Non-target school#90 of 100
Santa Clara University investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Santa Clara University is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #90 of the 100 schools we measure: 37 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 262 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #90of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 3778% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 1541% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 262#92 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 41.9#70 per capita
- US-based
- 91%238 profiles
Is Santa Clara a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the dataSanta Clara's venture capital presence is the standout figure: 113 venture capital profiles, or 43 per 100 IB profiles, which ranks #51 on that vertical against a banking rank of #90. The banking network itself runs to 262 profiles, and 37 alumni listed investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks since the 2013 class.
29 of those 37, or 78 percent, graduated in 2018 or later, and 15, or 41 percent, are at the elite five. Density comes to 41.9 IB profiles per 1,000 undergraduates from a base of 6,249, below the median of 97.8 and good for #70 per capita. 91 percent of profiles are US-based, with private equity at 60 profiles per 100 IB profiles.
The top-bank rank of #96 sits six places behind the headline #90, a gap the per-student leg of the blend closes, and 37 people is a small group in absolute terms. The distinguishing feature is the mix rather than the size, and this network is more useful to a student weighing venture capital than the banking rank alone would indicate.
Santa Clara investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Santa Clara University'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 measure37
- 5The elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview15
By count alone Santa Clara University ranks #96 of 100; the table of schools ranked nearby, below, sets that figure beside its neighbors.
Where Santa Clara alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsSanta Clara 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.
How to recruit for investment banking from Santa Clara
Santa Clara’s career center reports a $78,308 average starting salary for Class of 2025 undergraduates from its First Destination Survey and a top-ten employer list that is entirely technology, Google, Apple, Cisco, Amazon, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Meta, Salesforce, Adobe, and ServiceNow, with the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and San Diego as the top destinations and more than 6,000 employers recruiting through its programs each year.
The center’s May 2025 newsletter says the Class of 2024 survey reached a 75% response rate among undergraduates and 70% among graduate students, the most complete outcomes data the university has collected; the survey captures whether graduates are working, continuing their education, or still looking within six months, and the results live in a dashboard rather than a text report.
Leavey cites Payscale’s 2024 ranking of it #6 among universities for the highest-paid business graduates, a network of more than 25,000 Leavey alumni, and access to more than 7,000 companies and startups around Silicon Valley; its finance department pitches investment banking for established companies alongside risk management for emerging ones, with faculty covering investment strategy, corporate finance, fintech, and risk.
Forum accounts call Santa Clara a non-target that punches above its weight: the school sends a few students a year into banking, has no campus recruiting because Stanford and Berkeley fill the Bay Area pipelines, and yet an alumnus says nearly everyone who took the small Investment Banking Club seriously placed at a bulge-bracket or elite-boutique technology group, one all the way to PJT in New York, because the club’s leaders are networking experts; a student with a bulge-bracket offer adds that USC is still the better bet and that the banking culture and alumni support are growing.
Our data ranks Santa Clara #90, the last school in this batch, on 262 top-bank analysts from 6,249 undergraduates, or 41.9 per 1,000, the #70 per-capita figure in the country; 91% 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 Santa Clara publishes about outcomes
7 figures, 4 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.
Santa Clara University Career Center
- Average starting salary, Class of 2025 undergraduates
- $78,308
- Employers recruiting through the career center each year
- more than 6,000
Santa Clara University Career Center, Director Newsletter (May 2025)
- Undergraduate response rate, Class of 2024 survey
- 75%
- Graduate response rate, Class of 2024 survey
- 70%
Leavey School of Business, Undergraduates
- Payscale 2024 rank for highest-paid business graduates
- #6
Leavey School of Business, Finance
- Leavey alumni
- more than 25,000
- Companies and startups within reach of Leavey
- more than 7,000
How Santa Clara compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Santa Clara investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Santa Clara University a target school for investment banking?
Santa Clara University is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #90 of the 100 schools we measure: 37 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 262 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
How many Santa Clara alumni are analysts at the top investment banks?
37 Santa Clara University alumni from the classes of roughly 2015 onward hold investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks we measure, the #96 count of the 100 schools ranked; 15 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 Santa Clara as a target school?
No; forum posters call it a non-target that punches above its weight, sending a few students a year into banking through a small club whose serious members placed at bulge-bracket and elite-boutique technology groups. Our count ranks it #90 of 100.
What do Santa Clara graduates earn after graduation?
A $78,308 average starting salary for Class of 2025 undergraduates by the career center’s First Destination Survey, with a top-ten employer list made up entirely of technology companies.
How does Leavey rank for business graduates’ pay?
#6 among universities for the highest-paid business graduates in Payscale’s 2024 ranking, by the school, which also cites more than 25,000 Leavey alumni and 7,000 companies within reach.
How many Santa Clara University alumni work in private equity?
158 Santa Clara University alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #90 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Santa Clara University alumni work in venture capital?
113 Santa Clara University alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #51 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Santa Clara University alumni work in hedge fund?
26 Santa Clara University alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #83 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Santa Clara’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 Santa Clara 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, 238 (91%) are currently based in the United States and 24 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 6,249 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.
