the_prestige

Then this list can be a bit misleading since you are incorporating graduate school programs along with undergrad programs. Be that as it may here is a "back of the envelope" per capita ranking based on undergrad and business undergrad numbers per class (numbers as of '07 USNWR for undergrad and the latest Businessweek Ranking for undergrad b-school progs):

SCHOOL RATIO
1 Harvard University 9.21
2 Dartmouth College 30.69
3 University of Pennsylvania 37.04
4 Stanford University 37.11
5 Columbia University 38.58
6 Princeton University 47.27
7 University of Chicago 48.12
8 Yale University 55.04
9 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 59.00
10 Duke University 78.36
11 Georgetown University 84.98
12 Northwestern University 92.95
13 Cornell University 136.60
14 Brown University 143.90
15 University of Virginia 181.92
16 New York University 194.21
17 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 233.18
18 University of California-Berkeley 267.25
19 University of Texas-Austin 491.94

The key takeaway? Schools that don't have a law AND business grad school or an undergrad business school (such as Dartmouth, Princeton and Brown) punch way above their weight. Esp. Dartmouth.

(will be back to discuss later)

Alexandre

The_prestige, I don't think looking at per capita numbers is very meaningful. In this particular case, absolute numbers are more telling.

I am not sure I understand your point about universities with undergraduate business programs. Those students, had they attended a school with no undergraduate Business program, would have merely majored in another field and upon graduation, pursued a career in Finance.

Furthermore, Dartmouth has an MBA program. In fact, a significant chunk of the 35 Dartmouth students working at the three PE firms listed above are alums of Tuck.

Like I said, if you are going to break the numbers into per capita figures, you have to also provide details about the % of students at those universities who ever intended on pursuing careers in finance. It simply cannot be done. Best look at the absolute number.

UCBChemEGrad

Private equity? That's so 2007. I think the credit crunch has severely limited leveraged buyout deals for a while...

the_prestige

They point is a simple one. Take the earlier example I highlighted. UMich and Princeton are virtually tied in the absolute number of people in those three firms PE firms (UM with 27, Princeton with 26).

But that's only half the story (or even less) on two levels:

1) I'd be willing to bet that nearly every one of those 26 individuals are Princeton undergrad alums (if not all) whereas the UMich number is comprised of:

Now, I'm not saying that this is not a "legitimate" number -- after all these are all bona fide UM grads. But, as I said, this is not a real "apples to apples" comparison, which brings up point 2:

2) Normalized for size (per capita), Princeton punches way above UMich's weight. Add in the fact that if you compare undergrad numbers vs. undergrad numbers, Princeton's numbers look even more impressive.

That's all I wanted to point out. As I said, it's an interesting list. The key takeaway I get from this list is that some schools that don't have a traditional strong presence in Finance (e.g. don't have a B-School either grad or undergrad) still punch above their respective weights (e.g. Princeton and Brown -- a school I have argued on behalf in the past -- recall those ridiculous "core i-banking" "core consulting" threads).

collegebound9696

the list is misleading because some schools (i.e. NYU) have huge business undergrad programs. A school like Northwestern not only does not have a business undergrad program but has half the students of NYU.

ilovebagels

Oh yeah, Dartmouth DOES have a business school! Now this makes a bit more sense.

Alexandre

But Collegebound, if you go through the list, you will see that most Northwestern alums are in fact Kellogg alums.

Alexandre

The_prestige, I agree with your analysis. Of the 27 Michigan alums, 16 (60%)completed their undergraduate studies there. That's a pretty good perecentage if you compare it to many of schools on the list. I did not check how many Princeton alums completed there undergraduate studies at Princeton but like you, I am pretty certain it is more than 16.

However, like I said in my post above, there are two reasons why I think the absolute number matters more in this case:

1) Strength in numbers. The more alums representing a school, the more influence that group of alums has in recruiting efforts.

2) Maybe only 5% of the students at university X are interested in a career in finance compared to 30% of the students at university Y. In such a case, even if university X is 5 times larger than university Y, all other things being equal, university Y should still produce more finance professionals.

hawkette

A few questions:

1. If an employee attended Harvard undergrad and Wharton MBA, are you giving credit to both of those schools in your counting or are you assigning to only one and which one?

2. I think that there is pretty broad agreement that the top 10-20 MBA programs dominate placement coming out of graduate business schools at so-called "top" firms. Do you have the data just by undergraduate placement?

3. Do you have any data for West Coast-based firms (or for any areas outside of the Northeast)?

the_prestige

points all well noted Alex.

Alexandre

Hello Hawkette.

Answer to question 1. Yes, if one attended more than one school, both were included.

Answer to question 2. I agree with your statment. I did not break down the numbers by students attending the MBA program vs students attending schools as undergrads. I did so only for Michigan and as pointed above, only 9 of the 27 (exactly one third) are alums of the MBA program.

The Carlyle Group : Amble, Vishnu

http://www.carlyle.com/Team/item5858.html

The Carlyle Group : Tsou, Wayne Wen-Tsui

Bain Capital

Bain Capital

Bain Capital

Bain Capital

Bain Capital

The Carlyle Group : Bentley, Pam

The Carlyle Group : He, George X.

The Carlyle Group : Man, Edward

The Carlyle Group : Morgan, Kelsey

Bain Capital

In the case of Blackstone, if you go to the link below, look up the following:

The Blackstone Group - The Team

Amlicke, Bruce (Senior Managing Director)
Stein, William (Senior Managing Director)
Tolley, David (Senior Managing Director)
Rovine, Joshua (Managing Director)
Wee, Jeremy (Principal)

There are your 18 that did not attend the graduate Business school at Michigan.

Answer to question 3. I only looked at the five largest PE firms. Of those, the three largest had bios on their employees, the remaining two didn't. Are there any West Coast or Southern PE firms you think would offer bios on their employees?

UCBChemEGrad

Silver Lake Partners based in Menlo Park, CA.
http://www.silverlake.com/content.php?page=team

I briefly looked at the management team...Harvard was well represented, but one officer had a JD from Michigan. I did not pull up the profiles of members of their entire investment team, value creation team and administration team.

hawkette

That may depend on how you define private equity-if you include VC, then clearly there is a lot going on in California and I suspect that the West Coast colleges would come out looking a lot better. For example, KP and SLP undoubtedly have a very strong relationship with many of the California schools.

As for the undergrad question, I have long argued that many students from non-target undergraduate colleges can find their way to Wall Street, PE and otherwise. Frankly, it is probably more difficult to PE than the traditional investment banking firms. Anyway, as midatlmom points out, there is a lot of evidence in your link of broad undergraduate representation. Perhaps not in the same large numbers as some others, but the door is not fully blocked as others have argued. My longstanding point has been that students should focus more on college fit and where they would be happiest and less on which college might more advantageously position them for a 30-minute interview in their senior year.

As for non-NE firms, clearly TPG would be a good one to consider and I suspect you would find a lot of Rice, U Texas and other TX colleges well represented in their Fort Worth HQ. Likewise with the non-NE offices of the NYC-area firms that dominate your list and the industry.

Alexandre

Thanks for the link UCB. I will break down the numbers and share them with the group.

Alexandre

Hawkette, I looked at TPG but they did not list Bios on their employees.