2025 Target Rankings for IB / Buyside
From my POV as an EB Analyst. Grouped into general buckets because miniscule differences in schools don't drive meaningful changes in placement.
Tier 1 (HYPW): Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wharton
Tier 2 (Super targets): Stanford, MIT, Columbia, UPenn (Non-Wharton)
Tier 3 (Top Targets): Duke, Dartmouth, Northwestern, UChicago, Cornell
Tier 4 (Targets): Brown, Georgetown, NYU Stern, Williams, Amherst, Michigan, Notre Dame
Tier 4 (Semi Targets): UVA McIntire, Vanderbilt, UC Berkeley, Emory
Tier 5 (Low Semi Targets): USC, UT, WashU, UNC, IU Kelley, Johns Hopkins, Rice
Only schools I am iffy about are Cornell (heard mixed things about it and it fits better in the target category for the average person), Williams/Amherst (semi to low semi if you aren't an athlete, connected, or diversity), UC Berkeley (bad for NYC).
Georgetown should be on the same level as Cornell
georgetown’s become so overrated lol
Georgetown is only a target school and better than Cornell for RBC. Cornell places lights for bbs and everything else. Like the gtown places like shit at CVP.
lol these tiers are so meaningless between the first three.
I don’t know why you guys bother with these ridiculous distinctions
A better list would be which schools are ascending and which one's declining.
Wharton does not belong with HYP. Put W in a tier of its own above.
Why tf is UPenn (Non-Wharton) so high?
Already Wharton for nonnepo/non diverse is hard very hard because EVERYONE at Wharton is recruiting for a fixed number of spots (quota). There are athletes, talent, nepo, and diversity in Wharton and a surplus of skilled Wharton students and u think recruiters are going to pick a CAS student? Maybe, but they are low priority. CAS ppl are also negatively seen because they couldn’t get into Wharton (an existing finance program at school).
Non-Wharton goes TWO tiers down. Dartmouth goes up one tier due to its wickedly tight alumni network (the point that current students brought up about nepotism doesn't hold up when it applies to every top target). UChicago goes up one tier as well due to its tryhard environment (you drown or survive), molding you to become the best analyst b4 recruiting. Brown also goes up one more tier because of easy gpa (allows you to network/focus on recruiting more). Stanford goes one tier down (recruiting for NYC is shit compared to other top targets). Cornell also goes down one tier (stupidly high student population meaning brutal competition + ridiculous competition for feeder clubs). Columbia also goes down one tier (super-high competition with recent students reporting that only diversity gets offers).
Penn CAS places just as well as W lol
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