Varsity Sports Participation, College Selectivity, and First Job in Investment Banking or Management Consulting in the US

Douglas Coate ()

Working Papers Rutgers University, Newark from Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark

Abstract: I present evidence on the relationship between varsity sports participation, college selectivity, and the likelihood of a first job after graduation in investment banking or management consulting in general and at the most prestigious investment banking and management consulting firms in particular. The research is motivated by Rivera’s findings that elite firms in investment banking, management consulting, and law in the US hire from the most selective colleges and universities, usually the top five, and weigh participation in intercollegiate sports associated with high socioeconomic status over academic achievement. I use LinkedIn data to look at the first job after graduation for Ivy League varsity athletes in selected sports, 2000-2014, with strong academics as evidenced by an All Academic Ivy League designation. I do the same for Harvard University athletes in selected sports, 2007-2014. I also record the US News ranking of the undergraduate colleges and the varsity sports participation of investment bank analysts on LinkedIn at the top investment banks in the United States in 2017. I find a small proportion of investment banking analysts at top firms have been college athletes and the majority of these analysts come from undergraduate colleges outside the top 15 ranked undergraduate colleges and universities in the US. There is evidence that investment bank analysts that were college athletes were more likely to be participants in Rivera’s high status sports than in sports she classifies as more open to participants across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Keywords: Investment Bank Employment; Intercollegiate Sports (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J24 J44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2018-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://sasn.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/sites ... electivity%20(3).pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:run:wpaper:2018-002

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers Rutgers University, Newark from Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Maria Rosales-Rueda ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).