Undergraduate Target Schools Tier List (2023 Updates)

Tier 1: HYPWS Tier 2: UPenn (non Wharton)/Dartmouth/Columbia/MIT/UChicago Tier 3: Brown/Duke/Cornell Tier 4: Williams/Georgetown/Notre Dame/Claremont McKenna College/middlebury/Amhearst Tier 5: Washington and lee/Bowdoin/Vanderbilt University/New York University/Emory University/Northwestern University/Pomona College/Swarthmore College/University of Virginia/Southern Methodist University/Colgate University/Boston College/University of Michigan/UCB/Caltech

15 Comments
 
Controversial

Case can definitely be made, as far as finance-specific recruiting goes, that UChicago is in tier 1. I think the tide in finance is shifting a bit more towards meritocracy, and while UChicago may not be the most “old money” school, the graduates they produce are objectively very sharp.

Regardless, tier lists are bullshit and I do go to Uchicago and it’s not fun so might as well rationalize it by convincing others (or at least my self) that it’s tier 1 for, you know, increased PRESTIGEEEEEEE.

 

They're shifting even more towards DEI. I applied to one internship that only had ~15 schools from the dropdown - 7 were normal prestigious ones (HYPSM, Caltech, and Chicago) while the rest were ones like Wellesley/Barnard or Howard/Spelman. 

 

Georgetown, Williams, Amherst, and ND being on the same tier as CMC and Middlebury is egregious.

 

so what are the standards to differentiate schools into different tiers? I know that a target school list annually but who's responsible for making it, staff working at WSO or simply some people posting school names randomly based on their objective point of view? 

tbh this ranking certainly have to be more detailed. The author put the entire NYU on tier 5 while ignoring the drastic gaps between stern/cas/other schools. 

some schools on this list are obviously non-targets and it's hard to imagine schools like CMC deserve a higher spot than NYU/UVA. Probably it's better for the author or someone else to produce rankings based on geographic considerations, overall schools other than stamford/caltech in Cal (take USC as an example) are treated differently in LA/NYC

 

Uchicago tough academic school and not fun at all, but given recent performance warrants tier 1. Saw someone call it HYPSMC on another thread, and seeing the term pop up more. Look at MS Menlo, Q, etc. Multiple GS TMT in New York, SF.

Most people who come from the school are weird as shit but recruiting wise they definitely have had a huge comeuppance in the last couple of years

 

Whole Tier 4 line is a joke, how is NYU Stern under those garbage schools

 

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