Improved Target/Non-Target University Statistics on LinkedIn

[Dry Powder1]

Saw this thread http://canarywharfian.co.uk/threads/linkedin-target-non-target-university-statistics.82/, which was a great idea from lofaszjoska but I thought I could improve on the methodology, so here's my take.

Results
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A few caveats:

• I could not find any data for Nottingham so it has been omitted for the sake of consistency.
• I only ran the test for the universities listed. Outside of the top 10 there could be unlisted universities that have better placement (i.e. I doubt Bournemouth is the 22nd best uni the in country for placement - rather, just the worst out of the ones I tested). I included some lower-regarded unis for the sake of curiosity and got some interesting results. Still, I think all 'relevant' unis have been included.
• The methodology measures the number of alumni skilled in investment banking, and is blind to how prestigious their job title or organisation is (e.g. PwC Corporate Finance Associate vs. GS TMT MD).
• The methodology is blind to alumni working in other areas of finance like asset management and other prestigious jobs like private equity or management consulting.

Analysis

• LSE is King.
• Strong from Imperial.
• The drop-off from the top 4 targets (the idea of a 'top 6' is a lie) is significant; from there it is more gradual.
• Warwick is traditionally extremely overrated (I believe this) - but note my analysis is not course-specific. If you are considering applying for BSc Econ or Maths at Warwick run a separate course-specific analysis of your own and see what ratio you get.
• Durham is traditionally underrated (I believe this) - but it is arguable my analysis is not necessarily representative of current recruiting as I did not measure only last 5 years of graduates (CBA). Durham's strong score may the a legacy of producing a large upper-class population back when that mattered before Maggie came along. Then again, younger populations are more likely to use LinkedIn and be overrepresented in the data sample.
• QMUL is way stronger than most of us would expected. Not sure what could explain this. Anybody with info please chime in.

Conclusion

In general,

• The 4 'targets' for UK recruiting are LSE, Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford.
• Durham and UCL are the 'semi-targets'.
• Bristol, St. Andrews, QMUL, Warwick, City get an 'honourable mention'.
• Note there will be course-specific successes elsewhere (especially true for Warwick).

Method

I wanted to measure how well different UK universities do when it comes to investment banking recruiting, focusing on FO roles and controlling for the size of universities.

• Found the number of alumni on LinkedIn stating 'Investment Banking' as a skill for each listed university (did not add the number of separately listed teaching institutions, e.g. business schools).
• Created a ratio based on this number and the total number of alumni on LinkedIn.
• Created another ratio based on the 'IB' skill number and the total number of students (sourced from Wikipedia).
• Tested the results. If the two different ratios found were generally proportionally consistent then the denominators would be considered appropriate (note I did not test the choice of numerator). 91% of universities had a ratio between current population and LinkedIn base between 2 and 5, with a higher ratio being found for the most targeted universities.
• Satisfied, I used the current population ratio as the primary filter.

Data

Feel free to use/check the data. If you want the Excel document I will happily email it over.

University Total LinkedIn Alumni Base Number of LinkedIn Alumni Stating 'Investment Banking' as a Skill Ratio (IB/Total) IB/Total Ratio *1000 University Population Ratio (IB/Pop) Ratio (IB/Pop) *1000 Control
Warwick 61991 1175 0.018954364 19 23420 0.050170794 50 2.646925705
Oxford 121620 2734 0.022479855 22 22116 0.123620908 124 5.49918611
Cambridge 135999 2806 0.020632505 21 18448 0.152103209 152 7.372018647
LSE 106244 5200 0.04894394 49 9218 0.564113691 564 11.52571057
UCL 84771 1565 0.018461502 18 24680 0.063411669 63 3.434805511
Durham 54340 1159 0.021328671 21 16355 0.070865179 71 3.322531336
KCL 67300 920 0.013670134 14 25187 0.03652678 37 2.67201334
Bristol 64377 1112 0.01727325 17 19122 0.058152913 58 3.366645748
Nottingham No data No data No data No data 34377 No data No data #VALUE!
Newcastle 59979 457 0.007619333 8 22874 0.019979015 20 2.622147416
Birmingham 85288 884 0.010364881 10 28664 0.030840078 31 2.975439576
Bath 41361 660 0.015957061 16 15964 0.041343022 41 2.590892007
Manchester 128649 1494 0.011612993 12 39165 0.038146304 38 3.284795098
York 35635 353 0.009905991 10 15265 0.023124795 23 2.334425156
Exeter 52544 846 0.016100792 16 17950 0.047130919 47 2.92724234
City 43094 862 0.020002785 20 17499 0.049259958 49 2.462655009
Imperial 72864 2024 0.027777778 28 13410 0.15093214 151 5.433557047
St Andrews 28669 414 0.014440685 14 7775 0.053247588 53 3.68733119
Edinburgh 82267 917 0.011146632 11 32591 0.028136602 28 2.524224479
Bournemouth 42501 299 0.007035129 7 16683 0.017922436 18 2.547563388
QMUL 36427 820 0.022510775 23 14820 0.055330634 55 2.457962213
Surrey 43742 388 0.008870193 9 15705 0.024705508 25 2.785227635
Leeds 101902 805 0.007899747 8 33585 0.023969034 24 3.034152151

 

[Dry Powder1]

Did a quick data dump into my model to test the 'Warwick Econ is waaaay better than Warwick average' hypothesis and got some surprising results. It would be nice to have the class sizes for these unis to formulate the primary ratio as I suspect Durham students either make it big and get into IB or flunk and don't have LinkedIn because they're in a menial P&L reporting job somewhere.

University - Secondary Ratio Score
LSE Economics - 82
Durham Economics - 73
Cambridge Economics - 71
UCL Economics - 66
Bristol Economics - 63
Oxford Economics - 62
Warwick Economics - 61

 

[Trigger1]

LinkedIn Best Schools for Investment Banking 2014: https://www.linkedin.com/edu/rankings/gb/undergraduate-investment-banking?trk=edu-rankings-ctg-card