The top 30 universities for getting a hedge fund job

5 August 2016

2 minute read

The top 30 universities for getting a hedge fund job

Hedge funds are no longer simply about poaching trading talent from investment banks. As the talent pool dries up from the now-shuttered prop trading desks, more big hedge funds - from Brevan Howard, to Man Group, to Point72 Asset Management - have started hiring graduates directly and training them up.

Brevan Howard only hires very quantitatively-driven students (often from Imperial College London), while the first batch of 'academy' recruits at Point72 suggests a preference for elite universities.

Perhaps not surprisingly, our own figures suggest a leaning towards top universities. University of Pennsylvania - Wharton comes in top, followed by New York University and then Columbia University. The London School of Economics is the only UK university to break into the top ten. The Ivy League dominates the top ten, the size of the U.S. hedge fund industry also inevitably means U.S. universities proliferate the rankings.

We analysed our CV database, which comprises 1.4m resumes, and pulled out the people working in the hedge fund sector. We've then created a ranking below based on a combination of the proportion of graduates from an individual university within the overall hedge fund population and the percentage of people from that college who work for a hedge fund (as opposed to another financial services sector).

Traditionally, the university you attended is less important for pursuing a hedge fund career than being able to provide evidence of a sustainable track record for managing money. But with a proliferation of internships and graduate schemes within the sector, expect buy-side employers to pay closer attention to your university.

AUTHORPaul Clarke

1 comments

Mi
Michael
23 June 2016
Misleading article.
The problem with lists like these is that they don't take into account anything other than the end results. It's like a black box. For example, Harvard is below Cornell, but obviously Cornell is not as much of a target as Harvard. Similarly, these lists don't take into account size (Cornell is, not surprisingly, larger than Harvard) or the number of people who are even interested in hedge funds. Most likely NYU gives you a "better chance" than Harvard because there are more people interested in hedge funds at NYU than at Harvard.
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