Alumni representation (undergraduate only) at the top Private Equity firms

Colleges & Universities University of Michigan
1

<p>I said a while ago that I was going to go through the entire profile list of all the employees at the large PE firms that actually have a detailed list of employees. I finally went through 4 of the 5 most respected PE firms (Bain Capital, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR) and this is what I came up with. PE firms are sometimes regarded as the most desirable companies to work for in the finance industry. They typically recruit successful and seasoned consultants and investment banks. Although they do not recruit much from college campuses, universities with many undergraduate alums joining the ranks of PE firms were well positioned to do so in part thanks to their college education. PE firms also tend to be relatively small. Combined, the 4 PE firms I researched have 4,000 employees combined. As such, having even a few alums is an accomplishment. </p>

<p>I must say that with the exception of a couple of schools, I was not surprised with the outcome. Schools on the East Coast will attract a far more finance-centric student body than students in the Midwest or West Coast, and therefore will have more graduates going into finance. </p>

<ol>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 100</li>
<li>Harvard University 79</li>
<li>Princeton University 49</li>
<li>Cornell University 39</li>
<li>Georgetown University 37</li>
<li>University of Virginia 36</li>
<li>Duke University 33</li>
<li>Columbia University 29</li>
<li>Dartmouth College 29</li>
<li>New York University 29</li>
<li>Yale University 28</li>
<li>University of Michigan 25</li>
<li>Stanford University 21</li>
<li>University of California-Berkeley 18</li>
<li>Brown University 15</li>
<li>Northwestern University 12</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame 12</li>
<li>University of Texas-Austin 11</li>
<li>Boston College 10</li>
<li>Emory University 9</li>
<li>University of California-Los Angeles 9</li>
<li>Vanderbilt University 9</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins University 8</li>
<li>Rice University 7</li>
<li>Tufts University 7</li>
<li>University of Chicago 7</li>
<li>Williams College 7</li>
</ol>

<p>MIT only had 3, which I found very low for a university of such calibre. </p>

2

<p>Georgetown seems to have many more alums than I’d expect it to, and Williams has a ton considering it’s a small LAC.</p>

3

<p>McIntire kills Ross, especially since its undergrad bschool is almost half the size.</p>

<p>Wharton is not surprising magnitudes above everyone else. </p>

4

<p>Georgetown and Wiliam’s numbers are not surprising. Those are two elite colleges/universities on the East Coast, where a large section of the undergraduate student population come from the East Coast, many of whom have connections to the financial industry. The same can be said of Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke etc…Schools like Cal, Chicago, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford etc…do not have nearly as many students interested in the financial industry so their numbers are supposed to be relatively less impressive. </p>

<p>MIT is definitely a shocker. Brown and Yale are also relatively lower than expected, although it is common knowledge that their students typically do not lean as heavily on finance as students at other Ivies. </p>

5

<p>ForeverAlone, McIntire (and UVa) students are probably more finance focused than Ross (and Michigan) students. That’s symptomatic of its East Coast roots. </p>

<p>For the record, McIntire is not half the size of Ross. Until a couple of years ago, both had classes of 330-350. It is only in the last three years (2011-2013) that Ross has expanded from 350 to 400. But this recent expansion would not have an impact on the figures above as most of those PE firms hire people with graduate degrees or years of experience. Between 2008 and 2013, Ross graduated 2,172 undergrads while McIntire graduated 2,006 undergrads. Perhaps the confusion is due to the fact that McIntire is a 2 year program while Ross is a 3 year program. As such, when you see the number of students enrolled in each program, Ross will indeed appear to be twice as large.</p>

<p>Below are some comparative placement data for the available years (2008-2013):</p>

<p>Bank of America
McIntire 32
Ross 16</p>

<p>Barclays
McIntire 27
Ross 10</p>

<p>Citi
McIntire 33
Ross 45</p>

<p>Credit Suisse
McIntire 9
Ross 23</p>

<p>Deutschebank
McIntire 12
Ross 25</p>

<p>Goldman Sachs
McIntire 12
Ross 32</p>

<p>JP Morgan
McIntire 27
Ross 69</p>

<p>Morgan Stanley
McIntire 26
Ross 31</p>

<p>UBS
McIntire 27
Ross 23</p>

<p>TOTAL
McIntire 205
Ross 274</p>

<p>Clearly, Ross and McIntire are both extremely well recruited by BB IBanks. </p>

<p>It should be noted that smaller financial firms, such as Blackstone and Lazard recruit undergrads at both McIntire and Ross. However, since both of them usually recruit 1-2 from any one campus (other than Harvard and Wharton), they do not show up in many placement reports since those usually only list the largest employers (which usually recruit 4 or more graduates in any given year.</p>

<p>That being said, I am not surprised that so many Georgetown and UVa alums end up at major PE firms given their location and the large segment of their undergraduate students who end up pursuing long-term careers in finance. </p>

6

<p>I’m surprised to see how poorly Northwestern and University of Chicago graduates do on this front to be honest Alexandre. The postgraduate outcomes for Unversity of Chicago undergraduates across all areas including law, medicine, finance, consulting, etc. seem to be far worse than peer institutions like Duke and Penn. This is especially surprising because Booth is a top 5 MBA program so there must be plenty of Chicago alums in high places in the business word yet they don’t seem to be as interested in helping out the undergraduates by bringing their firms to recruit on the campuses.</p>

7

<p>I am not surprised ennisthemenace. There just isn’t that much interest in IBanking outside of the East Coast. At Penn, you probably have over 700 graduating seniors seeking jobs in Finance. I am not sure about Duke, but my friends who went there seemed to think that a large chunk of their classmates who were not premed or prelaw were gunning for IBanking jobs. At Michigan, Northwestern and Chicago, very few students are actually interested in jobs in Finance. Outside of Ross, fewer than 5% of Michigan students (mostly in the CoE) would seek jobs in finance. At Chicago and NU, IBanking just isn’t .</p>

<p>I was more surprised by MIT to be honest. Brown and Yale were also relatively low, but like Cal, Chicago, Michigan, NU and Stanford, they are not known for attracting many IBanking types. </p>

<p>As for Chicago’s placement in graduate programs, one should consider two factors:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Its size. Chicago has 5,000 undergraduate students (compared to Penn’s 10,000 and Duke’s 6,500). </p></li>
<li><p>Chicago has a larger than normal percentage of students interested in working in academe. At universities like Cal, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn, 6%-9% end up earning PhDs. At Chicago, it is a whopping 15%. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Even then, Chicago places as many students (in an absolute sense) into good Law and Medical schools as its peers. </p>

8

<p>

Did they post profiles of their IT departments? :)</p>

9

<p>MIT has a lot of alums going into IT and engineering. That will drastically reduce the %s going into PE. Though I do know a number of folks in PE from MIT, they tend to show their MBA school, Harvard over MIT. Did not even know that a couple of them went to MIT ug.</p>

10

<p>

Alexandre, why does the physical location of a university matter when the school draws students from all over the country? Below you can find the Class of 2017 profiles for Chicago and Duke:</p>

<p><a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/class-profile”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/class-profile&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://admissions.duke.edu/images/uploads/process/DukeClass2017Profile.pdf”>http://admissions.duke.edu/images/uploads/process/DukeClass2017Profile.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke has 29% of its undergraduate student body hailing from the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast while Chicago has 28% of its undergrads hailing from the same 2 regions that comprise the East Coast. Besides that, Chicago has 28% of its students hailing from the Midwest naturally while Duke has 32% of its most recent class coming from the Southeast. It would appear that there a similar number of undergraduates at these 2 schools from NY and other surrounding states like CT who may have families connected to the financial industry in Manhattan. Why would a Duke student from Florida be more interested in Finance than an UChicago student from Wisconsin?</p>

<p>In fact, considering that Chicago is perhaps the 2nd biggest financial hub alongside SF after NYC, there are probably more undergrads at Chicago that grew up in/around the financial industry so I’m not sure why more Duke students would be more interested in Finance than Chicago. You’re probably right about Penn though as its most recent class profile indicates that it has more than double the amount of undergrads coming from NY/MA/CT than Duke.</p>

<p>Although Penn has a much higher percentage of its student body coming from the Northeast than Michigan, it too has far fewer undergrads in total number coming from New York than U of M. I can’t find the link to U of M’s state-by-state breakdown to confirm however.</p>

<p>

I agree with your first 2 points but Chicago has less students enrolled by a noticeable amount at Hopkins Med, WashU Med, UVA Law, and Yale Law compared to the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, etc. I’m curious as to what the remaining 85% of Chicago’s student body who don’t go for PhDs do after graduation.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>It doesn’t surprise you that Georgetown has a higher amount of alums placed than Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Stanford, and others? Certainly these schools likely have alums with connections to the financial industry as well.</p>

12

<p>

</p>

<p>Good point. Along the same lines, without crunching the numbers (than you Alexandre for your prodigious efforts) I would guess that Williams has far fewer (in absolute terms) undergraduate students coming from the East Coast with connections to the financial industry than UM does. Yes, a higher percentage; but only a fraction in terms of the absolute number of students. Its important to understand the context of these comparisons.</p>

13

<p>ennisthemance, I was not referring to the residence status of the students, but of the location of the universities. East Coast universities attract more finance types than Midwestern schools or West Coast schools. IBanks do not prefer Cornell, Dartmouth, Georgetown or UVa students to Chicago, Michigan, Northwestern or Stanford students, I guarantee it! But there are far, far more students at Georgetown and UVa that apply for jobs in the financial sector than students from Chicago, Michigan, Northwestern or Stanford.</p>

<p>“I agree with your first 2 points but Chicago has less students enrolled by a noticeable amount at Hopkins Med, WashU Med, UVA Law, and Yale Law compared to the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, etc. I’m curious as to what the remaining 85% of Chicago’s student body who don’t go for PhDs do after graduation.”</p>

<p>Yale Law School (currently enrolled)
Brown 22
Chicago 15
Columbia 24
Cornell 7
Dartmouth 20
Northwestern 9
Penn 17</p>

<p>Michigan Law School (currently enrolled)
Brown 20-29
Chicago 20-29
Columbia 10-19
Cornell 20-29
Dartmouth 10-19
Northwestern 20-29
Penn 10-19</p>

<p>Chicago Law School
I cannot seem to find the data, but I know that Chicago is the most highly represented.</p>

<p>Northwestern Law School
Again, I cannot find the data, but I recall that NU was the most represented, closely followed by Chicago</p>

<p>JHU Medical School (currently enrolled)
Brown 10
Chicago 6
Columbia 14
Cornell 16
Dartmouth 9
Northwestern 5
Penn 7</p>

<p>WUSTL Medical School (enrolled between 1998-2013)
Brown 27
Chicago 18
Columbia 13
Cornell 37
Dartmouth 23
Northwestern 46
Penn 37</p>

<p>Considering that most of those peer schools (with the exception of Dartmouth) are larger than Chicago (Michigan five times larger, Cornell almost three times larger, Penn twice larger, Northwestern 60% larger, Columbia 35% larger, Duke 30% larger and Brown 12% larger), I think Chicago holds its own nicely. </p>

14

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>While normalizing is often a good practice for comparison, I’d point out that it’s unfair to Northwestern to count all of its population. 1/3 of them are in specialty schools (communications, music, education, and journalism). The students in these fields are less likely to pursue high finance or professional schools. When some of them do pursue them, their majors are less favored by the most prestigious professional schools (top law schools prefer history, English, poli-sci majors, for example). If you are looking at only the numbers in arts and sciences, Northwestern is actually smaller than Chicago (1,000 vs 1,400).</p>

<p>As for GT’s numbers in high finance, they got a huge undergrad business school. They are lacking in science and engineering. It seems natural to me the students there are more skewed toward finance than probably any peers except Penn.</p>

<p>But why do CC members keep focusing on finance? That’s so yesterday. The coolest jobs these days are in Silicon Valley. Many of the smart, ambitious, AND socially responsible grads are not looking at investment banks that arguably screwed our economy in the last decade or so.</p>

15

<p>“But why do CC members keep focusing on finance? That’s so yesterday. The coolest jobs these days are in Silicon Valley. Many of the smart, ambitious, AND socially responsible grads are not looking at investment banks that arguably screwed our economy in the last decade or so.”</p>

<p>I agree. This thread was just the product of an observation I made several months ago. These days, Michigan students are increasingly , across all colleges, taking jobs with the likes of Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft and many smaller startups. </p>

16

<p>

Do you have any proof of this? Michigan actually has a dedicated undergraduate business school, Northwestern has MMS plus the Kellogg Certificate, and Chicago has CCIB (Chicago Careers In Business), and Economics is actually Stanford’s most popular major so I’m guessing the vast majority of their graduates will work in i-banks and consulting firms (on the West Coast though primarily).</p>

<p>Keep in mind that Chicago and San Francisco are major financial hubs as well and all the bulge bracket banks have secondary or tertiary offices in these cities as well. It doesn’t make logical sense that U of M would have attract less applicants to banks than Georgetown or UVA given its sizeable and highly ranked undergraduate business program, multiple professional business fraternities, specialty majors like Financial Economics and Organizational Studies, etc. etc.</p>

<p>

Chicago usually does better than only 1 other Ivy in all these preprofessional lists Alexandre. Cornell, Michigan, and Penn all have Nursing schools in addition to other preprofessional programs like undergraduate business, kinesiology, pharmacy, etc. whose enrolled students typically will not apply to law school or medical school.</p>

<p>Chicago is a 100% liberal arts school so all of their graduates will either pursue graduate studies, professional studies, or aim for jobs in the investment banking or management consulting sector. Remember, Chicago doesn’t even have an engineering school!</p>

<p>Again, the professional success of its graduates severely lags its academic reputation which is not good.</p>

17

<p>How can you guys continue to spew such rubbish without paying attention to the actual facts on the ground? Chicago has the HIGHEST - i repeat - the HIGHEST number of alumni in the asset management business, relative to the size of its undergraduate body. Here’s an article: </p>

<p><a href=“A List of Top Schools Feeding the Asset Management Industry - WSJ”>A List of Top Schools Feeding the Asset Management Industry - WSJ;

<p>And here is the specific picture that shows this fact:
<a href=“http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-CY762_chart7_G_20140527134418.jpg”>http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-CY762_chart7_G_20140527134418.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As we can see, the corporate stalwarts of Penn, Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton all make an appearance as well. </p>

18

<p>Nice try neweducation, according to that report, UChicago is #31 among undergraduate institutions when ranking by bachelor’s graduates and #17 when ranking by Bachelor’s Graduates Scaled for School Size.</p>

<p>Chicago Booth is an absolute powerhouse though.</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>Most people on CC would rather be Lloyd Blankfein than Jack Dorsey for some reason</p>

20

<p>“Again, the professional success of its graduates severely lags its academic reputation which is not good.”</p>

<p>Unlike a certain school whose undergraduate academic peer assessment reputation severely lags when compared to its lofty USNWR ranking. </p>