Do you have to go to the top 20 universities to be a investment banker?

To answer the original question - at a recent Assessment Centre I was at for M&A at a top 5 bank, the breakdown of the 15 candidates present was, if I recall, roughly as follows:

3 x Oxford
3 x Cambridge
2 x LSE
2 x Durham
2 x Warwick
1 x Imperial
1 x Bath
1 x Bocconi

Quite comprehensively answers the question. Every now and then you'll get a Loughborough, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester type creep through, but a huge number are from the top 10 universities.

Nope, not at this assessment centre, but statistically there's bound to be the odd one here and there that's not represented by one of the universities I mentioned, I've met plenty of other UCL students at other assessment days/interviews. My point was to show how heavily skewed they tend to be to the top 10.

Has anyone from loughborough, Newcastle, Manchester ever made it as a banker? (not trading)

Define your top 10

Are there any Cass students who creep through? Particually in sales and Trading?

Yes they do. A 1st yr even just got his offer from GS S&T for a summer internship after attending the spring week. So 100% do able.

For me, based on prestige, top dozen probably in order and bracketed into tiers:

Oxford
Cambridge
LSE

Warwick
Imperial
UCL
Durham

St Andrews
Edinburgh
Bristol
Bath
Nottingham

Quite subjective, but from my experience of interviews, I reckon you'll find at least 80-90% of the UK based candidates are from one of these. Skewed more towards the top two brackets.

You mean Abs?

I'm sure there was an article or something a few months back where it talked about the banks having to target a smaller number of universities. They tiered like this:

Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial
LSE, UCL, Warwick
Everything else


I would link the article, but i haven't got it saved.....

It was an FT article from a while back. Article doesnt paint a true picture of reality though. Prestige aside, in terms of the numbers that get onto spring weeks & summer internships it's actually:

Oxbridge
LSE

Warwick/UCL
Imperial

Durham/Bristol
KCL/Notts

Where did you get this from?

Surely Manchester and Bath will be on that list?

It was an FT article from a while back. Article doesnt paint a true picture of reality though. Prestige aside, in terms of the numbers that get onto spring weeks & summer internships it's actually:

Oxbridge
LSE

Warwick/UCL
Imperial

Durham/Bristol
KCL/Notts

It was an FT article from a while back. Article doesnt paint a true picture of reality though. Prestige aside, in terms of the numbers that get onto spring weeks & summer internships it's actually:

Oxbridge
LSE

Warwick/UCL
Imperial

Durham/Bristol
KCL/Notts

hows UCL IMB compared to Imperial Computing? As I am not sure if I should change course atm....did 2 spring weeks and got an offer for goldman summer intern next year. As the IMB is relatively a new course i m not sure about it career prospect

Guessing your at Imperial now then; cause you would have to be AMAZING to get 2 spring weeks from UCL and IMB. I'd stick with computing at Imperial; better uni, and probably a better subject.

I wish people would realise that with a strong cover letter and strong motivation, course is almost irrelevant- at least at SW level.

Well we'll see which one the poster went too shall we? If anyone from IMB at UCL got 2 spring weeks and a summer intern offer, it'd be Jamz0770, and this isn't him above; i can safely say that he's the best placed on that course to apply to investment banking. He got 1 spring week offer; i doubt anyone on that course could outdo him.

Guessing your at Imperial now then; cause you would have to be AMAZING to get 2 spring weeks from UCL and IMB. I'd stick with computing at Imperial; better uni, and probably a better subject.