re: The Wall Street Admissions Test (WSAT)

That and Societe Generale I think, although I wouldn't really call them major.

Before the crisis, it was a little clearer who the big boys in the bulge bracket were, and who was mid-tier. Now it's a little grayer.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the only stand-alone bulge bracket i-banks left, and JPM & Citi are right behind them--and come on, Citi has been a major i-bank ever since they acquired Salomon Brothers. In fact, they were pretty much the quintessential example in the U.S. of the post-Glass-Steagall move to universal megabanks.

And Merrill Lynch was always considered a major i-bank too, therefore BoA is considered one now that they acquired ML.

As for Barclays, Credit Suisse, & Deutsche Bank, yeah, they're mostly European. CS made a move to be bigger in the U.S. when they were Credit Suisse First Boston, but it didn't pan out. UBS ran into a gigantic shitstorm recently, but they used to have a ginormous building in Connecticut.

The Street Of Walls links talks about all that, as well as the boutique M&A / advisory players like Wasserstein Perella and Lazard.

There was a thread last fall on investment banks in the South for those looking for lower-tier and specialty firms, and I gave a link to some lists there: LINK.