Which banks hire the most USC analysts?

By our count, J.P. Morgan leads with 125 USC alumni holding investment banking analyst titles, then Bank of America with 113 and Morgan Stanley with 87, among graduates of 2013 or later at the 18 top banks we measure.

Do banks treat USC as a target or a semi-target?

A target for Los Angeles and San Francisco and a semi-target for New York, by the 2026 forum guide. Our count puts it #17 of 100, one place into the semi-target tier, while the top-bank analyst count alone ranks #12.

Which USC programs feed investment banking?

The Trojan Finance Academy for sophomores and Trojan Investing Society's Leaders Program are the two named pipelines, with the Financial Services Career Hub behind both.

Can you get to New York banking from USC?

Yes, with more effort than the West Coast. Forum accounts name Lazard, RBC, and Centerview as the New York firms with the deepest USC presence.

How many University of Southern California alumni work in private equity?

1,479 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #9 of the 100 schools in our database.

How many University of Southern California alumni work in venture capital?

560 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #9 of the 100 schools in our database.

How many University of Southern California alumni work in hedge fund?

101 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #27 of the 100 schools in our database.

Semi-target school#17 of 100

University of Southern California investment banking placement: is it a target school?

University of Southern California is a semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #17 of the 100 schools we measure: 673 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 3,375 profiles that include an investment banking job title.

By Ben Chon, former J.P. Morgan investment banking analystUpdated 2026-10-16

Photo: Bobak Ha'Eri · CC BY 3.0

Rank: #17of 100 schools
At 18 top banks, 2015+: 67377% graduated 2018+
At the elite five: 30746% of the top-bank total
IB alumni network: 3,375#9 by profiles
Per 1,000 undergrads: 160.5#37 per capita
US-based: 83%2,791 profiles

TargetTarget 1–15Semi-targetSemi 16–35Lower semi-targetLower 36–60Non-targetNon-target 61–100

Schools ranked 16 through 35 place real numbers into top banks — at least 152 analysts each in this data — but the per-school pipeline runs thinner. Alumni will answer your emails, and the difference between getting an interview and getting skipped comes down to outreach volume. Start networking earlier than your target-school peers and treat every alumni conversation as a referral opportunity.

Is USC a target school for investment banking?

The verdict, from the data

Southern California ranks #12 nationally on the strict top-bank count: 673 people matched to the 18 top banks by an investment banking analyst title who graduated in 2013 or later. That is five places better than its headline rank of #17, which blends the count with a per-student leg, and 521 of the 673 finished school in 2018 or later. J.P. Morgan alone accounts for 125 of those analysts, ahead of Bank of America's 113.

The broader network is among the largest anywhere, with 3,375 investment banking profiles and a #9 finish by raw count. Density ranks far lower at #37, though 160.5 profiles per 1,000 undergraduates still sits well above the 100-school median of 97.8. Elite-five firms hold 307 of the recent analysts, or 46 percent, and 83 percent of the full network is currently located in the US. Private equity contributes 44 profiles per 100 IB profiles.

One caution: the per-capita figure divides an all-time profile count by a single year's enrollment, 21,023 undergraduates in fall 2023, so a #37 density rank measures accumulated network size against current scale rather than any share of a graduating class that reaches banking. What the numbers show is a very large network that holds its position when the measure tightens to top-bank analysts.

USC investment banking placement by bank

Analysts, classes of ~2015+

University of Southern California 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.

Banks with fewer than five matched analysts, and banks not yet measured for this school, are left off the list. Of the 673 analysts at the 18 banks, 307 (46%) are at the elite five: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Evercore, and Centerview.

Where USC alumni land beyond investment banking

Alumni profiles, all years

University of Southern California’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 USC

Marshall built a Financial Services Career Hub around investment banking, investment management, and private investing, with employer sessions and curated resume books. Its Trojan Finance Academy, launched in fall 2024 for top-performing sophomores, names admits Kilmer and Coleman Scholars, runs technical and behavioral interview training in industry pods, and takes them on recruiting treks to New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The academy lists alumni at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Lazard, Citi, and Blackstone.

Trojan Investing Society has been the premier undergraduate finance club at USC for more than 28 years. Its General Program is open to every level and includes an investment banking bootcamp, its Leaders Program is for sophomores aiming at banking and private equity, and TIS Buyside covers private equity, venture, and hedge funds.

The USC Career Center publishes undergraduate outcomes as an interactive dashboard by employer, industry, job function, salary, and location, selectable by class year and school, rather than as a single headline report with a finance percentage.

A 2026 recruiting guide by a USC sophomore on Wall Street Oasis calls the school a strong target for San Francisco and Los Angeles groups and a semi-target for New York with a growing presence. It names pipelines at Citi and Barclays in San Francisco, Lazard and RBC in New York, Perella Weinberg and Rothschild in Los Angeles, Jefferies, Ducera, and Qatalyst, and Evercore's Houston and Menlo Park groups; another banker calls Centerview the deepest New York presence.

The same guide says USC is not an innate finance school, so the pool of serious recruits each sophomore fall is a few hundred at most, that the academy places the large majority of its scholars, that a high GPA is expected, and that Trojan alumni answer cold emails from a USC address at rates other schools envy.

Our data ranks USC #12 on the strict top-bank count with 673 analysts, five places above the #17 headline, with J.P. Morgan holding 125 of them and Bank of America 113. The bank breakdown above shows the rest.

What USC publishes about outcomes

1 figures, 1 source

Every 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.

Trojan Investing Society

Trojan Investing Society, years as the premier finance club: 28+

How USC compares with schools ranked nearby

Analysts at 18 top banks, ~2015+

See the full ranking of 100 schools →

USC investment banking FAQ

8 questions

Is University of Southern California a target school for investment banking?
University of Southern California is a semi-target school for investment banking by our count. It ranks #17 of the 100 schools we measure: 673 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 3,375 profiles that include an investment banking job title.
Which banks hire the most USC analysts?
By our count, J.P. Morgan leads with 125 USC alumni holding investment banking analyst titles, then Bank of America with 113 and Morgan Stanley with 87, among graduates of 2013 or later at the 18 top banks we measure.
Do banks treat USC as a target or a semi-target?
A target for Los Angeles and San Francisco and a semi-target for New York, by the 2026 forum guide. Our count puts it #17 of 100, one place into the semi-target tier, while the top-bank analyst count alone ranks #12.
Which USC programs feed investment banking?
The Trojan Finance Academy for sophomores and Trojan Investing Society's Leaders Program are the two named pipelines, with the Financial Services Career Hub behind both.
Can you get to New York banking from USC?
Yes, with more effort than the West Coast. Forum accounts name Lazard, RBC, and Centerview as the New York firms with the deepest USC presence.
How many University of Southern California alumni work in private equity?
1,479 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a private equity job title, ranking #9 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many University of Southern California alumni work in venture capital?
560 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a venture capital job title, ranking #9 of the 100 schools in our database.
How many University of Southern California alumni work in hedge fund?
101 University of Southern California alumni profiles include a hedge fund job title, ranking #27 of the 100 schools in our database.

How we counted USC’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 University of Southern California 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, 2,791 (83%) are currently based in the United States and 584 are abroad. The per-1,000 figure divides the network count by 21,023 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.