Actual Global Undergrad Tier List
This is the most thorough tier list of institutions of higher learning's undergraduate programs, sorted by an aggregate of success rate into MBB, IBD and PE and international perception/prestige. Inaccurate metrics such as total placement, placement per capita, on-campus recruiting, geographical location or alumni base are eliminated from the aggregate data.
The metrics for schools in each tier fall within roughly 0.414 standard deviations of each other. Within tiers, there are no particular order of schools. This list only covers institutions of higher learning in developed countries (G7 + Hong Kong, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore and regions without developed status by FTSE nor MSCI, but has a sufficiently developed capital markets infrastructure on par with G7 countries).
Tier White
"A student from this school has roughly a 27-33% chance of breaking into MBB, IBD or PE in developed regions."
- Oxford
- Cambridge
- LSE
- Harvard
- Yale
- UPenn (Wharton only)
- ETH Zurich
- Tsinghua
- Kyoto
- Tokyo
Tier Gold
"A student from this school has roughly a 14-26% chance of breaking into MBB, IBD or PE in developed regions."
- Dartmouth
- Cornell
- Princeton
- UVA
- MIT
- Warwick
- Imperial
- UCL
- HEC Montreal
- Peking
- Melbourne
- TUM
Tier Grey
"A student from this school has roughly a 11-13% chance of breaking into MBB, IBD or PE in developed regions."
- Georgetown
- Notre Dame
- Michigan (Ross only)
- UToronto
- St Andrews
- KCL
- Manchester
- ANU
- Sydney
- Bocconi
Tier Brown
"A student from this school has roughly a 3-13% chance of breaking into MBB, IBD or PE in developed regions."
- NYU (Stern only)
- Columbia
- Chicago
- UC Berkeley (Haas only)
- Caltech
- Queen's (Canada)
- McGill
- etc
Tier Black
"A student from this school has <3% chance of breaking into MBB, IBD or PE in developed regions."
I'm only going to include overrated schools that most would think are at least Tier Brown, well known or notable schools in this category, otherwise it would encompass pretty much every school in the developed world.
- USC (Marshall only)
- IU (Kelley only)
- Stanford
- Western (Ivey only)
- Northwestern
- etc
Pretty accurate so far, especially because the success rates have shifted a lot this year. I'd put Princeton one tier down and Bocconi up a tier though.
Found the UVA kid
Why the fuck is Dartmouth that high, and I don't see a single german or french uni on here
nepotism
Bump
I'm gonna base my kids future on this list
I havent seen a single Bocconi kid on the street this year
unironically accurate, even though i noticed you sorted the tiers from best to worst from white to brown to black (tf is wrong with you)
its very private-centric, because it left out some hidden gems like ut austin and ucla
Neither of those schools are hidden gems lol in fact UCLA is one of the worst schools for finance compared to peer schools
Manchester is arguably the biggest troll aspect of this thread tbh.
what?
username checks out
Manchester is not a target school in the UK, they send like less than 5 kids into FO IB each year
that TUM was included in the same tier as MIT, UCL, Imperial, Warwick, Princeton, Dartmouth and HEC is the much bigger troll
Disagree
no clue what TUM is icl
Also disagree. For STEM, it’s probably Germany’s best school - better than UCL in the UK for example. Subjects matter more in Germany than the UK/US, but you will stand a decent chance from there. Very little chance from Manchester for the UK.
I have 2 TUM kids in my analyst class in London
Yeah - if you apply to MBB from Manchester they’ll bin your CV without reading down the page..
no idea how my alma mater (penn state) didnt even get a mention
Serious question - how hard is it to make it to IB or S&T from Penn State?
If you join their investment fund (forgot what it was called), a decent chance
gang
the usual pipelines from canada are drier than my wife ever since trump fucked with their visas
I can fix that in exchange for an SA offer, hit me up "evercorerainmaker"
make another one based on how hot the girls are and itll be reversed
lmao u wildin
Western Ivey and Queens should at least be the same tier as uToronto if not higher. I don’t know if anyone from uToronto goes to US banks. It is a good feeder for MBB though
Western uses a 2 year program, meaning kids under x gpa are filtered out entirely, skewing data heavily in their favor because everyone in their b school has over ~3.8 gpa.
McGill and Queen's run the show domestically, why UToronto is by far the most represented international school found in Asia-Pacific, having even more presence there than McGill or Queen's does in Canada and the US combined.
Re your comment on UT in APAC, that is correct. UT has the most non-biz brand recognition out of any Canadian school. However, if we are talking about biz, UT is not really in the discussion. McGill and Queens are great schools, however, they do not "run the show" domestically. Ivey performs the best domestically, with Queens as a very close second. McGill is not considered to be in the same tier, however, they still do great regardless.
Side note, you placed HEC Montreal as the #1 school in Canada and in the same category as schools like Dartmouth/MIT? Anyone from Canada would read that and assume to be a troll
Read it bottom to top and its the ranking of likelihood of getting pussy in college. This is why I went to Blue Mountain State and now proudly work at GS/MS/Tobin & Co as an extern.
I too, work at EVR/JEF/PJT
Surprised to see Cornell so high, always thought its large class sizes somewhat covered its mediocre placement
had no idea the non-UK/NA universities ranked so highly
Your percentages are so off lmfao. My Harvard graduating class had just one single student who wanted IB but couldn't land a gig. I couldn't tell you how many kids ended up in IB/MBB/PE, but it was certainly more than two.
You sound like a total nerd. Pls fix by EOD and touch grass ASAP
What methodology did you use? Also, I'm not so sure if including China and Japan is accurate given that almost no one attending a Western school considers those markets as their goal.
They have roughly the same opportunities to place in their domestic seats as US/UK schools have of placing in North America/Europe.
Fair. Would still love to know what methodology you used though. How did you account for things like interest in these fields within the school population? Wouldn't that be what determines the odds of landing these roles?
Absolutely horrible list. While schools like ETH Zürich are well regarded it's not really a traditional target for non quant finance. Same goes for TUM, I think some of them go into MBB, but it's definitely not common and ppl from TUM in ibd or pe are even less common. St. Gallen, WHU and Uni Mannheim are all way better than TUM for getting into finance in the DACH area (Germany, Switzerland, Austria). I think the same applies to UofT, which is not target at all, even though it's highly ranked because of its research. St. Andrews, KCL and Manchester are Semi Targets at best, the only true UK targets are Warwick, Imperial, UCL, LSE, Oxbridge and LBS.
The international list is diabolical…
Switch out Manchester for Durham and the list seems pretty damn accurate
Switch out Manchester for Durham and the list seems pretty damn accurate
LSE is so overrated on this forum.
Tell me you're racist without telling me that you're racist... What else can be expected from a guy with a user name that reflects pristenely three facts a) heavy inferiority complexes due to micropenis issues b) repressed homo impulses c) very strong pedo impulses... Fuck off and go back to rape dogs while looking at a portrait of your fhürer or however is written ( is a well known fact of the history of psychiatry that hitler's niece committed suicide because of the aberrant acts that she was forced to commit by her uncle even including dogs)
ill take 2 of whatever youve been snorting
Snorting no thanks, that's for bums like you. People like me have neurons and business to care about...
Clearly not from Canada if you're placing UofT anywhere on a list, especially above Queens and Ivey.
Yeah this list is troll. UToronto being on the list, espec above Ivey/Queens gave it away
Ivey is massively overrated on forums like WSO because of the US centric nature of these forums. People working in the US see Ivey overrepresented in the states relative to their b school size, so they tend to think it's more of a "target" than Smith (Queens) or Desautels (McGill) who really dominate up north.
I do agree that Ivey, Queens and McGill are used to having better placements, however, UofT is doing better and better now, there are people who got BBs this year given how limited the spots are in BBs in Canada. Besides, UofT is probably the most academically prestigious school and is known for its bell curve. A 3.8 at UofT and a 3.8 in other schools (besides waterloo) are incomparable, and uoft kids work way harder to get the same GPA.
Can confirm that UofT is internationally acclaimed, the only kids from Canada I see here in London are all from UofT.
Duke??
Nobody's mentioned stanford being on the very fuckin bottom?
As per usual, international schools are all WAY OFF.
Wtf is Kyoto doing in the top tier instead of Keio or Waseda? Wtf is ETH Zurich doing in the top tier?
Wtf is Manchester doing lumped in with Bocconi. Where tf are the other UK semi-targets?
Trash effort
Manchester and Saint Andrews are generally regarded as the top semis in the UK, so not far off
It makes no sense to see KCL, St Andrew’s, and Manchester above US targets like Columbia, Stern, Berkeley. A school like McGill is also several tiers below these schools as well.
Whoever told you that needs to lay off the narcotics
how the fuck is kyoto on the same tier as tokyo lmao
Otherwise pretty accurate comparison of US to UK and Canadian schools with equivalent German, Australian and Chinese ones used as a benchmark.
This is not accurate for international schools in the slightest
It’s so easy to get into IB from Northwestern. I would place it higher—literally don’t know a single normal person who didn’t get into the industry that wanted to.
Northwestern is overall a medicore school except for Kellogg, which is great (for MBB, subpar for IB/PE).
My graduating class would disagree with placements at literally every bank I can think of. Again, to each their own, but as mentioned from actually attending the school and having worked for 4 years, kids are able to place anywhere from there and I didn’t know anyone who was unable to break into banking that started on time (a few that missed the boat). Is there less interest broadly from the student body? Maybe. But it’s not hard to get an interview coming from NU. Also, having been on the hiring end of things, it’s going to be perceived better than stern/ umich/ any school ranked lower unless you are a direct alumni of that specific institution.
Bocconi should be higher and Queens should be lower, they only place well in Canada (still second to McGill)
The sheer amount of buyside seats McGill kids land are insane. Only Lazaridis (the bschool) comes close to buyside presence
Thanks for clarifying that it's a business school, I thought it was an STI
hi,could you please talk a little more about lazardis,what sort of roles and what companies they place into,really considering attending,any info would be very very helpful
thanks in advance
UK is very wrong - if per capita, LSE is actually worse than Imperial, UCL and Warwick (go look at the career outcomes for LSE, 22% in all of finance and accounting out of how many trying?). And Manchester even being on this list is a joke.
I'm pretty sure the politics, history or public policy kids (which is like half their filler courses) aren't gunning for finance (although I have no idea what their goals are)
Lmao at HEC Montreal, if you include TUM might as well include other continental enginering schools like EPFL, TU Delft, Ecole Polytechnique. Engineering schools as targets is retarded most people do not care about banking/mbb there.
Also hate to break it to you but people have already done the dick measuring contest with the QS Ranking and THE Ranking
You obviously didn't go to any of the schools on the list if you refer to Penn as UPenn
Totally biased take on my end because I went there, but not seeing Vanderbilt on any of these rankings always is just as reflective of the forum’s bias. UChicago below Notre Dame and Georgetown? UChicago easily has one of the most revered economics departments in the US.
Anecdotally, I completely agree with the Northwestern poster about everyone I knew that was set on going into IB or MBB landed it. Yes, there’s no dedicated undergrad B-school (which is irrelevant in my opinion). Yes, the school is geographically in a massive recruiting void. Regardless, from my experience the kids that wanted to go for one of these specific routes all made it happen.
My main qualm with the ranking is what the hell is your methodology behind the “probability of breaking in”? Are you assuming that every person at every school is gunning for only the industries you listed? That would clearly skew your numbers heavily in favor of schools with a larger population interested in these jobs, as they’d place higher in aggregate and relative % purely based on the self-selection into those programs.
End of the day, anyone at a T20 in the US can break in given that’s that’s a goal they commit to along with the other universal set of pre-requisites (GPA, major, etc.). And limiting that to just T20 is being conservative. No comment on outside the US I have limited context there.
Whoever made this has zero clue what they're talking about. Princeton is definitely white. No way in hell is UVA even remotely close to gold lol. And why tf is my alma mater Columbia in tier brown? Columbia students go straight to buy side and skip that beta IB life. Don't think Stern or Georgetown should be that low either. List was made by some UVA kid trying to steal clout. UVA kids make me laugh.
Columbia kids don't go straight to buyside, buyside seats are filled 95% by WHYD/Oxbridge kids. Princeton is overrated as fuck on mainstream media, in most professional and academic fields, it's in the ballpark of Brown, Cornell, UCLA and the other low-tier ivy equivalents.
Yeah a bunch of my friends and I went straight buyside. Laughable that you try to sneak in Dartmouth with HYW. Dartmouth is for people who couldn't get into a good ivy and chose Dartmouth so their parents could brag their kids go to an ivy. And trying to group Princeton with Brown and Cornell (UCLA is not even a semi target) is also a joke.
Just LMAO at the Canadian schools ordered in the list and LMAO at the metrics being used here.
UToronto (Rotman) above Queen's, McGill which are above Western's Ivey tells me a literal baboon made this list.
At least read the actual tier list in Canada everyone and their mothers knows about before u try and implement it into your garbage https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/here-are-the-target-undergraduat…;
You literally have zero idea how statistics work if you still think Western and Queen's are above McGill or Toronto.
The undisputed ranking by those in the industry are:
McGill
Toronto
Queens
Laurier
Western
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