Agreed. Based on reputation of which I’m aware, the NESCACs that stand out on that list for ‘real’ banking analyst jobs are Williams and Middlebury. I see and hear Amherst less often and Bowdoin much less often. I interact with Investment Bankers all the time.
One other trend I’m seeing is not so much a shift away from elite schools but rather an opening of some room for non-elite school producers, especially those with business schools. SMU, for example. A while ago it was Notre Dame, which at the time that trend started was not what I’d call elite. Very solid, yes. But not elite. ND is a real established pipeline now.
Rankings can be all over the place on this topic, but I’d throw out any ranking that has Wharton outside of the T5. Seriously. They don’t know what they’re talking about if they have more than 4 schools ahead of them.
I think that’s @cquin85 's point. Wharton’s footprint on the Penn campus is such that it is almost universally regarded as a separate entity by the rest of the university; one could argue with some justification that it is the only Ivy whose business school is more prestigious than its arts and science division.
It might also be worth mentioning that Penn sends a lot of kids into banking who earned BS degrees in economics from Wharton, so not just finance people.
Admittedly, I didn’t dig into how the adjusted rankings are adjusted. But however you slice it, there’s no better path to banking than a degree from Wharton. Like @circuitrider said: Wharton may represent the very best of Penn.
I do, though, strongly support your support (by posting rankings or otherwise) of the LACs as places from which one can launch a career in banking. Especially in this era in which we’ve seen the pendulum swing hard in the direction of a preference to hire business school, “plug and play” students. That message needs to get out. The LACs have produced some big names: Walter Wriston, Jamie Dimon and David Solomon, to name a few banking titans.
Once again the NESCAC did well. Tufts finished third, Middlebury finished fifth, Amherst came in at seventh, and Williams was eleventh, just outside of the top 10. If you consider LACs separately from their larger peers Midd, Amherst, and Williams were the top three.
Several NESCACs could be adversely affected by the Republican sponsored tax and spending bill now being considered by the Senate:
“Under the provision, part of a far larger Republican budget proposal, private institutions with endowment assets of between $500,000 and $749,999 per enrolled student would continue paying the current 1.4% tax rate on the investment gains of their endowments. The tax rate on investment gains would increase to 7% for universities with endowment assets between $750,000 and $1.25 million per student; 14% for private universities with endowment assets per student between $1.25 million and $2 million; and 21% for endowment assets of at least $2 million per student.”
Right now, the NESCACs taking the biggest hits would be Amherst, Williams, and Bowdoin, looking down the barrel of a tenfold increase increase in their tax bills.
"In an interview, [Williams] president, Maud S. Mandel, said the school devoted $92 million from its endowment this year to help over half the school’s student body.
‘Any tax on the endowment would have a direct impact on that,’ she said.
And in California, Pomona College’s vice president, Jonathan B. Williams, said the tax would cost the school $40 million a year, the equivalent of 460 full scholarships. Its enrollment is about 1,700.
‘This will shift the cost of tuition squarely on to families,’ he said."
Yeah, I really don’t think average Americans (i.e., people who don’t spend all their time on CC) are aware of how much these billion dollar endowments are necessary to keeping private colleges affordable; no one is making a profit from them.
And I think that this might motivate some of the private school’s facing high taxes to increase tuition even more … raise revenue from those who can afford it.
The NESCACs are well represented in the race for New York City mayor. Bowdoin grad Zohran Mamdani just won the Democratic primary, and Hamilton grad Jim Walden is running as an independent candidate.
BREAKING NEWS: Senate poised to create exemption for “small colleges”. An eight percent tax on endowment income will kick in once “tuition paying” enrollment exceeds 3,000. The move comes after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a previously proposed carve out for religious schools was a policy change and not a fiscal proposal which only requires a majority vote to pass: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/28/congress/senate-republicans-further-dial-back-endowment-tax-plans-00430938
