Target College Rankings Guide (BACKED WITH INFO)

Due to the plethora of misinformation spread on this site from students shilling their own school, I decided to create an unbiased ranking of target schools to help out high school seniors. This list takes into account competition, placement per capita, and prestige for buyside recruiting. I am a Columbia College alum, so no bias involved. 

Tier 1: HYPSM

Harvard, Wharton, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT

Tier 2: Top Targets

Columbia - Top Ivy. Con - extreme competition due to being in NYC and recruiting vs hardos. 

UChicago - T10 School. Con - grade deflation and a horrible school environment.

UPenn - Mid Ivy. Con - extreme competition with Wharton and Dual Degree Students

Duke - T10 School. Con - recruiting is very frat-heavy & non-div spots go to nepo hires.

Tier 3: High Targets

Cornell - Low Ivy. Con - extreme competition with a large student body.

Dartmouth - Low Ivy. Con - huge % of hires are nepo or connected. 

Northwestern - T10 School. Con - poor network compared to peer schools. 

Brown - Low Ivy. Con -  poor network compared to peer schools. 

Tier 4: Mid Targets 

NYU Stern - Feeder Private. Con - most competition of any school on the list, no school spirit.

Georgetown - Feeder Private. Con - high competition and not enough prestige to compensate.

Michigan Ross - Best Public. Con - very competitive recruiting due to club culture. 

Tier 5: Low Targets 

Williams + Amherst - Top LACS. Con - vast majority of spots go to nepo or diversity. 

Notre Dame - Decent Feeder Private. Con - very little prestige outside of Catholic circles.

UC Berkeley - Best West Coast Public. Con - sweaty school culture + large student body. 

Tier 6: Semi Targets 

UVA - Strong Public. Con - very connections driven and only the top kids recruit well.

WashU - Decent Private. Con - most non diverse just don't place well. 

Emory - Decent Private. Con - most non diverse just don't place well

USC - Decent Private. Con - only really places on the west coast

UT - Strong Public. Con - lots of competition with most spots going to diversity

Tier 7: Low Semi Targets

Johns Hopkins - T10 School. Con - Virtually zero rep in finance.

Vanderbilt - T20 School. Con - Just doesn't place very well.

160 Comments
 

I mean the honest reality is that anyone in tiers 1-4 can break into IB/consulting with like a... medium amount of effort into studying/technicals/networking. Not that UMich is actually the same level of prestige as HSW, but they're still placing kids into Moelis, etc. every year as well as a host of BBs

 

This is probably the most accurate tier list I’ve ever seen on this website. Just missing a few schools (BC, IU, Midd, CMC, UCLA, UNC, etc), but everything right now is correct imo.

 

Usually hate these posts but at least this one isn't made by a high schooler

 

Nah, but you can still get decent jobs from there if you dont care about ib. The top clubs there send kids to like big4 advisory/strategy, BB PWM/corporate banking, with a small amount of mbb and ib but atl/clt only.

but def below a school like UT austin, UNC or smu even when it comes to regional school

 

Dartmouth should drop one tier. It is the most overrated school on this forum, everyone outside of WSO considers it either the worst or 2nd to worst Ivy. For fucks sake its literally ranked #18 on USNews. It doesn't even place well anymore either especially given the amount of finance interest from its undergrad, and as OP mentioned, a shit ton of Dartmouth kids who place are useless nepo hires.

Every single school tiers 1-4 (besides Brown) and half of 5 places better than Dartmouth nowadays. If you are an unconnected, nondiverse student, you'd be better off picking any other school tiers 1-4 over Dartmouth. 

 

Tough to land an SA role as MBBs if you are non-diverse; they don't really emphasize prior professional experiences. Much easier to get a FT gig for consulting. Seen many kids who struck out in banking recruiting heading to MBBs.

 

Fierce competition refers to the personalities you compete against. And the sheer number of them. Not really the quality of competition. There are a decent amount of students who are competent and professional, but there are just so many cut throat people and just so many people in general

 

Congrats on the offer! I have a side question: Is it difficult for non-diversity candidates at Columbia to receive offers from top BB/EB? For the non-diversity candidates who either strike out or didn't place well, is it because of the lack of preparation and/or weird personalities (i.e., socially awkward)? 

 

Getting offers from top banks should be challenging in every school nowadays as a non-diversity. You have to be considerably more prepared than the diverse kids to get offers from top banks but I think a lot of students don't realize this. For example, if you want to get an offer from Citi/Barclays type banks, then you should prepare yourself as someone qualified to get offers from GS/MS type of banks. EBs...Ah... This is where I am not entirely sure but I was definitely told by my contact that I should be getting more challenging interviews as a non-diverse candidate. To sum up, Columbia is good enough to get you to DB/UBS/RBC type banks or BX Secondaries/Credit if you really put in the work. Well Columbia does a very good job in attracting social retardos for sure in general lol

 

No representation and the ppl are honestly not smart. I know a few unimpressive kids from there and I went on a date with a vandy girl a few weeks ago and she was as dumb as rocks (yes recency bias but still)

 

In my opinion, ND should be in tier 4. I feel like ND is overlooked on this forum. It places just as well as the tier 4 schools, perhaps the same as some tier 3 schools. Every BB/EB in NYC does OCR at ND, most MF PE recruits on-campus as well. Recent placements included many top IB groups and MF PE in NYC. I agree that not many people have heard of ND outside of the Catholic circle. 

 

A couple of notes.

{ Percentages indicate % of student body to get summer analyst offer at an elite firm in New York (BofA and above for BB's, PJT M&A and above for EB's). The reasoning for this is to filter out regional merchants and schools with high interest but no prestige where students swarm place into middle markets. Data is pulled from LinkedIn. }

- Williams is a top target: 1.29% placement compared to Penn's 1.63%, Harvard's 1.16%, UChicago's 1.11%. Penn, Harvard, and UChicago are the top three other schools by this metric, which would make Williams #2. 

- The notion that Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt are worse than UT Austin is absolutely ridiculous. They are no different from Stanford/MIT/CalTech and you should have no issue getting your resume through the door if you're smart about networking.

- Berkeley's placements are very weak for banking (0.7% for Haas). They shine in HF placement, but are on par with UT Austin for banking.

An obvious issue with this methodology is that schools like Yale and Princeton are underrepresented because of students' more entrepreneurial tendencies, so take it with a grain of salt. With that being said, a massive discrepancy between schools on the same tier like Williams 1.29% vs Haas 0.7% (Yes, it's filtered only for Haas) is an obvious red flag.

 

This is purely false or misrepresented information:

1. Williams is nowhere close to being a top target lol. The only reason for its high % is due to having a super tiny student body with a vastly disproportionate amount of wealthy, connected students from boarding schools. This makes the school a very common place to hire nepo from.

2. LMFAO at JHU and Vanderbilt being on par with Stanford/MIT/Caltech. You obviously have never gone to either school if you say this. “You should have no issue getting your resume through the door” from JHU/Vandy is supremely false as well. The reputation of both schools in finance is nonexistent. JHU is at least good for med but Vandy just fucking sucks lol. Sure, some JHU kids who grind can place somewhat decent, but please don’t delude yourself into thinking it is anything above a semi target at BEST. 
 

If you recommend taking Williams, JHU, or Vandy over any Tier 1 - 4 school, you’re either blatantly lying (bias), a high school student with no idea of how recruiting works, or truly an idiot. 

 

1. Having wealthy students does not detract from being a tiny school with high % placements. When networking from Williams, you will find analysts from your school at every bank, and they will be willing to help you.

2.  When I said JHU and Vanderbilt were on par with Stanford, MIT, and Caltech, I meant in the sense that they are not schools with a massive population of students interested in finance, but that through raw prestige any placement is achievable from those 5 schools without any overly strenous effort. Also, we are not talking about WSFM, we are talking about UT. WSFM is very difficult to get into.

 

I've still never seen anyone who actually went to an LAC make the "most hires from LACs are nepo" claim. Unbelievable how much people try to undermine these schools. That said, OP's Williams claim is still outlandish. 

 

Just say you didn't get into Vandy man.

The school places very well for people who take recruiting seriously- there were interns at every top BB and EB this summer with even better placement for next summer. Those who land offers tend to perform well and the reputation is very solid across the street. 

While it may not on the level of a top business Ivy or even Duke/Northwestern, the idea that Vanderbilt is getting washed by WashU and Emory is utterly false.

 

No bias but Columbia is the only top Ivy 💀

At least no D glazing on this post 💯

 

I fear this is completely accurate but the IU / BC and other self-proclaimed semitargets are not going to like this.

 

Could you expand on extreme competition? Particularly interested in Cornell/Columbia scene. From what I’ve gleaned, everyone who networks learns fundamentals and has a 3.5+ at Cornell (haven’t talked about other schools) gets into Banking, is it that BB/EB is high competition?

 

I go to Cornell. You might have a little easier recruiting journey from Columbia than Cornell, but the difficulty of recruiting from Cornell is like exaggerated 100x on this forum. Like most people pursue STEM, like CS or Premed, at Cornell. Finance is not perceived that high at Cornell like it is at Penn. However, you would still need a 3.7+ GPA, which really isn't that hard unless you major in CS or Math at Cornell. 

 

Indeed, good points. While I wouldn’t say most students at Cornell pursue STEM majors, a high proportion do. That said, even the liberal arts students there take more STEM courses than other LSA schools because…well, because STEM is in Cornell’s DNA (and Cornell “encourages” you). But your comment that “Finance is not perceived that high at Cornell…” is decidedly not true for the Dyson business school, where, like most top business schools, finance majors are over 40% of the student body. Also, as the smallest undergrad business school in the nation, with an acceptance rate typically in the 2.5% to 4% (+/- ) range, Dyson’s placement in IB, high-finance generally and consulting is outstanding—an entirely different animal than the liberal arts school, which is understandable, since most LSA majors have no interest in banking. As you said, the STEM students place very well (if they apply and study up on IB material). I noticed that the author of this ranking didn’t distinguish between a given university (as a whole) and that university’s business school (if it has one) for most of the universities cited. There is a big difference between a business school and the other schools in a university, in terms of student interest in high-finance, for obvious reasons. I’ve always found these college rankings funny on my infrequent visits to WSO—and the brickbat comments even funnier. Though honestly, the recruiters don’t slice and dice the rankings anywhere near as much—it’s Target, semi-Target and all the rest (of the very good schools). They’re quite busy (and many assigned the task aren’t happy campers). Good Luck to all applicants.

 

In recent years, UT has had just as good placement as Michigan. Most spots don’t actually go to diversity - more than half of the placement came from non-diverse males for class of 2026. Only a handful of people recruit from outside of McCombs, so more than 4% of McCombs (which you apply for directly in college apps) gets a NY financial services offer. Sounds like a target to me! And one that is a top five business school in the country with better campus culture and school spirit then almost every other target

 

You guys aren’t even the top target in fucking Houston. You’re lucky to even be mentioned on this list. Frankly rice belongs above you guys, since everyone familiar with both schools views it as superior. As you know, McCombs only places well due to a high concentration of hardos and a splatter of nepo kids from NYC private schools. I think even SMU ALTS>>>> UT McCombs

 

Touch grass lol. You’re right though, McCombs places well because it has smart, hard working students. If you’re smart and hard working enough to get into a tier 1-3 school, then you will get into WSFM and place from McCombs

 

I've seen a bunch of profiles that have placed from UT and seen a lot of Indians. Are they considered diversity?

 

This is the worst response on this post. 

1. Ross and Stern are better than W/A and Berkeley for finance. If you disagree you're coping, and no, I didn't go to Ross/Stern, I went to a school in Tiers 1-3. 

2. UT places way better than JHU and Vandy, I don't know why this is a surprise.

3. W/A and Berkeley absolutely do not elicit 'wows' hahaha. People at my prep school considered W/A places you'd go if you didn't get into any other T20, and nobody even bothered applying to Berkeley. Berkeley has 33k undergrads and accepts almost every community college transfer; not very impressive imo. 

4. Columbia is literally better than Dartmouth. Dartmouth is on the level of the lower ivies if you look at its placement in recent years lol. Take out nepo hires and it even falls below the lower ivies. 

Congrats on Williams though! Nobody outside of certain circles knows what it is, and those who do know will think you got rejected from every Ivy/T15 school!

 

babe wake up it's more unsubstantiated LAC slander

I also went to a top boarding school and W/A were very well respected, people wouldn't take them over Ivies + SMDC but they were pretty much the next choice after those. T20 rejects went to Georgetown or NYU; I distinctly remember once overhearing a conversation that went along the lines of the following: "Oh, she's going to Georgetown?" "Yeah, I wonder what went wrong..."

Personally, I chose W/A over both Georgetown and Michigan, and I know multiple people both here and at my high school who did the same. 

 

the dartmouth over columbia on all the other posts I've seen is such a bs on first hindsight. I go to cornell so very unbiased on the debate here

 

Appreciate the ranking but Notre dame is absolutely on par with nyu, Georgetown, and Michigan. Strong target for Chicago and tons of representation at most BBs and increasing presence at evc, laz, pjt, etc

 

big fax - my buddy at Duke landed a regional mutual fund in charlotte (got rejected from every single eb/bb, while no looks from PE/HF buyside), while his sister at NC State landed UMM PE sophomore year through girls who invest + eb tmt ibd junior year.

 

All being equal, the white guy getting into Harvard itself indicates that he is very top of the demographic while the latino girl getting into Kelley indicates she is not the top of her demographic despite the former is much more competitive demographic pool. 

 

sure, maybe not top of his class, but he is one of the smartest guys i know. 

he had a hard hard life. grew up in abject poverty in the north carolina rockies with a miserable childhood plagued by a broken family, domestic violence, and child abuse. 

worked his ass off in north carolina public schools so that he can one day get into a great college and use his education as a tool to carve a path to a better life out of his hardships.

he had a 99th percentile SAT score, was top of his class, founded a non-profit organization that helped students from abusive families stay and succeed in school, and wrote his essays on how he hoped to use his education to go into a position where he can help more students from extreme hardship use education to better their lives.

come decision day, he was rejected by every single ivy league school, but got into duke through a specialized program for low-income north carolina residents.

at duke, he continued to hustle, having good leadership positions in clubs and maintaining a ~3.8 GPA, while regularly dealing with his abusive parents threatening to withhold tuition money.

as mentioned earlier, he applied to, but was rejected by every single eb/bb, and had to settle for a regional mutual fund in charlotte.

bottom line, white and asian males are held to ridiculously high standards in both elite college admissions and corporate recruiting, especially for those who don't come from wealthy backgrounds.

it's so sad to see because we all know that he would have been an absolute rockstar at a nyc eb/bb/buyside shop, but is denied the opportunity due to factors completely out of his control.

IMO, his situation is a perfect example of racial, gender, and class discrimination in every sense of the word.

 

Showed this to the hopkins kid that sits next to me - JHU itself is pretty bad for finance but JHU Salant deserves at least a semi target ranking just looking at their placement - pretty cracked all things considered.

 

current dartmouth student with a georgetown brother. here's my $0.02

darty and gtown place v well, despite not having the highest global rankings, but both schools are nepo baby central. outside of diversity and nepo, plenty of kids strike out, especially among white + asian males.

bridgewater recruits v heavily out of dartmouth (their fav school right next to HYPSM + wharton & columbia), as their cio is dartmouth class of 1996, while evercore and centerview do so out of georgetown, as the EVR founder is georgetown class of 1967 + the head of the raid defense group is georgetown class of 1988, and CVP's head of RX is georgetown class of 1989.

both schools place well, but be prepared to go up against a lot of well-connected nepos and diversities, if you do not fall into either category. it's a rigged game from the start.

obvi, go to HYPSM or Wharton if you can. otherwise, no doors will be closed to you at darty or gtown, but you will have to hustle and play your dealt cards right.

if you're at darty, try using the d-plan for cool internships + join dipp, while if you're at gtown, try to work a part-time internship in dc + join any investment club on campus - beef up that resume and you will at least get first rounds from where you want.

overall, great undergrad experience at both schools and drop dead gorgeous campuses.

 

all of them. cornell to a lesser extent, but it has a high concentration of legacies.

also, as cornell is divided into 8 undergraduate schools with a large student population, some schools (dyson) have easier classes than others (ILR, CAS). this is in sharp contrast with most other ivies which are just divided between a college and an engineering school. 

every target school will have a good amount of nepo + diversity, so might as well aim to get into the best one you can and go from there.

welcome to the rat race!

 

This is an interesting take on target schools for buyside recruiting, but I’d say it's important to remember that everyone’s experience can vary depending on the field, personal connections, and effort. Ranking schools solely on competition and prestige can sometimes miss the full picture. Factors like internships, networking, and soft skills are just as critical in landing top roles.

 

Excellent post. Suggestions

1. Add Berkeley Haas to tier 4

2. Drop UPenn (non Wharton) to level 3 or 4. [in my time recruiting at UPenn, I never hired anyone non-Wharton]

3. Drop Emory, WashU to “also ran” category.  Nobody from there gets hired.

Disclosure: Wharton alum and recruited kids over 8 years at 2 BB banks.

 

Not to blow smoke up my own for my school but Stern should definitely place higher on this list.

Places tons of students every year into banking across the whole gamut from small banks to BBs and EBs

Most prep you'll get aside from Wharton

Most kids on the street second only to Wharton

Great alumni networks

No school spirit yes but NYU has lots of great student activities and tbh wouldn't really want to be that close to other stern kids until after offers are out

 

Smart kids will see through this list lmao. Heading to one of the 'top' shops this forum considers and the list likely won't correlate to your placement.

 

As of late, Stanford’s been losing its alumni presence and has been designated as a non-target for many NY BBs due to people opting for cushy tech jobs. For west coast, they absolutely blow out; but for NY recruiting, not as hot recently

 

You know it's interesting you bring this up. I dont think i've come across any Stanford undergrad alumni in my 11 years of post undergrad experience. Obviously its a great school and I've generally been in "smaller" groups (investment research, investment management) but yeah, haven't really met anyone.

 

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