“Investment banker” conjures specific imagery: Patagonia vests, an immeasurable amount of handshakes, strutting down Wall Street, working at the office until the sun rises. Who could want anything different out of a future career?
Investment banking has become an occupational phenomenon for newer generations of business students; however, the stress and pressure of receiving a junior year summer internship is one that is unfortunate to say the least. Summer internship panic has reached a whole new level in the investment banking recruitment environment. College students sacrifice their time, relationships and focus to get the chance to work grueling hours among pretentious colleagues, while earning six-figure salaries in their first years in corporate America. Honestly, I understand the appeal.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan; working as a summer analyst at one of these prestigious banks is a dream for many aspiring investment bankers.
The nation’s top investment banking firms often flock to elite schools to find the brightest minds, which is why Wall Street is consistently packed with Ivy League alumni. Top banks and firms blanket these top universities — considered “target schools” — with coffee chats, visits, panels and undeniably valuable resources to funnel these students into their networks.
Campus cafes are a go-to spot for networking “coffee chats” at these elite universities. These coffee chats are a shorter interview trial-run, where students try their very best to impress the current employees at banks or firms, hoping for a future referral. These “coffee chats” are a regular sight at schools like Harvard University and Vanderbilt University, but a rare sight at a school like Tulane University, even though Tulane is widely regarded as a selective university.
Between coffee chats, panels and selective dinners, networking is an unavoidable part of the internship recruitment process. “If you don’t network at a bank, you likely won’t get an interview, no matter how high your GPA is or how strong your resume is,” a Harvard sophomore currently recruiting for junior summer investment banking roles, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the process, said.
Large firms like Goldman Sachs recruited directly at Harvard. “They had a big panel event at the Charles Hotel… more selective on-campus coffee chats and dinners… and Zoom webinars,” the Harvard sophomore said.
Harvard’s alumni presence in finance creates a major advantage. “The biggest benefit I’ve felt being a Harvard student applying for jobs in finance is the existing network of alumni in those industries.”
At Vanderbilt — a semi-target school — Grace Allen, a sophomore who recently received an investment banking offer, described the process as “very stressful and very time-consuming.”
“There were days when I had four calls and also had to send out networking emails and also go to information sessions, while still trying to do well in school and participate in my clubs,” Allen said.
U.S. News and World Report ranked Tulane No. 69 in the rankings of “Top National Universities.” Many students at Tulane attribute this lower ranking to Tulane’s vibrant party-culture, which makes investment banking recruitment harder for students at schools like Tulane.
“Coming from a non-target [school], you need to commit at the very least 10 hours a week to either networking or prepping,” Sam Rachelson, a Tulane sophomore actively recruiting for investment banking, said.
“Because of Tulane’s standing as a non-target, I’ve had to work a bit harder to build my network…there are qualified kids at non-target schools that also deserve a chance,” Rachelson said.
Because of clubs like Green Bull Investment Banking Group, a program that helps business students prepare for investment banking recruitment, Rachelson also said access to opportunity is uneven, even within Tulane.
Students at Harvard and Vanderbilt benefit from embedded alumni pipelines or semi-target recognition. Students at Tulane, meanwhile, must compensate for limited access with heavier networking loads and fewer formal opportunities. Schools with lower prestige in comparison to Tulane have even bigger hurdles to tackle, and have to make more effort just to get their foot in the door. The practice of investment banking recruitment is hierarchical.
Networking drives access, stress defines the experience of recruiting and school prestige shapes opportunity. Until firms commit to widening access beyond elite campuses and reducing their reliance on prestige-based pipelines, investment banking recruitment will remain not just competitive but fundamentally biased in terms of university favoritism. Broadening their definition of a “target school” could help, giving students at Tulane and other excluded universities the chance they deserve.