<p>Depends what kind of investment banking you want. The Goldmans and the Morgans of this world get all they need from Ivies. If you want some second tier regional investment bank, then you are fine.</p>
<p>If you want to be a salesman (i.e., selling stocks and bonds to institutional investors), then it really doesn’t matter much where you get your degree, as the people who run those institutions themselves tend to have non-Ivy degrees. If you want to do corporate finance – in the sense of mergers and acquisitions and IPOs, etc – forget about it if you aren’t Ivy or near-Ivy. These are the creme de la creme and the owners of these business don’t want some State-school kid giving them crucial advice. They want to know your smarts were really vetted at the best schools. But, as I mentioned, for sales, they’ll take anyone with pulse who can prove they can build a book of business. If you can’t after six months or so, you’re history. You will never see the inside of corporate suite as a salesman, but you could be making big bucks and still call yourself an “investment banker,” snark snark.</p>