Investment banks' graduate acceptance rates will soon hit 0.1%
In the last few years, your chance of getting into a top investment bank like Goldman Sachs has fallen below 1%. Soon, it may be a tenth of that.
New figures provided by banks to Financial News confirm the unfortunate trend. This year, Financial News says Goldman Sachs had 360,000 applicants to 2,600 graduate and internship positions. Last year, Financial News said that Goldman had 315,000 for 2,700 places. In 2022, Goldman had 236,000 applicants to 3,000 places.
It’s not just Goldman. In 2025, JPMorgan had 630,000 applicants for 4,100 intern roles, an acceptance rate of 0.7%, down from 2.8% two years ago.
The difference is dramatic. Extrapolation is, of course, never perfect, but if current trends continue, then Goldman Sachs – for example – will have 550,000 applicants to 2,250 openings by 2028. Its acceptance rate will drop to 0.2%.
JPMorgan is less extreme. Data from Financial News says that between 2024 and 2025, the number of applicants to JPMorgan's global student programs increased by 25%. During that period, the number of available programs declined by 9%. And by that logic, in 2030, two million people will apply to just 2,600 internships at the firm, and the acceptance rate will be barely 0.13%.
Of course, that might not come to pass. Morgan Stanley, saw its acceptance rate for intern applicants go from 2.1% to 0.4% to 0.5% across 2023, 2024, and 2025.
The situation may similarly stabilize at other banks. Unless they do end up cutting their intern classes by two-third due to AI, as they allegedly wanted to last year.
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