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Penn State University
Penn State is a top-ranked public research university based in University Park, Pennsylvania. Not to be confused with its Ivy League counterpart UPenn, Penn State is a large school with great athletics and reasonable placement into finance.
Penn State ranks #33 on our investment banking target school list, classifying it as a "lower semi-target" school. Although it is possible to break into investment banking from Penn State, it is typically only the very top students who have access.
Penn State is home to the Smeal School of Business, a well-regarded educational institution offering business programs for both undergraduates and graduates.
Penn State ranks #28 for Total Hires and #49 for Undergrad Placement %. Similar to other public schools, Penn State's large student body holds back its ranking on this metric.
Penn State sends the vast majority (96%) of its investment banking hires to bulge brackets. Penn State's most common investment banking destinations are Bank of America and Citi. Similarly, Penn State has very minimal presence at the Elite Boutiques (just 4% of hires).
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: 1855
Location: University Park, Pennsylvania
Business School Name: Smeal
# of Undergrads: 40,600 per U.S. News
# of Business School Undergrads: N/A
Median Starting Salary (2022): $42k
President: Neeli Bendapudi
U.S. News Global Rank (2022-2023): #84
QS World University Rankings: #83
Financial Times MBA Rank: #47