WSJ Rankings 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know this may sound crazy, but UC Merced is stealing applicants and students from Yale, Oxford and Cambridge. It is a force.

I know my neighbor, 1600 SAT, 4.0, math olympiads, gunning either for hedge fund or biomedical research whose dream school is UC Merced.

UC Merced does steal some applicants from the very top schools. It has a direct admit BS/MD program with guaranteed entry into a UC medical school. The acceptance rate for UC Merced BS/MD program is around 1%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finally, a ranking that puts my alma mater above its rival. I give it a thumbs up.

There are a few rivalry takedowns!

In my family we’re on the winning side of both of these.

St. Joe’s vs Villanova?
#42 vs. #79

Lehigh vs Lafayette
#15 vs. #58 (but seriously great positions for both schools!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do like the criteria though.. Limited fluff/BS factors, not based on hoity-toity professorial 'reputation' opinions (like we care). It's all about the money.

Though it is a weird methodology that they actually use. It's not just raw salary data for the schools.

Salary impact (33%): This measures the extent to which a college boosts its graduates’ salaries beyond what they would be expected to earn regardless of which college they attended. We used statistical modeling to estimate what we would expect the median earnings of a college’s graduates to be on the basis of the exam results of its students prior to attending the college and the cost of living in the state in which the college is based. We then scored the college on its performance against that estimate. These scores were then combined with scores for raw graduate salaries to factor in absolute performance alongside performance relative to our estimates. Our analysis for this metric used research on this topic by the policy-research think tank the Brookings Institution as a guide.

So this reminds me of “A+ Colleges for B Students.”

WSJ is using the test scores of the incoming student body of each school and then assigning them an expected outcome. What the ranking is doing is measuring how the actual student body outcomes after graduation compared to their expected outcomes.

I would say that this is useful information to see which schools might be overperforming in student outcomes and those that are underperforming when considering the quality of their respective student bodies. However, calling it a “Best Colleges” list is a total misnomer. This list is the college equivalent of applying a golf handicap to each school: schools are measured taking into account their handicap… but you would never base who wins The Masters by applying a handicap.

You might call this the “Best ROI” list or “Best at Beating Expectations” list, but it’s not a “Best Colleges” list. It would be like calling me a better golfer than Rory McIlroy because I beat him by 1 stroke but I have a 20 stroke handicap and he has a zero handicap.

[Anonymous]

It seems like most here are mostly interested in a list of the most prestigious schools. I'm a little surprised a publication hasn't focused on this type of ranking with all the USNWR changes. Doing a decent survey wouldn't be too hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Emory 103? But Babson at 2?

Babson is all business. It should only therefore be compared to other business schools for a BBA. If you do that, you will see that it ranks 42 among schools with business schools. For business is behind these local schools: UVA, Georgetown, William & Mary, and UMD.

Emory ranks 8.

https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/business/

[Anonymous]

Not surprising to see NYU ranked so low. USC too.

[Anonymous]

Would some rich WSJ subscriber please post top 100?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would some rich WSJ subscriber please post top 100?

Page 6

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:gift link?

You're welcome.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/wsj-best-colleges-2025-princeton-babson-stanford-52443de8?st=h14riihjxcgh3mi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Doesn't work. Still behind a paywall.

Worked for me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list is schools with the most kids (often men) who major in engineering and comp sci and finance and make a lot of money.

Funny, because some of the top 50 do not even offer engineering! Explain that!

Those are the best, in my opinion. If student outcomes surpass expectations, and the school isn’t doing it with STEM, the school is definitely mentoring kids in a way that employers value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s so curious to me is how did Emma Tucker, the editor in chief, even get this job. Obviously, a best colleges list for the WSJ is a big roll out. What was the thinking here?

It’s so manifestly stupid and thoughtless. And there was a huge opportunity to claim this space.

And they went with what they did.

Baffling.

Clearly morons in control at WSJ.

This is not the first year the WSJ has published rankings; they just emphasized earnings a lot more.

When are earnings assessed for this WSJ list? I do not have a subscription.
Physicians go straight to med school then residency, or go to a low paying research job then MD and residency, ie 8-11 years past finishing undergrad. The salary of residents and fellows is low...yet...once you are working in medicine even the two lowest paying fields crush 200k easily. Many fields pay 500-700k. Many top schools based on student smarts send a huge % of kids to med school. The concern is the ROI is not accounting for this accurately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hampden-Sydney ranked higher than Amherst? Makes sense.

most ridiculous and useless rank list I have ever seen. USNews has a low bar after this...

[Anonymous]

Journalism is primarily about credibility; the Wall Street Journal has lost it's credibility by publishing garbage like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 for those interested without subscriptions:
1: Princeton
2: Babson
3: Stanford
4: Yale
5: Claremont McKenna
6: MIT
7: Harvard
8: Berkeley
9: Georgia Tech
10: Davidson
11: Bentley
12: UC Davis
13: Penn
14: Columbia
15: Lehigh
16: San Jose State
17: Notre Dame
18: UC Merced
19: Virginia Tech
20: Harvey Mudd

I kind of like the list - very pre-professional focused and makes sense for the type who read WSJ. Methodology is 70% Student Outcomes, 20% Learning Environment, and 10% Diversity, with each of those broken up with different metrics.

So this is the Special Needs list. Which is very thoughtful of the Wall Street Journal. It's not often you see UC Merced on a top 20 list, along with San Jose State and someplace called Bentley. Babson is a hair salon place, right. Kudos to the WSJ for their public service project.

WOW. If only because of aholes like you, I am thrilled to see this list and even more thrilled that you're terribly triggered by it. Everyone at my workplace was discussing this today. Be well as you gnash your teeth and seethe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Top 20 for those interested without subscriptions:
1: Princeton
2: Babson
3: Stanford
4: Yale
5: Claremont McKenna
6: MIT
7: Harvard
8: Berkeley
9: Georgia Tech
10: Davidson
11: Bentley
12: UC Davis
13: Penn
14: Columbia
15: Lehigh
16: San Jose State
17: Notre Dame
18: UC Merced
19: Virginia Tech
20: Harvey Mudd

I kind of like the list - very pre-professional focused and makes sense for the type who read WSJ. Methodology is 70% Student Outcomes, 20% Learning Environment, and 10% Diversity, with each of those broken up with different metrics.

So this is the Special Needs list. Which is very thoughtful of the Wall Street Journal. It's not often you see UC Merced on a top 20 list, along with San Jose State and someplace called Bentley. Babson is a hair salon place, right. Kudos to the WSJ for their public service project.

Enough traditionally high-ranking schools are also high in this ranking that the methodology has some merit. Instead of immediately discrediting the rankings without reviewing the methodology just because your school ranks lower than you had hoped and that others rank higher, it might make more sense to understand why your school ranks lower. Imagine, you might learn something that you obviously don’t already know.

+1000
About time for a changing of the guard.