2025 College Rankings
Tier 1: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Wharton
Tier 2: MIT, Columbia, UPenn, Duke, Dartmouth
Tier 3: UChicago, Cornell, Northwestern, Brown
Tier 4: Georgetown, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross
Tier 5: UCB, Emory, WashU, UT, UVA, Notre Dame
Tier 6: UNC, IU Kelley, Vanderbilt, UCLA
Thoughts?
IU Kelley too high, Brown & Northwestern too high, Georgetown should be higher
Kelley has been placing great as of late. I work at an EB that regularly takes kids from Kelley and the Kelley grads/interns that I've worked alongside have been hardworking and are trained very well.
I included every T10 ranked school + Ivy in tiers 1-3, which includes Brown and Northwestern. They have traditional prestige and also place great with less interest from their student bodies.
I definitely think that Georgetown is on par with Ross and Stern. Georgetown, like Ross and Stern, leans very heavily towards high paying white collar jobs (IB, consulting, etc) which definitely helps its placement. However, it suffers from having excess competition (like Ross and Stern) which is why I ranked some schools that aren't as known for finance but place similarly above it. Georgetown is a fantastic school though all things considered, I just don't think it should be ranked any higher than it is.
There are so many kids at Kelley so some are bound to place well but overall not a great school and every other school on this list has a more intelligent student body and places better. Brown and Northwestern are not better than Georgetown for placement. All of the tier 3 and tier 4 schools are better options for someone wanting to go into finance as compared to Brown and Northwestern, don't think level of competition within the school matters that much, but just my opinion.
Congrats On Emory/Dartmouth!
I graduated from one of Stern / Ross, just trying to make an objective ranking from what I've heard from colleagues / seen in the industry.
Cool! Emory & Vandy should be the same tier,they are both at the same level.
Congrats on Ross!
Del
I mean, being candid, Dartmouth is closer to Tier 1 than Tier 3. Those alums are fucking crazy. We got a Dartmouth guy in our group as an analyst when I was a 2nd year and within 3 years, we now have like 5 Dartmouth people in our group.
LACs snubbed once again
I would personally add the LACs either on Tier 4 or between 4 and 5. I don't know too much about how recruiting is done from LACs so I omitted them from the list to try and preserve accuracy.
LACs are a misunderstood product. Amherst/Williams should be tier 2/3. Academically, there is a case for tier 2, and if looking at per-capita placement, it also slots there. However, the name brand/general awareness needs to be improved, but it is more than made up for in the eyes of employers/grad school/academia.
See: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/how-prestigious-is-william…
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/williams-amherst-or-brown
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/investment-banking/undergrad-scho…
Wharton Harvard, in their own tier MIT and Dartmouth up one Uchicago up one other than that, it looks right.
Dyson should be added one tier above cornell.
I don't think the difference between Dyson and Cornell as a whole is significant
Dyson to Cornell != Wharton to Penn
Dyson to Cornell != Stern to NYU
As a recent (nondiverse) Dartmouth grad, the Dartmouth glaze on this site has gone too far, let me shed some light on the school.
1. Plenty of Dartmouth kids strike out
2. We have a shit ton of competition in finance (the no competition myth is not true LOL)
3. We have the highest % of connected / rich kids compared to other target schools, which leads to lots of nepo placements. I’d estimate that ~20-25% of our placements are driven by nepo or fam/friend connections, plenty others are through diversity
4. The wintership is useless now, all of the good banks don’t offer it anymore to Dartmouth students
5. Frat connections play a huge role in recruiting.
6. Lots of the buyside firms stopped taking tons of Dartmouth kids, the only one that really still takes a lot is Bridgewater, but why would you ever want to work there?
Please stop trying to compare the school to Yale and Princeton. Signed, a self aware Dartmouth grad.
Rip dartmouth
.
Is this actually true? I’m incoming @ Dartmouth btw
I want to push back on this perspective and offer an alternative view- also recent dartmouth alum and this hasn't been my experience at all as another non-diverse candidate who currently works at a top firm
Addressing the points one by one:
1. Not true at all from my circle - almost everyone who wanted to recruit for finance/consulting/quant landed a role within the industry of their choice
2. Competition exists, but after talking to plenty of hs friends and coworkers who went to Wharton/Stern/UVA type schools imho dartmouth students have been absolutely shielded from the worst of the cutthroat culture. Many students are not as aware of just how bad it could be at other places. I'd say overall the recruiting culture is more collaborative (with friends prepping tgt and sharing application deadlines) than backstabbing
3. True, we have the highest percentage of highly-connected 1 percenters. Could be positive or negative based on if you can leverage them as a resource
4. We have a quarter system where theres a great deal of flexibility in when we take an "off-term". Plenty of ppl still make use of this to find great off-cycle internships at PE/quant type places even though it's true BBs have cut back on formalized winternship. The opportunity is there but takes individual initiative to go one step above and look for opportunities. I personally just chilled during off-terms except for junior summer and had fun - still turned out fine
5. Frats can be an additional advantage, not bring in a frat is not a disadvantage. That said majority of campus are involved in greek life anyway (60%) and it's way better to join for the social aspect than for career prospects
6. Not familiar with buyside recruiting particularly - but have multiple friends whi landed buyside analyst roles so idk. In addition to out traditionally strong pipelines into finance/consulting, I'd like to callout a new pipeline that has recently been very consistently successful - quant. Most recruiting for quant pipeline does come from one fraternity, but there's a fair bit of self selection at play.
In general, I think the most overlooked and unique part of recruiting at dartmouth is just how little people have to intern and network going into junior summer. This is a result of the ultra tight alum network (high alum outreach response rates) and enforced sophomore summer (all students are required to be on campus for classes sopho summer). I'm aware a lot of ppl who are successful in recruiting at other schools have half a dozen internships under their belt by the time of junior summer, whereas it's common to see dartmouth students with no prior internship before junior summer still successful recruit for top spots. This means theres more time to do "typical college" activities and less pressure to breed the "hardo" mindset, if that matters to you.
Anyways, didnt mean for this post to get so long - totally not my intention to invalidate the previous poster's experience, just wanted offer an alternative perspective
Fartmouth for college and Fuck for MBA
As a counterpoint, from someone from a Dartmouth family (4 grandparents, mom, dad, 2 brothers (one there right now), 1 sister) but I went to W:
1. You see this at every school, including all the Tier 1 names. If this wasn’t true, you wouldn’t see HYPW kids at banks from boutiques to shitty LMMs
2. Same at every T1 school but at least no one is a “snake” vs. the general student population at Wharton
3. Yes, but as a student, you should use this as an advantage, no? I wouldn’t be at my bank if my friend’s dad wasn’t a partner, and I had a 3.3
4. Yeah, it’s tough. All the bulge bracket banks dropped it I heard, but a lot of the EBs still offer it luckily including mine, plus a lot of UMM PE funds. However, Dartmouth is also trying to kill off the winternship I heard, due to housing shortages
5. Yes, but like I said, this is actually a positive, as long as you’re personable
6. I disagree - I feel like I always see Dartmouth kids go to MM/UMM/MF names out of undergrad
Curious about your reasoning behind putting UNC as tier 6
Just don't see many UNC kids placing at good banks, and the ones that do are usually diversity unfortunately
Fair point. Can't disagree with you there haha
Damn where’s Rice? :(
Would put it tier 5
Be serious
Tier 1 for Houston tho
Congrats on either Dartmouth, Stern or Ross
How’s placement from Penn CAS?
Pretty much the same as Wharton, from my experience. CAS econ and PPE majors have not had issues getting IB jobs; the only difference is networking and interview prep might take a bit more effort.
Notre Dame gotta be higher
I’m currently at ND. Extremely low % of non diverse men got BB /EB offers in my class. Great for Chicago middle market
It's probably rough for non-diversity candidates across all target schools. It is a tough market to recruit at this moment.
Currently at ND. Extremely low % of nondiverse male 2026 grads got BB/EB offers. Great for Chicago MM
It’s not 2025 yet, how could you possibly make this list
Add BC in tier 6?
How would USC Marshall fit in this ranking?
Tier 5
i would merge tiers 3 + 4, and swap duke with uchicago
UChicago should be up by one
WashU is in the same tier as Berkeley, uva, and ND? Not disputing, just asking.
No, it's not. I don't see how Vandy is 6 but Washu isn't?
.............
Like clockwork 😂
Where tf Boston College at? Yall jits bugging.
UChicago up, Northwestern down, IU down
I chose ucsb over Emory bc cost was 3x less… am I cooked?
Amherst, Williams. W&L??
I know quite a few Dartmouth folks (they took in a lot of grads from my HS) and they are not T2 by any stretch.
Placement is fine, but it is not a write your own ticket school by any stretch. Their presence has been underwhelming and they don't build out any notable groups on the Street so there really isn't much of a funnel for finance at Dartmouth. Frankly, it's on the same level as Barnard.
Columbia I don't know as well but Chicago, NW, MIT, and even Ross all have far better placement than Dartmouth at this point
If Vandy is 6, so is WashU.
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