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University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley ranks as the best West Coast school for investment banking.
Berkeley ranks #13 on our investment banking target school list, resulting from extremely strong placement and a reasonable "Undergrad Placement %", which measures the proportion of total students that break into investment banking.
Berkeley's placement is anchored by longstanding relationships with Bay Area finance, a field which has grown tremendously with the rise of tech investing. Berkeley alumni are seen all across the West Coast, though they also have a respectable number of alumni in other major cities.
UC Berkeley is home to the Haas School of Business, a top-notch business school with a strong reputation for undergraduates and graduates. Haas' undergraduate business program is structured as a 2-year program, in which students only begin Haas as a junior.
UC Berkeley has phenomenal placement numbers for investment banking, ranking #6 by Total Hires. Berkeley beats out several Ivy league schools and other traditionally finance-focused programs. Berkeley is held back on our rankings by its huge undergraduate population, with only 0.54% of students entering investment banking.
If your interest is West Coast investment banking or working in the Bay Area for finance, it is hard to beat Berkeley. In comparison, Stanford's student body has become relatively less interested in investment banking.
Our investment banking target school list is a complete rank of 60 schools and analyzed >60k LinkedIn profiles of professionals who worked in investment banking between 2008 and 2023. We filtered the data to examine U.S. hires into the top investment banks.
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Investment Banking Placement
School Factsheet
Established: 1849
Location: Berkeley, California
Business School Name: Haas
# of Undergrads: 32,143 per U.S. News
# of Business School Undergrads: 700
Median Starting Salary (2022): $90k
Chancellor: Carol T. Christ
U.S. News Global Rank (2022-2023): #4
QS World University Rankings: #10
Financial Times MBA Rank: #12