Updated 2021 Target School Tier List
Updated the list based on what people were saying / my own thoughts
Tier S++ (Super Target)
Harvard / Yale / Princeton - HYP
Wharton - UPenn's undergrad business school - 4yrs
Stanford - The most prestigious western school
Tier S+ (Target)
UPenn / Dartmouth / Columbia - Mid-tier Ivies. Non-Wharton UPenn is still a target school.
MIT
Duke - The most prestigious southern school
UChicago - The most prestigious midwestern school
Georgetown - Undergrad business school but also SFS & CAS - 4yrs
Cornell Dyson - Part of the Ivy League. Undergrad business school - 4yrs
Tier S (Target)
NYU Stern - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
Cornell / Brown - Part of the Ivy League. Non-Dyson Cornell is still a target school.
UMich Ross - Public School. Undergrad business school - 4yrs
UVA McIntire - Public School. Undergrad business school - 2yrs
Tier A+ (Low Target to Top Semi-Target)
Williams - The most prestigious LAC
Notre Dame Mendoza - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
UCB Haas - Public School. Undergrad business school - 2yrs
Amherst - A great LAC
Northwestern
Tier A (Semi-Target)
Vanderbilt
WashU Olin - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
Middlebury - A great LAC - not as well known as Williams/Amherst
UNC KF - Public School. Undergrad business school - 3yrs
Indiana Kelley IBW - Public School. Undergrad business school - 4yrs
USC Marshall - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
UT Austin McCombs - Public School. Undergrad business school - 4yrs
UCLA - Public School
CMC - A great LAC - not as well known as Williams/Amherst
Emory Goizueta - Undergrad business school - 2yrs
BC Carrol - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
CMU Tepper - Undergrad business school - 4yrs
Rice
Tier A-/B+ (Low Semi-Target to Non-Target)
Bowdoin - A great LAC - more recognizable than the LACs listed below
JHU
Tufts
Wake Forest
Washington & Lee / Colgate / Hamilton / Wesleyan - Great LACs
Tier B (Non-Target but still recognizable) Not in order
Colby / Bates / Davidson - Good LACs
Georgia Tech Scheller
Villanova
BU Questrom
College of William and Mary Mason
Northeastern D'amore McKim
UW-Madison
U of Illinois Gies
Lehigh
Ohio State Fisher
Penn State Smeal
U of Florida
SMU Cox
U of Maryland Smith
U of Minnesota Carlson
Miami of Ohio
Rutgers
U of SC Darla Moore
Baruch Zicklin
U of Georgia Terry
Babson
Fordham Gabelli
Please. Just get into the best school you can get into.
And for prospects just focus on your recruitment instead of trying to feel better about your schools ranking,
I would argue and put CMU as a target just because of how good it’s tech and computational finance placements are. For example as a student, pimco, Goldman Sachs and Blackrock are doing in-campus interviews which is unheard of. In the past it may have been regarded as a semi but things are changing
honestly, once you are at least in tier S, every single group on the street is reachable if you are good so students should just focus on getting better
yeah
Stern and Ross place better than MIT/Duke/Georgetown/Chicago are in the top 3-4 schools in term placement every year with hard data to back that up
Penn CAS while still great is not better than many of the top undergrad b schools
Stanford is a tech feeder school but not great for IB (obviously can still make it but talked to many folks from here who said they had a hard time recruiting into some finance roles). Likewise MIT is excellent for Quant finance but you won't see many in front office roles like IB / ER etc. These kids are too smart for that and on a different level.
This is not really true for Stanford. Has excellent placement to top BBs and top EBs in both east and west coast, but not much so for lower tier BBs or MMs. Great for PE. Not much competition from the student class either given consulting / tech is more popular.
Ross/Stern don't out-place nor do they have the prestige of MIT/Duke/Georgetown/Chicago. You are also forgetting the class sizes at Ross/Stern are bigger and those r hardo finance schools.
I would generally consider it a bad decision to take Ross/Stern/UVA over the above. If you don't believe me, find out during PE/VC/GE recruiting lol
Lot of Ross/Stern on in all areas including buyside and lot of UVA especially in HFs. The sheer networks of these schools are huge and a lot of recruiting is a numbers game
I went through PE/VC/GE recruiting several years ago - nobody cares about whatever presumed prestige you think those schools have
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Wharton and Harvard stand notably above Yale/Princeton in terms of both IB and MBB placement in terms of both raw numbers as well as adjusted for school size. Not trying to rank one over other but if purpose is to identify programs with highest rate of opportunities then this is true. It may be self selecting as W/H population may be more IB/consulting centric but that wasnt a qualifier in the original post
sure
NO MORE RANKING POSTS. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. ONE PER YEAR IS ALREADY TOO MANY. ALSO I THINK THE OTHER ONE IS BETTER. OP IS LITERAL GEORGETOWN STUDENT.
WHY ARE YOU TYPING IN ALL CAPS?
FUCK GEORGETOWN KIDS
I try to as often as i can
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Bro why r u so salted. Is ur school ranked low or something lol
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This kid literally made a post about target schools as a high school sophomore 3 years ago. Holy shit. Imagine being that much of a hardo and only getting into Georgetown.
Oh no i only got into georgetown/williams/berkeley/cornell i’m gonna kill myself i’m such a failure
Cali kid who grew up in upper middle class background going to a good public cali high school focusing on finance since soph year. Yeah, if you put in any effort in HS and can distinguish yourself in any manner, not too hard to get into a few T20’s. The fact that you still feel insecure about it is the reason you responded the way that you did, listing every school you got into and joking about killing yourself and calling yourself a failure. $20 you have Asian parents. But seriously, have fun in college. GT is a great school. Well, GU is too.
What
Tbfh i responded cuz i’m inebriated and there’s not much else to it
.
I’m sorry but you bringing up my school out of nowhere / suggesting i made this thread (presumably?) to simply boost it reeks of a mindset tainted by insecurity / inferiority. Ur projecting lol
Bruh, you posted 4 times to reply and deleted one of them. Who's the insecure one?
Very interesting information for a long time I was looking for.
Hahahaha. Respect for the semi-target listing for Vandy since this forum continually takes a dump on it. Yeah, it’s in Nashville (which is electric, by the way) and that isn’t a top destination for firms to fly out and spend time recruiting at. Placement is phenomenal for the people gunning for it if you’d take a look.
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