Lower semi-target school#49 of 100
Carnegie Mellon University investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Carnegie Mellon University is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #49 of the 100 schools we measure: 137 alumni list investment banking analyst titles alongside the 18 top banks from classes of roughly 2015 onward, weighted for school size, and its wider banking alumni network holds 781 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #49of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 13774% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 5439% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 781#55 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 107.1#47 per capita
- US-based
- 79%617 profiles
Is Carnegie Mellon a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataCarnegie Mellon shows 22 venture capital profiles per 100 IB profiles, the highest venture mix in this tier. Those 171 venture profiles rank #38, eleven places better than the school's IB rank of #49, which says the network's strength is not concentrated in banking so much as spread across the investing side of finance.
On banking specifically the numbers are workmanlike. Carnegie Mellon holds 137 top-bank analyst seats, ranking #53 by count, with the blend's per-student leg nudging the headline four places up to #49. Of those analysts, 54 sit at the elite five for a 39 percent share and 102 graduated in 2018 or later. Density sits just above the bar at 107.1 profiles per 1,000 undergraduates versus the 97.8 median, ranking #47 per capita.
Twenty-one percent of profiles are located outside the United States, so the domestic banking network is smaller than the 781 total implies, and 137 top-bank analysts is a thin base to recruit through. Carnegie Mellon works best for someone who values a network that reaches deep into venture and investing roles as much as into banking itself.
Carnegie Mellon investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Carnegie Mellon University's analysts at the 18 top banks we measure, graduates of 2013 or later with investment banking analyst titles, against the elite five. Its per-bank cells are not yet measured, so the breakdown by bank is the one thing this page cannot show.
- 18All 18 top banks we measure137
- 5The elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview54
By count alone Carnegie Mellon University ranks #53 of 100; the table of schools ranked nearby, below, sets that figure beside its neighbors.
Where Carnegie Mellon alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsCarnegie Mellon University’s rank in each vertical we count, by the same title-phrase method. Bars show its count as a share of that ranking’s #1 school. Per 100 IB shows the network mix: profiles per 100 IB profiles.
How to recruit for investment banking from Carnegie Mellon
Poets&Quants’ profile of Tepper reports that 2025 graduates posted the fifth-highest first-year compensation in its ranking, $102,397 on average, from a $92,170 salary and a $14,000 signing bonus that 73% received; 98% completed a business internship and 92.2% of job seekers had jobs within three months. Its top employers include PwC, Bank of America, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, MUFG, and UBS.
Tepper itself publishes no undergraduate employment report; its careers page says employers across consulting, finance, technology, and healthcare actively recruit its undergraduates and points to CMU’s Career & Professional Development Center dashboard, filtered to Tepper, for first destinations by employer, title, and salary.
The Tepper Finance Group, the largest undergraduate finance organization on campus with five clubs, runs an Investment Banking Academy that takes underclassmen through financial modeling, valuation, interview preparation, and networking. Its current board reads like a placement list: a president headed to Evercore as a summer analyst and vice presidents going to PJT Partners, J.P. Morgan, and Graham Partners.
Peak Frameworks ranks Carnegie Mellon #46 of 60 and #48 by total hires, a lower semi-target that places very well for a school not geared toward finance: nearly half its bankers are at one of the top five firms, with the best representation at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan, and 89% of its investment banking hires at bulge brackets.
Forum threads split on Tepper. One camp calls Carnegie Mellon a target for trading and quant seats, with the top proprietary trading firms recruiting on campus and nearly every bulge bracket recruiting for both internships and full-time roles; the other says the top banking and consulting firms recruit there lightly, that the school sits between semi-target and non-target for banking, and that a friend found recruiting tough with little alumni presence on the street. The tier lists place it with UNC, Boston College, Rice, and Indiana among semi-targets.
Our data ranks Carnegie Mellon #49 on 781 top-bank analysts from 7,289 undergraduates, or 107.1 per 1,000, the #47 per-capita figure in the country; 79% of its banking alumni network is US-based. Its per-bank cells are not yet fetched, so the neighbor table above stands in for a bank breakdown.
What Carnegie Mellon publishes about outcomes
8 figures, 2 sourcesEvery figure below is quoted from the source named above it, as published; none is ours. Read them beside our counts, which measure a different thing: analysts matched to named banks rather than a graduating class's outcomes.
Poets&Quants for Undergrads, Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business
- Average first-year compensation, Tepper 2025 graduates
- $102,397
- Average salary, Tepper 2025 graduates
- $92,170
- Average signing bonus, Tepper 2025 graduates
- $14,000 (73% received one)
- Graduates completing a business internship
- 98%
- Job seekers employed within three months
- 92.2%
Peak Frameworks, Carnegie Mellon University Investment Banking Placement
- Peak Frameworks rank
- #46 of 60
- Peak Frameworks rank by total hires
- #48
- Share of Peak-counted hires at bulge brackets
- 89%
How Carnegie Mellon compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Carnegie Mellon investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Carnegie Mellon University a target school for investment banking?
Carnegie Mellon University is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #49 of the 100 schools we measure: 137 alumni list investment banking analyst titles alongside the 18 top banks from classes of roughly 2015 onward, weighted for school size, and its wider banking alumni network holds 781 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
How many Carnegie Mellon alumni are analysts at the top investment banks?
137 Carnegie Mellon University alumni from the classes of roughly 2015 onward hold investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks we measure, the #53 count of the 100 schools ranked; 54 of them are at the elite five, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview. Its per-bank breakdown is not yet measured, so the table above compares its total with the top of the ranking.
Do banks treat Carnegie Mellon as a target school?
A semi-target for banking and a target for trading and quant roles by forum consensus; Peak Frameworks ranks it #46 of 60 with 89% of hires at bulge brackets. Our count ranks it #49 of 100.
What do Tepper undergraduates earn after graduation?
Poets&Quants reports $102,397 average first-year compensation for 2025 graduates, from a $92,170 salary and a $14,000 signing bonus, with 92.2% of job seekers placed within three months.
How do Carnegie Mellon students prepare for banking recruiting?
Through the Tepper Finance Group’s Investment Banking Academy, whose board is headed to Evercore, PJT Partners, and J.P. Morgan, and through the CMU first-destination dashboard the school points to for outcomes.
How many Carnegie Mellon University alumni work in private equity?
333 Carnegie Mellon University alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #54 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Carnegie Mellon University alumni work in venture capital?
171 Carnegie Mellon University alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #38 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Carnegie Mellon University alumni work in hedge fund?
53 Carnegie Mellon University alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #55 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Carnegie Mellon’s analysts
Counts come from People Data Labs, which aggregates public professional profiles. The headline rank is anchored on the strict measure: profiles that list Carnegie Mellon University in their education, a job title containing “investment banking analyst”, one of 18 named top banks as an employer, and a graduation year of 2013 or later — the analyst classes of roughly 2015 onward, deduplicated across banks. Those conditions hold on the profile rather than on a single job, so the title and the bank are usually but not provably the same role. The rank weights that count at two-thirds and the same count per 1,000 undergraduates at one-third, so school size is priced in. The elite-five figure counts analysts at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview. Data pulled 2026-10-16.
The alumni-network figure is broader: everyone who has held a title containing “investment banking” at any firm worldwide, across all years, including graduate alumni. It reads as the size of the school’s banking network rather than a single era’s placement. Of those, 617 (79%) are currently based in the United States and 164 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 7,289 total undergraduates reported for fall 2023 in the NCES IPEDS Fall Enrollment dataset — a school-size comparison, not a placement rate for a graduating class.
