What do you guys think the USNews T20 will look like for 2025? Here's this year's current ranking:
Princeton
MIT
Harvard, Stanford
Yale
Penn
Caltech, Duke
Brown, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern
My prediction:
Princeton
Harvard
Stanford
MIT
Yale
Caltech
Penn
Columbia
Duke
UChicago
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell
Vanderbilt
Rice
UC Berkeley
WashU
Georgetown
| +131 | USNEWS 2025 RANKING | 73 | 3h |
| +95 | Do you guys respond to kids not from your university? | 36 | 8h |
| +83 | McKinsey vs. MM IB | 27 | 16h |
| +50 | Email MD but got responses from Analyst | 8 | 14h |
| +38 | VP Hours | 11 | 19h |
| +37 | What's so special about Moelis? | 28 | 17h |
| +34 | What's going on with SA 2025 roles? | 27 | 19h |
| +30 | Perspectives on Media M&A | 8 | 1d |
| +29 | IB Chill Hours | 25 | 3d |
| +28 | EVR MP 2024 | 22 | 2d |
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Georgetown is not a top 20 school
same for berkeley. just an overcrowded semi-target with high research output given its size, kids are dumb as shit idk who let them think they're a top school man
If Berkeley is a private school, it'd be a contender for T20s fs. Perhaps better than some T20s like ND/Vanderbilt/Rice/WashU/Gtown.
U spend way too much time on WSO, prospect
Emory hitting top 20 again for sure
People are so comically weird about Emory on this site. Like how is this controversial?!
Emory sucks lmao, the amount of kids that get in with 1400 SATs is insane
Are you an idiot with that Columbia ranking
Only school that you can even debate putting columbia over is penn and I wouldnt do it. Wharton makes too much of a difference and columbia has lied about its acceptance rates and stats for years to usnews to inflate its ranking. It appears that you’re the idiot.
I’m saying Columbia is ranked way too high. It’s an overrated school with terrible PR now- it isn’t moving up
Replace Berkeley with ND. It's either Emory or Georgetown fighting for the last spot as T20. Berkeley and UCLA are great schools, but the students they admit for freshmen/transfers aren't the same caliber as other T20s and Ivy Leagues. It's obscure that Berkeley and UCLA are ranked higher than Dartmouth.
Yea Berkeley and UCLA are tough to gauge. Would argue their top 5-10% students are of a higher caliber than the top 5-10% at places like Emory, WashU, Georgetown, Rice, Vanderbilt, and maybe even Brown and Dartmouth, but their bottom 20-25% are a lot worse than the same percentile at all those other places I mentioned.
As a current student at UCLA, 1000% agree with this. I know people who are insanely smart (180 LSAT, extremely high EQ, great writers, cracked at CS, etc).
On the other hand, I was an undergrad TA and was shocked at the number of students who write at a ninth grade level and can barely pass math classes. I think the high transfer population and elimination of standardized tests (!) is the driving factor here.
That said, don’t discount top UCLA/Cal students — they are no doubt on par with the best of the best from HYPSM.
Berkeley and UCLA have 3x the students, their top 5% being better than Emory, GU, Vandy etc is a given since they have so many students. But you judge a school based on the bottom end not the top end. UF, UNC, BU etc also have top 5% students that are very impressive.
Yeah, I would agree. There are definitely a lot of clever Berkeley students in CS/EECS/STEM majors. The student gap in public is too big, especially if you look at how easy it is to transfer into some of the majors at Berkeley. The typical/hard-working students at top privates would access more resources than Berkeley/UCLA.
Congrats on WashU!
Shut the fuck up little hoe. Washu is a t15 school.(I’m being semi-sarcastic.)
Such BS that schools like Cornell and Dartmouth get dinged for a lack of “diversity” despite consistently low acceptance rates (without gaming the system like Chicago), post-undergrad outcomes, high financial aid, high test scores, etc
only dartmouth gets dinged for that not cornell. cornell should not be higher than it is currently ranked imo. cornell also has really high acceptance rates for certain colleges.
where's BYU??
This is what we needed, a pre-ranking discussion of the actual rankings that are yet to come out yet
WashU and Georgetown won't be that high. Not even sure Georgetown will be T25 this year. UCLA will be T20 so, even if I think they don't deserve that. Emory will be higher not sure if it gets to 20 or higher. Will be a tustle between Vandy, Emory and Notre Dame, and maybe Umich.
When do the rankings come out?
Who gives a fuck
k I'm curious... why tf are you guys losing sleep over this. This isn't even a ranking for finance...
Besides, most of y'all have jobs so just why?
sad asf
Most people here are in college…
Does college confidential not exist anymore? Take this shit there.
Don't see Berkeley and UCLA not making T15. US News has made it pretty clear that they are making a concerted effort to push public schools up. Both UCB and UCLA climbed in 15 range just based on minor changes. Columbia will also likely see a dip, while Duke could go up. T10 is just moving things around slightly, as you could probably make arguments for all schools in the T5 HYPSM to be #1, and you can make arguments for all the 6-10 to be 6 or 10. The 10-20 should be the most interesting.
Berkeley and UCLA at t15 is some horseshit, especially UCLA. UCLA is one of the most overrated schools. Placements are not even comparable to Berkeley/USC, let alone Stanford, on the West Coast and NY. Columbia, in my opinion, should be T10, but maybe a similar rank as Duke/Dartmouth. Many schools fall in the 6-10 range. You have UPenn, UChicago, Columbia, Caltech, JHU, Duke, Northwestern, etc, competing for T10. Tbh, the schools between 5 and 15 aren't that big of a difference. However, you would see a difference between schools like Columbia/UPenn and Vanderbilt/ND.
Agreed
Fair, was more saying that UCLA and UCB are getting boosts due to the system changes, not that UCB and UCLA are on the same level or that they should be higher(UCB is def still better, although UCLA is making great strides). I don't agree with most of the rankings that US news releases, I was more commenting on how they choose schools, and in the future it really seems like the public schools are going to get boosted more. I mean, the fact that Rice and Dartmouth are both below UCLA is pretty crazy IMO, but it is just what we have
I get people wanting to take pride in their alma mater and see their school rank higher than some competitors / peers to get some validation but the fact is these rankings are utterly useless and not credible. Encourage you to look at the metrics US News bases its rankings on.
WSJ ranking has Babson college as second behind Princeton. Really? Babson is better than Harvard and Yale? Would love to see the cross-admit yield. USNews has Johns Hopkins ahead of Columbia and UCLA ahead of Dartmouth; foolish.
Not trying to be a pretentious Ivy League type, just pointing out factually that people who matter and make decisions know which schools are the best in the country (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Penn, etc.) and whether they rank #2 or #3 in any given year is irrelevant because these rankings are comical. No disrespect to any Babson/JHU/UCLA alumni, just my 2c.
Rankings are completely useless: just go by the school’s aggregate reputation and prestige. Growing up in the NYC area, it was always something like this:
-Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT
-UPenn, Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, Brown
-Cornell, UMich, Georgetown, NYU
… and the rest. At the end of the day, if you’re in HS, just apply yourself and go to the best school possible. Not rocket science.
Yeah because Cornell, UMich, Georgetown, and NYU are definitely more prestigious than UChicago, Northwestern, and JHU
It was just an example… trying to make a point that school decisions shouldn’t come down to USNews. 11/10 go to UChicago or Northwestern over any of those three. John’s Hopkins is tricky; in the aggregate it is definitely a top school, but for finance, I don’t think it really places that well.
Speaking as an international, yes. All of those schools have much more brand recognition then Chicago, northwestern etc
Ok, so to clear up all this BS…
-Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Wharton
-UPenn(Non Wharton), Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, Brown, Northwestern, UChicago
-Cornell, UMich, Georgetown, NYU Stern.
If you’re choosing between schools on a similar tier, go where you think you’ll have the best experience for you. Enjoy!
prestige rankings don't matter, and neither does the school you attend a few years after graduation
That’s not true. The school you attend matters hugely, especially for buy side recruitment, MBA, etc. Attending the best school possible is always the right way to go (take it from someone who had loans), but the idea of using the USNews and World Report to pick the best school for IB/PE makes no sense.
A hardo really went through my profile and Ms’d every post of mine after I said uchicago/northwestern don’t have a lot of lay prestige so here are the
DEFINITIVE PRESTIGE RANKINGS:
S-tier: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, mit
A-tier: Dartmouth, Columbia, duke, penn, nyu, Georgetown, John hopkins, Berkeley, Cornell (barely)
B tier: northwestern, Notre-Dame, Vanderbilt, umichigan, uchicago, emory
these are all good schools and these rankings aren’t how well they recruit for finance but just general prestige and brand recognition
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