Home » Private Equity Firms & Universities: What’s the Relationship?

Private Equity Firms & Universities: What’s the Relationship?

By BankersBall on Feb 26, 2008 in Cube Life, Ivy League, Private Equity, Rankings

Which universities did private equity professionals at some of the largest firms attend?

We came across a post at the College Confidential forum (posted by user Alexandre) with some excellent information collected from public profiles of professionals at some of the largest private equity firms, including Blackstone, Carlyle, Bain Capital, Silverlake Partners, Warburg Pincus and Providence Equity Partners. We decided to add the latest U.S. News rankings for both undergraduate and graduate schools to see if we could draw some conclusions, assuming that the question we are trying to answer is something along the lines of — which schools do PE firms recruit from, or considered another way — which schools are “represented” according to their rank in the field of private equity?

Of course we realize there are tons of factors influencing proportional representation in terms of rank, including geographic location of the school, self-selection (i.e. Wharton), class size, etc. For instance, some of the top schools were not represented in the data at all, like Cal Tech, MIT and Johns Hopkins — as you can see, self-selection plays a big part.

Check out the two columns at the far right — they indicate the difference in US News Rank vs. “Real” rank (Rank as observed in publicly available profiles of the top firms).

Thoughts? Meaningful? Meaningless?

Universities Attended by Private Equity Professionals at Blackstone, Carlyle, Bain Capital, Silverlake Partners, Warburg Pincus and Providence Equity Partners
Rank Based
on Under-
grad. Repres. 		Rank Based
on Grad Repres. 		Undergrad / Graduate Under
grad. 		Grad. Total US News Under
grad. Rank (2008) 		US News MBA Rank (2008) (Underst.)/
Overst. of US News Ranking Relative to Actual Placement Ranking (Undergd) 		(Underst.)/
Overst. of US News Ranking Relative to Actual Placement Ranking (MBA)
1 1 Harvard 62 165 227 2 1 (1) 0
2 2 U Penn 61 52 113 5 3 (3) 1
3 20 Princeton 35 1 36 1 n/a 2 n/a
4 9 Dartmouth 27 11 38 11 7 (7) (2)
5 13 Duke 24 7 31 8 12 (3) (1)
6 14 Cornell 23 6 29 12 14 (6) 0
7 12 Yale 22 8 30 3 14 4 2
8 14 George-
town 		21 6 27 23 25 (15) 11
9 14 Berkeley 20 6 26 21 8 (12) (6)
10 3 Stanford 17 48 65 4 2 6 (1)
11 8 U Michigan 17 14 31 25 11 (14) 3
12 20 Brown 16 1 17 14 n/a (2) n/a
13 4 Columbia 15 33 48 9 9 4 5
14 10 U Virginia 12 9 21 23 12 (9) 2
15 6 NYU 11 21 32 34 10 (19) 4
16 n/a Boston College 10 0 10 35 39 (19) n/a
17 10 UT Austin 9 9 18 44 18 (27) 8
18 6 North-
western 		7 21 28 14 5 4 (1)
19 17 UNC Chapel Hill 7 4 11 28 18 (9) 1
20 n/a Emory University 6 0 6 17 20 3 n/a
21 5 U Chicago 6 24 30 9 5 12 0
22 n/a U of Notre Dame 6 0 6 19 39 3 n/a
23 n/a Williams College 6 0 6 1* (ranked in liberal arts) n/a n/a n/a
24 n/a Middlebury College 5 0 5 5* (ranked in liberal arts) n/a n/a n/a
25 n/a Syracuse University 5 1 6 50 n/a (25) n/a
26 17 UCLA 5 4 9 25 16 1 (1)
27 21 Vanderbilt 5 0 5 19 n/a 8 n/a
28 21 Washington & Lee University 5 0 5 15* (ranked in liberal arts) n/a n/a n/a
29 19 SUNYs 12 3 15 82, 96, 118 n/a n/a n/a
30 n/a Air Force, Naval & Military Academies 10 0 10 20, 22 n/a n/a n/a
Source: Alexandre @ College Confidential Discussion Forum. Bolded schools = graduate schools with known private equity/venture capital centers. N/a = no MBA program or not in top 50; or missing data for comparison.

5 Comment(s)

  1. On Feb 26, 2008, Ravi said:

    Typo for Penn USNews undergrad ranking… it’s still #1, not 5. Princeton doesn’t have ugrad b-school.

  2. On Feb 26, 2008, BankersBall said:

    “Undergrad” ranking is rank for the undergrad program as listed here:
    http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php

    Not for an undergrad finance program.

  3. On Mar 6, 2008, Voxster said:

    It would be interesting to look at these data in the context of each school’s number of students. On a per-capita basis, looks like Dartmouth might rank #1.

  4. On Jul 1, 2008, samdany said:

    Tech Aahen university computer science depotnment…..in Germany

  5. On Dec 11, 2008, benny quetell said:

    I am an aspiring Film/TV producer.

    I would like to know if your first year students would be interested in helping foster additional relationships with private equity/hedge fund managers/principles as well as lending institutions.

    This would be for the purpose of creating a low risk syndication that will protect an investors money.

    In addition this would be for the purposes of fostering relationships with High Net Worth Accredited Investors(Hedge Funds).

    I can make the students job a lot easier by providing Film(s)-Slates that would include.

    Initial funding already in place.(Minimum of 30-50 percent funds in.

    Major distribution

    Well know directors/producers/cast

    Equity

    In some cases very exciting company’s with good EBITDTA

    I would work towards my compensation focus being directed from the production.

    The student would of course have his or her deal in place with the investors.

    I would be the liaison between the project(s) and the student.

    I have a few deals in the pipeline now and I am in hopes they would close.

    I am realizing in this business that genre specific reasons is indeed a good cause to have a plethora of investors.

    In the very near future I do plan on making a home for any student that can perform.

    At that junction I will then have a strategic film production/development company were a proven student would have a position in the company.

    I have another plan that will go in conjunction with this LLC and the student will be able to utilize all of his or her knowledge in the science of financial structures.

    At present I have a few investors as well and the students can meet with them and learn from some of the current deals that I present to my investors.

    For deals that close I am willing to compensate the student for there participation and learning experience as they communicate with my current investors while in the interim they would work towards fostering additional relationships on there own.

    I would imagine you can suggest what such compensation would be for the student unless you have no problem with the student doing his own negotiations with me.

    In all honesty if it is a fair request I will be more than
    Happy to comply.

    Thanks for your time and patience.

    I look forward to your response.

    Warmest Regards

    Benny Quetell
    646 469 6409
    Musicfilmindustry@yahoo.com

    Cheers

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