Lower semi-target school#40 of 100
Northeastern University investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Northeastern University is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #40 of the 100 schools we measure: 277 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 1,554 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #40of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 27785% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 14853% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 1,554#30 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 97.8#51 per capita
- US-based
- 78%1,211 profiles
Is Northeastern a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataNortheastern's top-bank presence is almost entirely new: 235 of its 277 analysts graduated in 2018 or later, an 85 percent recent share. That leaves only 42 people from earlier cohorts, so the network was built across roughly the last five analyst classes. Goldman Sachs leads the firm counts at 68 and Morgan Stanley follows at 50, while UBS at 39 edges out J.P. Morgan's 38.
Density lands exactly on the 100-school median, 97.8 profiles per 1,000 undergraduates, for a #51 rank, while the broad network ranks #30 on 1,554 profiles. Its top-bank rank of #34 runs six places ahead of the #40 headline, with the per-student leg pulling the blend back. Elite-five firms hold 148 of the 277 analysts, or 53 percent, and the buyside mix is heavy at 67 private equity profiles per 100 IB profiles, with hedge funds ranking #6 on 239 profiles.
A pipeline this recent has less history behind it, so the top-bank figures describe a trajectory measured over a handful of analyst classes rather than a settled long-run pattern. The verdict is a young network whose recent skew and elite-firm share both point in the same direction.
Northeastern investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Northeastern University analysts at each of the top banks we measured — graduates of 2013 or later with investment banking analyst titles. Banks with published feeder pages link through.
- 1Goldman Sachs68
- 2Morgan Stanley50
- 3Bank of America42
- 4UBS39
- 5J.P. Morgan38
- 6Citi21
- 7Wells Fargo21
- 8Barclays5
Banks with fewer than five matched analysts, and banks not yet measured for this school, are left off the list. Of the 277 analysts at the 18 banks, 148 (53%) are at the elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview.
Where Northeastern alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsNortheastern 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 Northeastern
D'Amore-McKim's 2024 employment report covers 1209 graduates with data on 1031: an $82,904 average and $80,000 median salary, 23% at $100,000 or more, and 33% with a bonus in the offer. By function, 15% of graduates work in investment banking, private equity and venture, equity research, or sales and trading at a $100,000 median, 10% in analytics, and 6% in consulting; by industry, 35% are in finance, banking, and insurance and 20% in professional services.
The Finance and Investment Club is the largest and oldest finance club on campus, with a peer mentorship program pairing upperclassmen with underclassmen, a semester-long investment simulation on live market data, resume and analysis workshops, and Wall Street Prep access for members at a reduced fee.
The co-op program is the distinctive route. Forum accounts describe three six-month paid placements over five years, with dozens of front-office finance co-ops each semester across banking, venture, middle-market private equity, credit, and public equities, and a banking pipeline that puts a couple of dozen students a semester into banks, most of them boutiques and middle-market firms.
The same threads call Northeastern a non-target or a semi-non-target that places well into middle-market firms and Boston asset managers, and say bulge-bracket seats take a high GPA plus heavy networking, with the co-op resume as the edge over other non-target candidates. One poster notes Boston College outrecruits it in Boston; another says co-op schools have improved across the board.
Our data ranks Northeastern #40, the last school in this batch, from a base of 15,891 undergraduates. The bank breakdown above shows which of the 18 measured firms hold the most Northeastern analysts.
What Northeastern publishes about outcomes
11 figures, 1 sourceEvery 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.
Northeastern D'Amore-McKim, 2024 Undergraduate Employment Report
- Graduates covered, D'Amore-McKim Class of 2024
- 1209 (data on 1031)
- Average salary, Class of 2024
- $82,904
- Median salary, Class of 2024
- $80,000
- Graduates with salaries of $100,000 or more
- 23%
- Graduates with a bonus in the offer
- 33%
- Investment banking, private equity and venture, equity research, or sales and trading share
- 15%
- Median salary in those functions
- $100,000
- Analytics share
- 10%
- Consulting share
- 6%
- Finance, banking, and insurance share by industry
- 35%
- Professional services share by industry
- 20%
How Northeastern compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Northeastern investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Northeastern University a target school for investment banking?
Northeastern University is a lower semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #40 of the 100 schools we measure: 277 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 1,554 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
Which banks hire the most Northeastern analysts?
By our count, Goldman Sachs leads with 68 Northeastern alumni holding investment banking analyst titles, then Morgan Stanley with 50 and Bank of America with 42, among graduates of 2013 or later at the 18 top banks we measure.
Do banks treat Northeastern as a target school?
No by forum consensus, which calls it a non-target that places well into middle-market firms through co-ops. Our count ranks it #40 of 100, in the lower semi-target tier.
How does co-op help with banking recruiting at Northeastern?
Three six-month paid placements over five years put a couple of dozen students a semester into banks by forum accounts, and a co-op resume is the edge when applying for summer analyst seats outside the program.
What share of Northeastern business graduates go into front-office finance?
By the 2024 employment report, 15% work in investment banking, private equity and venture, equity research, or sales and trading, at a $100,000 median salary.
How many Northeastern University alumni work in private equity?
1,046 Northeastern University alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #19 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Northeastern University alumni work in venture capital?
304 Northeastern University alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #18 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Northeastern University alumni work in hedge fund?
239 Northeastern University alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #6 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Northeastern’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 Northeastern 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, 1,211 (78%) are currently based in the United States and 343 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 15,891 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.
