Lower semi-target school#39 of 100
Claremont McKenna College investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Claremont McKenna College is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #39 of the 100 schools we measure: 132 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 514 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #39of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 13273% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 5239% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 514#71 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 372.2#13 per capita
- US-based
- 91%468 profiles
Is Claremont McKenna a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataClaremont McKenna records 372.2 IB profiles per 1,000 undergraduates, the highest density in this tier and nearly four times the 97.8 median. That figure ranks it #13 per capita while its 514 total profiles rank #71 by network size, a 58-place split that is the widest in this tier. With 1,381 undergraduates, everything about this school's numbers is a ratio story.
The density does convert into placement. Its 132 top-bank analysts rank #54 by count, and the blend's per-student leg lifts the headline fifteen places higher, to #39. Of those 132, 52 sit at the elite five for a 39 percent share, and 97 graduated in 2018 or later, a 73 percent recent share. Ninety-one percent of profiles are US-based.
The total network is one of the smallest in this tier at 514 profiles, and the buyside tail thins out fast, with 233 private equity profiles at #75 and 20 hedge fund profiles at #92. Claremont McKenna offers exceptional banking density per graduate, and the sheer number of alumni available to help is limited by how few people the school graduates.
Claremont McKenna investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Claremont McKenna College'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 measure132
- 5The elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview52
By count alone Claremont McKenna College ranks #54 of 100; the table of schools ranked nearby, below, sets that figure beside its neighbors.
Where Claremont McKenna alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsClaremont McKenna College’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 Claremont McKenna
Claremont McKenna is a liberal arts college of 1,381 undergraduates with a finance program most colleges its size lack. The Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, established in 2007, lets students concentrate on economics, accounting, and finance, runs a Master’s Program in Finance, and selects Robert Day Scholars from all five Claremont Colleges.
The Student Investment Fund, founded in 1974 from an alumnus’s gift of about $500 in securities, manages approximately $2,100,000 of the college endowment in long equities. The Financial Economics Institute behind it runs a winter-break trek that takes nine juniors and nine sophomores to New York to visit firms across the industry, a Cascade Fellowship of $15,000 a year for juniors and seniors headed into investment management, and tutoring in Bloomberg, Capital IQ, and Excel.
Forum accounts describe a West Coast school for banking: strong placement into Los Angeles and San Francisco offices, a couple of dozen students into banking in a given year with a handful straight to the buyside, most of them from the investment fund, and New York reachable but rarely chosen. Among the Claremont Colleges, the finance and accounting firms recruit at CMC and the other campuses borrow its career center.
The alumni angle is Henry Kravis and George Roberts, the KKR founders, both graduates who stay involved; the caution in the same threads is that CMC is a semi-target at best for banks outside California and that the on-campus recruiting is thinner than at a standard target, so East Coast seats take extra outreach.
Our data ranks Claremont McKenna #39 from the smallest base in this stretch of the ranking. Its per-bank cells are not yet fetched, so the neighbor table above stands in for a bank breakdown.
What Claremont McKenna publishes about outcomes
6 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.
Claremont McKenna, The Robert Day School of Economics and Finance
- Robert Day School established
- 2007
Financial Economics Institute at CMC, Student opportunities
- Student Investment Fund founded
- 1974
- Student Investment Fund assets
- approximately $2,100,000
- Student Investment Fund founding gift
- about $500 in securities
- New York trek participants each winter
- 9 juniors and 9 sophomores
- Cascade Fellowship award per year
- $15,000
How Claremont McKenna compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Claremont McKenna investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Claremont McKenna College a target school for investment banking?
Claremont McKenna College is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #39 of the 100 schools we measure: 132 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 514 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
How many Claremont McKenna alumni are analysts at the top investment banks?
132 Claremont McKenna College alumni from the classes of roughly 2015 onward hold investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks we measure, the #54 count of the 100 schools ranked; 52 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 Claremont McKenna as a target school?
A West Coast semi-target by forum consensus, strongest for Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. Our count ranks it #39 of 100 in the lower semi-target tier, from the smallest student body in this part of the ranking.
Which Claremont McKenna programs feed investment banking?
The Student Investment Fund, which forum posters call the main pipeline, the Robert Day School curriculum, and the Financial Economics Institute’s New York trek and fellowships.
Can you get to New York banking from Claremont McKenna?
Yes, with extra outreach; forum accounts say most finance students stay on the West Coast and that on-campus recruiting for New York is thin.
How many Claremont McKenna College alumni work in private equity?
233 Claremont McKenna College alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #75 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Claremont McKenna College alumni work in venture capital?
81 Claremont McKenna College alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #63 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Claremont McKenna College alumni work in hedge fund?
20 Claremont McKenna College alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #92 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Claremont McKenna’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 Claremont McKenna College 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, 468 (91%) are currently based in the United States and 46 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 1,381 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.
