Two teams of students from the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University have placed second in Boston University’s edition of the international Venture Capital Investment Competition.

In claiming two silver medals, the graduate and under-graduate teams from SMU beat out teams from top-tier American schools that included Cornell, Tufts, Babson and New York University.

The VCIC is an international competition in which student delegations from business schools compete to make the best mock venture capital investment, as determined by a panel of judges from the industry.

“To kind of leave in your wake all those Ivy League and super-money kind of universities is just a very, very rare occurrence,” said Professor of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship Ellen Farrell, who organizes SMU’s VCIC delegation.

Every year, SMU sends two teams to the Boston competition, one at the undergraduate level and one at the graduate level, hand-picked by Farrell. She draws the five members for each team from the ranks of SMU’s Venture Grade program, which allows students to receive course credit for running a venture capital fund.

In the weeks leading up to the competition, Farrell also used a heavily research-based virtual course that she originally created to help give women a leg-up in venture capital and has tested on 44 people to train the VCIC competitors.

“I use that program with the team in order for them to learn some of the principles, and it looks like it's working," she said. "Some of the topics are key fundamentals and technical knowledge about the area of venture capital."

Last week, undergraduate team lead Nicholas Perrin told Entrevestor, “(VCIC) allows students to really test their knowledge of venture capital in a practical environment.

“And it would be as close to an industry application as they would get before they actually have a job in venture capital.”

Venture Grade students compete in Boston because the rules bar them from competing at their home university, and SMU will host the Canadian VCIC event next month.

Like the Boston competition, SMU’s edition of VCIC enlists the help of local startups to give competitors the chance to conduct due diligence and negotiate terms sheets for real companies. The founders of those companies will gain experience pitching and negotiating VC deals.

Perrin said that, because SMU’s VCIC competition is slated for March 4, startups interested in participating should apply by Feb. 18. Interested founders can find more information here.

Disclosure: The Sobey School of Business is a client of Entrevestor.