Semi-target school#20 of 100
Northwestern University investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Northwestern University is a semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #20 of the 100 schools we measure: 523 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 2,314 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #20of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 52380% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 25048% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 2,314#17 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 252.7#20 per capita
- US-based
- 85%1,966 profiles
Is Northwestern a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataNorthwestern splits the difference between the broad measures — #17 by network size and #20 per capita — and the headline lands at #20 as well, resting on 523 alumni in investment banking analyst seats at the 18 top banks since the 2013 class, the #21 count on that measure. The broad base is 2,314 investment banking profiles from 9,157 undergraduates — 252.7 profiles per 1,000 undergraduates, more than two and a half times the 100-school median of 97.8.
The network's defining tilt is private equity: 55 private equity profiles per 100 IB profiles, the highest ratio anywhere in the top 20 — ahead of even Harvard's 51 — and the 1,280 private equity profiles rank #12, outpacing the school's own #20 IB standing. Venture capital adds 17 per 100 IB profiles, and 85% of the network stays US-based, 1,966 profiles in all.
Ratios can overstate as easily as counts: 55 private equity profiles per 100 IB profiles describes where the alumni network eventually settled, not the odds that a current analyst makes that jump, and the 2,314-profile base is mid-sized enough that the mix shifts with each cohort. The verdict is a school that lands at #20 with every measure within a few places — network size #17, top-bank count #21 — a genuinely proportioned banking network with an unusually buyside-heavy afterlife.
Northwestern investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Northwestern 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 Sachs85
- 2Bank of America84
- 3J.P. Morgan80
- 4Morgan Stanley65
- 5Citi48
- 6Deutsche Bank40
- 7Evercore38
- 8UBS38
- 9Barclays35
- 10Lazard28
- 11Moelis27
- 12Houlihan Lokey21
- 13Jefferies20
- 14Wells Fargo17
- 15PJT Partners12
- 16Centerview6
- 17Perella Weinberg6
- 18RBC Capital Markets5
Banks with fewer than five matched analysts, and banks not yet measured for this school, are left off the list. Of the 523 analysts at the 18 banks, 250 (48%) are at the elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview.
Where Northwestern alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsNorthwestern 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 Northwestern
Northwestern Career Advancement publishes a first-destination report six months after graduation. For the Class of 2024, drawn from 1593 of 2080 graduates, a 77% response, 72% were employed and 25% in graduate school or a fellowship. Business services, financial services, and investment banking was the largest industry at 23%, ahead of engineering at 18% and consulting at 13%.
The same report breaks out pay by industry: investment banking hires reported a mean starting salary of $109,500 and financial services hires $94,436, against an average of $77,978 across every employed graduate in the class.
Kellogg runs a Certificate Program for Undergraduates: four courses taught by Kellogg faculty toward a Financial Economics or a Managerial Analytics certificate, about 50 students a year per track, a 3.0 average across the prerequisite courses to apply, and a dedicated career specialist for internships and offers.
Northwestern University Investment Banking Club was founded in early 2014 by students who saw more high performers interested in banking than the career office was placing. It is selective, and runs weekly educational meetings, annual treks to New York and Chicago, mentorship, mock interviews, and an alumni database.
Forum accounts call Northwestern a top target for Chicago and a target for New York that has improved sharply in the last decade, largely through the club: a current student says every elite boutique and top bulge bracket recruits on campus, posters credit the club with placing nearly all of its members, and one recent graduate counts ten classmates signing Blackstone summer offers in a single cycle.
The same threads note that consulting draws more Northwestern students than banking, which thins the on-campus competition, and that only the first four quarters of grades matter for the sophomore-year timeline.
Our data shows the buyside afterlife those Blackstone anecdotes hint at: 55 private equity profiles per 100 investment banking profiles, the highest ratio in the top 20, and 1,280 private equity profiles ranking #12. The headline #20 rests on 523 top-bank analysts.
What Northwestern publishes about outcomes
11 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.
Northwestern Career Advancement, Beyond Northwestern: the undergraduate Class of 2024
- Class of 2024 graduates in the report
- 1593 (77%)
- Employed within six months, Class of 2024
- 72%
- Graduate school or fellowship, Class of 2024
- 25%
- Business services, financial services, and investment banking share of the employed
- 23%
- Engineering share
- 18%
- Consulting share
- 13%
- Investment banking mean starting salary, Class of 2024
- $109,500
- Financial services mean starting salary, Class of 2024
- $94,436
- Average starting salary, all employed graduates
- $77,978
Kellogg Certificate Program for Undergraduates
- Kellogg certificate seats per track per year
- ~50
- Kellogg certificate prerequisite GPA
- 3.0
How Northwestern compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Northwestern investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Northwestern University a target school for investment banking?
Northwestern University is a semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #20 of the 100 schools we measure: 523 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 2,314 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
Which banks hire the most Northwestern analysts?
By our count, Goldman Sachs leads with 85 Northwestern alumni holding investment banking analyst titles, then Bank of America with 84 and J.P. Morgan with 80, among graduates of 2013 or later at the 18 top banks we measure.
Do banks treat Northwestern as a target or a semi-target?
A top target for Chicago and a target for New York by forum accounts. Our count puts it #20 of 100, at the top of the semi-target tier, with a private equity network that outranks its banking rank.
Is Northwestern a Chicago school or a New York school for banking?
Chicago first, historically, and New York now by the account of current students who say every elite boutique and top bulge bracket recruits on campus.
Which Northwestern programs feed investment banking?
The Investment Banking Club is the pipeline students name, and the Kellogg certificate adds finance coursework the arts and sciences curriculum lacks.
How many Northwestern University alumni work in private equity?
1,280 Northwestern University alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #12 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Northwestern University alumni work in venture capital?
395 Northwestern University alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #13 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Northwestern University alumni work in hedge fund?
104 Northwestern University alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #23 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Northwestern’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 Northwestern 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, 1,966 (85%) are currently based in the United States and 348 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 9,157 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.
