Non-target school#70 of 100
Swarthmore College investment banking placement: is it a target school?
Swarthmore College is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #70 of the 100 schools we measure: 57 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 186 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
- Rank
- #70of 100 schools
- At 18 top banks, 2015+
- 5779% graduated 2018+
- At the elite five
- 3154% of the top-bank total
- IB alumni network
- 186#97 by profiles
- Per 1,000 undergrads
- 113.1#44 per capita
- US-based
- 90%167 profiles
Is Swarthmore a target school for investment banking?
The verdict, from the data113.1 IB profiles per 1,000 undergraduates puts Swarthmore above the 100-school median of 97.8 and earns a per-capita rank of #44. From a base of 1,644 undergraduates, 186 people have listed a banking title, and 57 of them held an investment banking analyst role at one of the 18 top banks after graduating in 2013 or later.
Elite concentration is the sharper figure: 31 of those 57 analysts, or 54 percent, sit at the elite five. 45 of the 57 graduated in 2018 or later, a 79 percent recent share, and 90 percent of profiles remain in the United States. The surrounding buyside network is lopsided, carrying 51 private equity profiles per 100 IB profiles but only 3 in hedge funds, a #100 finish on that vertical.
Small absolute numbers are the binding constraint. 186 profiles ranks #97 by volume, the 57-analyst count ranks #83 on its own, and the per-student side of the blend is what lifts the headline to #70. Swarthmore's advantage is concentration rather than breadth, since more than half of its top-bank alumni landed at the elite five, which makes this a narrow pipeline pointed at a short list of destinations.
Swarthmore investment banking placement by bank
Analysts, classes of ~2015+Swarthmore College'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 measure57
- 5The elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview31
By count alone Swarthmore College ranks #81 of 100; the table of schools ranked nearby, below, sets that figure beside its neighbors.
Where Swarthmore alumni land beyond investment banking
Alumni profiles, all yearsSwarthmore College’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 Swarthmore
Swarthmore’s Class of 2024 first-destination report has known outcomes for 319 graduates, a 76% knowledge rate: 93% employed, in further education, or in the military, with 66.4% working and 26.4% continuing education, a $60,000 median and $71,637 average starting salary, and financial services the second-largest industry at 13.9% behind education at 17.3%; 68% completed an internship while enrolled.
The Class of 2023 report, at a 94.1% knowledge rate on 368 graduates, breaks the working graduates down by function: finance is 14.6% of 199 responses, and within it investment banking and investment management are 34.5% each; among financial services employers, investment banking accounts for 46.9%. Finance had the second-highest starting pay by function, an $85,000 median and $94,306 average across 18 reports, behind engineering.
The career center’s finance page leans on alumni, pointing students to informational interviews through its alumni platform and warning about accelerated finance deadlines. A 2021 column in the student paper, arguing against fireside chats with Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and Citigroup, conceded that the recruiters had arrived and that Swarthmore graduates half as many investment bankers as Amherst while producing five times the nonprofit and government workers and twice the PhDs.
Forum threads split Swarthmore two ways: it appears on lists of liberal arts colleges where nearly every bank recruits, alongside Amherst, Williams, and Pomona, yet posters comparing placement say Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Williams are more common on Wall Street, and older threads flatly file Swarthmore with Haverford and Vassar as bad for finance, blaming an academic culture rather than any lack of recognition; the advice for a Swarthmore student who wants banking is to network early and consider a more pre-professional college.
Our data ranks Swarthmore #70, the last school in this batch, on 186 top-bank analysts from 1,644 undergraduates, or 113.1 per 1,000, the #44 per-capita figure in the country from the #97 raw count, the smallest in this batch; 90% 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 Swarthmore publishes about outcomes
15 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.
Swarthmore Career Services, First Destinations: Class of 2024
- Graduates with known outcomes, Class of 2024
- 319 (76% knowledge rate)
- Employed, in further education, or in the military, Class of 2024
- 93%
- Working, Class of 2024
- 66.4%
- Continuing education, Class of 2024
- 26.4%
- Median starting salary, Class of 2024
- $60,000
- Average starting salary, Class of 2024
- $71,637
- Financial services share of industries, Class of 2024
- 13.9%
- Education share of industries, Class of 2024
- 17.3%
- Graduates who completed an internship, Class of 2024
- 68%
Swarthmore Career Services, First Destinations: Class of 2023 (PDF)
- Knowledge rate, Class of 2023
- 94.1% of 368 graduates
- Finance share of job functions, Class of 2023
- 14.6% of 199 responses
- Investment banking and investment management shares within finance
- 34.5% each
- Investment banking share of financial services employers
- 46.9%
- Finance median starting salary, Class of 2023
- $85,000
- Finance average starting salary, Class of 2023
- $94,306 (18 reports)
How Swarthmore compares with schools ranked nearby
Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+Swarthmore investment banking FAQ
8 questionsIs Swarthmore College a target school for investment banking?
Swarthmore College is a non-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #70 of the 100 schools we measure: 57 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 186 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
How many Swarthmore alumni are analysts at the top investment banks?
57 Swarthmore College alumni from the classes of roughly 2015 onward hold investment banking analyst titles alongside one of the 18 top banks we measure, the #81 count of the 100 schools ranked; 31 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 Swarthmore as a target school?
Some forum lists put it among liberal arts colleges where every bank recruits, but posters comparing placement say Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Williams send more students to Wall Street and blame Swarthmore’s academic culture. Our count ranks it #70 of 100.
What share of Swarthmore graduates go into finance?
14.6% of working Class of 2023 respondents by function, with investment banking and investment management 34.5% each within finance; financial services was 13.9% of the Class of 2024 by industry.
What do Swarthmore graduates in finance earn?
An $85,000 median and $94,306 average starting salary across 18 finance reports in the Class of 2023, the second-highest function behind engineering, against a $60,000 median for the Class of 2024 overall.
How many Swarthmore College alumni work in private equity?
95 Swarthmore College alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #98 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Swarthmore College alumni work in venture capital?
28 Swarthmore College alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #94 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many Swarthmore College alumni work in hedge fund?
5 Swarthmore College alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #100 of the 100 schools in our database.
How we counted Swarthmore’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 Swarthmore College 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, 167 (90%) are currently based in the United States and 19 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 1,644 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.
