you…
First, location appears to be a big factor for successful investment banking outcomes, with NYC-based programs Stern and Columbia at the top of the listings—but one Chicago-area school outperforms even the storied Wharton MBA program.
Second, our analysis reveals some surprise winners in terms of which MBA program sends the highest percentage of its total investment banking graduates into Bulge Bracket firms. And if you are targeting Elite Boutiques, you might want to extend your target programs beyond the usual East Coast business schools.
For more details on how we compiled our data and how you can best use the information in your research into top MBA programs in the US and abroad, see the methodology section.
Generally, our data will not exactly match official employment reports, and the methodology section explains how employment reports differ from the public data sources we use. The reason we prepare data from unofficial public sources is to offer transparency into per-employer or per-city placements that is not included in (most) official employment reports.
The methodology section also explains the advantages of our approach, which uses multiple data sources and has numerous data cleanup steps, compared to the common alternative of running simple queries on LinkedIn with filters on job title, employer, or school.
Unless otherwise stated, all data in the following sections refers to 2020 placements.
*for schools with 5 or more placements in Bulge Bracket roles
| MBA program | Total | % of overall banking placements | |
| #1 | Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business | 25 | 92.6% |
| #2 | University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business | 18 | 81.8% |
| #3 | University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business | 7 | 77.8% |
| #4 | Yale School of Management | 17 | 77.3% |
| #5 | UCLA Anderson School of Management | 11 | 73.3% |
| MBA Program | Total | % of overall banking placements |
| Columbia University – Columbia Business School | 56 | 56.6% |
| NYU Stern School of Business | 51 | 66.2% |
| The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 34 | 55.7% |
| The Wharton School | 28 | 47.5% |
| Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management | 27 | 60.0% |
| Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business | 25 | 92.6% |
| University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 21 | 67.7% |
| University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business | 18 | 81.8% |
| Yale School of Management | 17 | 77.3% |
| MIT Sloan School of Management | 13 | 72.2% |
| The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth | 13 | 56.5% |
| UCLA Anderson School of Management | 11 | 73.3% |
| Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management | 11 | 37.9% |
| University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business | 10 | 71.4% |
| The University of Texas at Austin – Red McCombs School of Business | 10 | 47.6% |
| Harvard Business School | 8 | 57.1% |
| London Business School | 8 | 53.3% |
| University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business | 7 | 77.8% |
| UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School | 5 | 33.3% |
| INSEAD | 4 | 80.0% |
| Stanford University Graduate School of Business | 2 | 100.0% |
*(Centerview Partners, Evercore, Greenhill & Co., Lazard, Moelis & Company, Perella, Weinberg Partners, and PJT Partners)
| MBA program | Total | % of overall banking placements | |
| #1 | The Wharton School | 19 | 32.2% |
| #2 | Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management | 8 | 27.6% |
| #3 | The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 13 | 21.3% |
| #4 | Columbia University – Columbia Business School | 20 | 20.2% |
| #5 | University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 5 | 16.1% |
*(Centerview Partners, Evercore, Greenhill & Co., Lazard, Moelis & Company, Perella, Weinberg Partners, and PJT Partners)
| MBA Program | Total | % of overall banking placements |
| Columbia University – Columbia Business School | 20 | 20.2% |
| The Wharton School | 19 | 32.2% |
| The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 13 | 21.3% |
| NYU Stern School of Business | 8 | 10.4% |
| Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management | 8 | 27.6% |
| Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management | 5 | 11.1% |
| University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 5 | 16.1% |
| The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth | 4 | 17.4% |
| Harvard Business School | 3 | 21.4% |
| Yale School of Management | 3 | 13.6% |
| The University of Texas at Austin – Red McCombs School of Business | 3 | 14.3% |
| University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business | 2 | 14.3% |
| Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business | 1 | 3.7% |
| UCLA Anderson School of Management | 1 | 6.7% |
| UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School | 1 | 6.7% |
| University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business | 1 | 11.1% |
| MIT Sloan School of Management | 1 | 5.3% |
| MBA Program | Totals | % of class size | |
| #1 | NYU Stern School of Business | 77 | 20.6% |
| #2 | Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management | 45 | 16.1% |
| #3 | Columbia University – Columbia Business School | 99 | 13.1% |
| #4 | The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 61 | 10.4% |
| #5 | University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 31 | 9.2% |
There are many reasons why an MBA program might have a higher or lower percentage of students choosing investment banking careers. For example, at some MBA programs, investment banking placements will be a lower percentage of the class because students seek jobs in consulting or tech.
However, attending a business school where a larger percentage of the class recruits for banking still carries certain advantages.
First, it means that “future bankers” are a big enough constituency that school leadership feels pressure to keep them happy (by devoting resources to investment banking recruitment).
Second, it also means that you’ll be able to meet other would-be bankers not only in pre-banking clubs, but also in your classes and clusters/cohorts generally.
*for schools with 5 or more placements in Bulge Bracket & Elite Boutique roles
| MBA Program | Totals | % | |
| #1 | Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business | 96.3% | 26 |
| #2 | Yale School of Management | 90.9% | 20 |
| #3 | University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business | 88.9% | 8 |
| #4 | University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business | 85.7% | 12 |
| #5 | University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 83.9% | 26 |
| Total | % of class size | EB + BB as % of banking placements | |
| Columbia University – Columbia Business School | 99 | 13.1% | 76.8% |
| NYU Stern School of Business | 77 | 20.6% | 76.6% |
| The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | 61 | 10.4% | 77.0% |
| The Wharton School | 59 | 6.5% | 79.7% |
| Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management | 45 | 16.1% | 71.1% |
| University of Virginia Darden School of Business | 31 | 9.2% | 83.9% |
| Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management | 29 | 6.0% | 65.5% |
| Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business | 27 | 6.6% | 96.3% |
| The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth | 23 | 8.0% | 73.9% |
| University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business | 22 | 5.2% | 81.8% |
| Yale School of Management | 22 | 6.4% | 90.9% |
| The University of Texas at Austin – Red McCombs School of Business | 21 | 7.3% | 61.9% |
| MIT Sloan School of Management | 19 | 4.7% | 73.7% |
| London Business School | 15 | 3.2% | 53.3% |
| UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School | 15 | 4.4% | 40.0% |
| UCLA Anderson School of Management | 15 | 4.2% | 80.0% |
| Harvard Business School | 14 | 1.5% | 78.6% |
| University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business | 14 | 4.8% | 85.7% |
| University of Southern California – Marshall School of Business | 9 | 4.2% | 88.9% |
| INSEAD | 5 | 0.5% | 80.0% |
| Stanford University Graduate School of Business | 2 | 0.5% | 100.0% |
Most MBA applicants would already guess that Columbia, NYU Stern, Booth and Wharton have excellent investment banking placements, which has been confirmed by these statistics.
Other top MBA programs for banking placements may be under-appreciated by applicants, such as Cornell Johnson (whose investment banking recruitment process has been described at length by current students in this Reddit thread).
Attending an MBA program with a large total number of investment banking placements has certain advantages, such as a higher likelihood to meet fellow alumni during your career, or the fact that your MBA program has more leverage with banks (who will prioritize maintaining good relationships with their major feeders, rather than with MBA programs that send only a handful of graduates each year).
However, smaller numbers of total investment banking placements do not necessarily indicate weakness in that MBA program’s recruiting opportunities. It can also indicate that students at those schools prefer other career fields, or it can be related to a smaller student body.
For details on our general data gathering methodology, click here.
We analyzed investment banking job placements for the graduating classes of 2018, 2019 and 2020 and calculated two primary metrics:
Specifically, placements into Elite Boutique and Bulge Bracket firms. Within this report, we offer detail on total placements into Elite Boutique and Bulge Bracket firms as well as EB + BB counts as a percentage of all banking placements for each program.
Depending on your career goals post-MBA, this extra level of detail can help you determine the best program for Elite Boutique or Bulge Bracket employment tracks.
For example, if you want to know whether a given MBA program is likely to have alumni within the investment banking tiers you want to join, the total number of students that MBA program places into each category is the best predictor.
Alternatively, by-firm placements as a % of overall banking positions is a way to estimate the quality of an MBA program’s investment banking outcomes, without penalizing schools that have more popular post-MBA industries, such as consulting.
This is the number of students whose first full-time post-MBA jobs are in investment banking, and it measures the strength of an MBA program’s network in the industry.
Note on class sizes: where possible, class sizes are derived from employment reports. If employment reports are not available or graduating class sizes are not reported, figures reported at matriculation (in class profiles) are used.
| The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | |
| New York, New York, United States | 34 |
| Chicago, Illinois, United States | 15 |
| San Francisco, California, United States | 3 |
| Los Angeles, California, United States | 2 |
| Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States | 2 |
| Houston, Texas, United States | 2 |
| Palo Alto, California, United States | 1 |
| London, England, United Kingdom | 1 |
| Charlotte, North Carolina, United States | 1 |
| Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management | |
| New York, New York, United States | 11 |
| Chicago, Illinois, United States | 7 |
| San Francisco, California, United States | 2 |
| Atlanta, Georgia, United States | 1 |
| Boston, Massachusetts, United States | 1 |
| Houston, Texas, United States | 1 |
| Richmond, Virginia, United States | 1 |
| São Paulo, Brasil | 1 |
| St Petersburg, Florida, United States | 1 |
| Tampa, Florida, United States | 1 |
Dive deeper into our analysis of MBA employment data and discover how our MBA consultants can guide you towards lucrative investment banking opportunities.
