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Harvard University
Harvard University is a legendary school that needs no introduction. Harvard has long been regarded as the top school in the U.S. and its graduates have tremendous career options.
Harvard is the oldest university in North America and has had plenty of time to build its reputation as an academic powerhouse. Harvard has excellent placement in finance and is one of the few universities that sends undergrads into the top private equity firms and hedge funds.
Harvard ranks #3 on our investment banking target school list, behind only UPenn and Georgetown. Harvard's score is extremely close to Georgetown's, but Harvard is held back by being #8 on Total Hires due to its smaller student population.
We make explicit note that this target school list is an investment banking list and many of Harvard's students opt to go directly to the buyside, which would hurt their placement here.
Harvard is also home to the Harvard Business School, often regarded alongside Stanford's Graduate School of Business as one of the best MBA programs in the world. We observe that many investment bankers and private equity professionals plan their careers in order to go to HBS or GSB.
Harvard does not offer a strict business degree, so Harvard's investment banking hopefuls often major in a field such as economics, statistics, or the liberal arts. This is a contrast to the heavy business focus of UPenn (Wharton), in which students rigorously study finance topics in school.
Harvard University is ranked #8 for total hires into the top U.S. investment banks and has a phenomenal Undergrad Placement % of 2.29%, coming in at #2 on the list just behind UPenn.
Harvard has incredibly recruiting statistics on the buyside, which is highlighted by its placements into top private equity firms. As a top Ivy League, Harvard is a definite target school among all elite financial institutions.
Our investment banking target school list is a complete rank of 60 schools and analyzed >60k LinkedIn profiles of professionals who worked in investment banking between 2008 and 2023. We filtered the data to examine U.S. hires into the top investment banks.
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Investment Banking Placement
School Factsheet
Established: 1636
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Business School Name: Harvard Business School (HBS)
# of Undergrads: 7,153 per U.S News
# of Business School Undergrads: 0
Median Starting Salary (2022): $90k-109k
President: Claudine Gay
U.S. News Global Rank (2022-2023): #1
QS World University Rankings: #4
Financial Times MBA Rank: #1