Non-target school#94 of 100
University of Minnesota investment banking placement: is it a target school?
University of Minnesota is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #94 of the 100 schools we measure: 52 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 455 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #94of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 5267% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 1427% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 455#75 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 11.5#99 per capita
- US-based
- 80%362 profiles
Is Minnesota a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataMinnesota's two network reads disagree by 24 places: #75 by size and #99 per capita. 455 IB profiles spread across 39,556 undergraduates produce 11.5 per 1,000 undergraduates against a median of 97.8, and the headline sits at #94, anchored on top-bank analyst seats rather than on either of those broad measures.
52 alumni listed analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks since the 2013 class, ranking #86 on that measure, eight places ahead of the headline once the blend's per-student leg weighs in. 35 of them, or 67 percent, graduated in 2018 or later, and 14, or 27 percent, are at the elite five. 80 percent of profiles are US-based, leaving 93 located elsewhere. Private equity accounts for 49 profiles per 100 IB profiles.
The all-time, worldwide basis of the profile figure means it includes people who entered banking decades ago, so it should be read as a measure of network size rather than recent output. The top-bank count is the more honest indicator here, and 52 alumni reaching those firms since the 2013 class is a modest but genuine base to work from.
Minnesota investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+University of Minnesota'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 measure52
- 5The elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview14
By count alone University of Minnesota ranks #86 of 100; the table of schools ranked nearby, below, sets that figure beside its neighbors.
Where Minnesota alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsUniversity of Minnesota’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.
How to recruit for investment banking from Minnesota
Carlson’s 2025 undergraduate report has 97.1% of graduates with a job offer, their own business, graduate school, volunteering, or the military within 90 days, 88.8% reporting at least one internship, a $73,149 average starting salary, and 79% staying in Minnesota. Finance is the largest function at 26.1% of hires with a $79,248 mean on a $33,500 to $204,879 range, financial services the largest industry at 25.6%, and the mean signing bonus $6,736 on a $5,000 median.
The report’s list of organizations that hired Carlson students and graduates includes Piper Sandler, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Lazard, Evercore, Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Stifel, RBC, UBS, and Wells Fargo alongside the Twin Cities corporate base of Target, General Mills, Cargill, Ecolab, Medtronic, U.S. Bank, and Optum, which is where most of the class ends up.
The David S. Kidwell Funds Enterprise lets finance majors, MBAs, and finance master’s students manage more than $50 million of real money in the Carlson Growth Fund and Carlson Fixed Income Fund, the second-largest student-managed fund in the country by the school’s count; undergraduates take it as an intensive 8-credit, two-semester course, apply in November after an open house and interview, and from spring 2026 must complete Bloomberg Market Concepts and the CFA ethics program first.
Two clubs cover banking: the Investment Banking Club, founded in 2013 as the Investment and Finance Organization and since narrowed to banking, private equity, and other non-corporate finance roles, runs weekly sessions on modeling, valuation, accounting, and M&A with alumni guest speakers and takes members with no prior experience, while the Carlson Investment Banking Network is selective, recruits at the start of each semester, and pairs each member with a mentor who has accepted a banking offer, plus proprietary training materials and an alumni network.
Forum posters agree Carlson is a non-target that works best for those who want to stay in the Twin Cities: one reply says a student who really wanted banking and could have gotten into Northwestern or Michigan should have gone there, another passes along secondhand impressions of the school’s banking ties, a third compares it with Kelley as a great program for the cost whose value depends on where you want to land, and a 2024 thread on the local finance scene lists TripleTree’s healthcare technology practice with about sixty bankers and a large Houlihan Lokey office among the employers a Minnesota student can actually reach.
Our data ranks Minnesota #94 on 455 top-bank analysts, the #75 count in the country, from 39,556 undergraduates, or 11.5 per 1,000, the #99 per-capita figure; 80% 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 Minnesota publishes about outcomes
12 figures, 3 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.
Carlson School of Management, Undergraduate Employment & Internship Report 2025 (PDF)
- Graduates placed within 90 days, Class of 2025
- 97.1% (within 90 days)
- Graduates reporting at least one internship
- 88.8%
- Average starting salary, Class of 2025
- $73,149
- Graduates employed in Minnesota
- 79%
- Finance share of hires by function
- 26.1%
- Finance mean base salary
- $79,248
- Finance base salary range
- $33,500 to $204,879
- Financial services share of hires by industry
- 25.6%
- Mean signing bonus
- $6,736
- Median signing bonus
- $5,000
Carlson School of Management, Funds Enterprise
- Funds Enterprise assets under management
- more than $50 million
Carlson School of Management, Funds Enterprise Undergraduate Students
- Funds Enterprise course credits
- 8 over two semesters
How Minnesota compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Minnesota investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs University of Minnesota a target school for investment banking?
University of Minnesota is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #94 of the 100 schools we measure: 52 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 455 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
How many Minnesota alumni are analysts at the top investment banks?
52 University of Minnesota alumni from the classes of roughly 2015 onward hold investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks we measure, the #86 count of the 100 schools ranked; 14 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 Minnesota as a target school?
No; forum posters call Carlson a non-target best suited to staying in the Twin Cities, where TripleTree, Houlihan Lokey, and Piper Sandler hire, and say a student set on banking should have picked Northwestern or Michigan. Our count ranks it #94 of 100.
What share of Carlson graduates go into finance?
Finance is the largest function at 26.1% of Class of 2025 hires with a $79,248 mean starting salary, and financial services the largest industry at 25.6%, per the school’s 2025 report.
What is the Carlson Funds Enterprise?
A two-semester course in which finance majors and graduate students manage more than $50 million of real money in the Carlson Growth Fund and Carlson Fixed Income Fund, which the school calls the second-largest student-managed fund in the country.
How many University of Minnesota alumni work in private equity?
225 University of Minnesota alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #76 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many University of Minnesota alumni work in venture capital?
72 University of Minnesota alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #68 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many University of Minnesota alumni work in hedge fund?
32 University of Minnesota alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #78 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Minnesota’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 University of Minnesota 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, 362 (80%) are currently based in the United States and 93 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 39,556 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.
