Target school#9 of 100
Princeton University investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Princeton University is a target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #9 of the 100 schools we measure: 535 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 1,992 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #9of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 53575% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 27752% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 1,992#23 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 351.3#14 per capita
- US-based
- 88%1,754 profiles
Is Princeton a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataA majority of Princeton's recent top-bank analysts work at the elite five: 277 of 535, or 52 percent. Goldman Sachs takes 110 of the total and J.P. Morgan 100, so those two firms alone hold nearly 40 percent of the school's top-bank footprint. Morgan Stanley and Barclays sit behind them at 71 apiece, and the counts fall away quickly after that, with Bank of America at 55.
Density is the strongest of the broad-network reads, #14 at 351.3 profiles per 1,000 undergraduates against a 97.8 median, while network size places it #23 on 1,992 profiles. The headline #9 runs ahead of both, and ahead of the #20 rank by top-bank count, because the blend's per-student leg rewards a 5,671-undergraduate school this concentrated. Eighty-eight percent of the network is US-based, and private equity supplies 41 profiles per 100 IB profiles.
Profiles count anyone who lists the school in education, so graduate-degree holders sit in the same pool as undergraduates and a small undergraduate enrollment does not by itself explain the 1,992 total. The verdict: a mid-sized network by headcount that is unusually concentrated at the elite-five firms.
Princeton investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Princeton 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 Sachs110
- 2J.P. Morgan100
- 3Barclays71
- 4Morgan Stanley71
- 5Bank of America55
- 6Citi53
- 7Deutsche Bank36
- 8UBS19
- 9Wells Fargo18
Banks with fewer than five matched analysts, and banks not yet measured for this school, are left off the list. Of the 535 analysts at the 18 banks, 277 (52%) are at the elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview.
Where Princeton alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsPrinceton 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 Princeton
Princeton has no business school and no finance major, and its students go into finance at a lower rate than the rank on this page implies. The Daily Princetonian's 2025 senior survey put finance at 11.1% of the class, consulting at 6.1%, software engineering at 4.9%, and business at 2.0%, with 12.6% headed to graduate school or academia.
Career Center data reported by the same paper in 2023 puts the business industry at around 30% of alumni each year, and shows New York's share of graduates falling from 34% for the Class of 2016 to under 27% for the Class of 2021.
Tiger Investments, founded in 2009, is the oldest student-run investment club and takes applications each fall. Tiger Capital Management, founded in 2013, calls itself the premier investing organization on campus and one of the most successful student-run hedge funds anywhere, with an admissions process and a training program behind the claim.
Business Today, founded in 1968 by Steve Forbes and two classmates and still run by undergraduates, is the conference-and-magazine side of the business scene: three national conferences a year and a seminar series that put students in rooms with executives.
Forum accounts describe self-selection into buyside and quant seats out of undergrad, and a student on Wall Street Oasis complained of a thin alumni presence at some elite boutiques and a career office less wired to banks than peers'. Replies said the gap is real at a few firms and closes with proactive outreach.
The same threads flag grade deflation and warn that banking fills its seats sophomore year, so a junior switching from quant or research needs to move early and consider Houston or Charlotte as a first market.
The elite-five share on this page is the measured answer to the thin-network worry: it shows how much of Princeton's top-bank presence sits at the five firms students name, and the bank breakdown shows the rest.
What Princeton publishes about outcomes
11 figures, 6 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.
The Daily Princetonian, Are Princeton students in the nation's service? (2025)
- Finance share, Class of 2025 (Daily Princetonian senior survey)
- 11.1%
- Consulting share, Class of 2025
- 6.1%
- Software engineering share, Class of 2025
- 4.9%
- Business share, Class of 2025
- 2.0%
The Daily Princetonian, Senior Survey 2025: After Princeton
- Graduate school or academia, Class of 2025
- 12.6%
The Daily Princetonian, Career Center data shows more students going to graduate school (2023)
- Alumni entering the business industry each year (Career Center data)
- 30%
- New York share of graduates, Class of 2016
- 34%
- New York share of graduates, Class of 2021
- under 27%
Tiger Investments
- Tiger Investments founded
- 2009
Tiger Capital Management, About
- Tiger Capital Management founded
- 2013
Wikipedia, Business Today (student magazine)
- Business Today founded
- 1968
How Princeton compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Princeton investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Princeton University a target school for investment banking?
Princeton University is a target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #9 of the 100 schools we measure: 535 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 1,992 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
Which banks hire the most Princeton analysts?
By our count, Goldman Sachs leads with 110 Princeton alumni holding investment banking analyst titles, then J.P. Morgan with 100 and Barclays with 71, among graduates of 2013 or later at the 18 top banks we measure.
Is Princeton a target for investment banking with no finance major?
Yes: #9 of 100 by our count and Tier 1 on forum lists. The missing major is a curriculum gap the clubs fill.
Why do students say Princeton's banking network feels thin?
Self-selection into buyside and quant roles, and a smaller alumni presence at a few elite boutiques by one student's count. Our elite-five share shows where the banking alumni actually concentrate.
Which Princeton clubs feed investment banking?
Tiger Investments and Tiger Capital Management for investing, Business Today for executive access.
How many Princeton University alumni work in private equity?
812 Princeton University alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #28 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Princeton University alumni work in venture capital?
209 Princeton University alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #26 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Princeton University alumni work in hedge fund?
95 Princeton University alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #29 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Princeton’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 Princeton 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, 1,754 (88%) are currently based in the United States and 238 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 5,671 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.
