WSJ Rankings 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised this thread is going on so long. The WSJ methodology is deeply flawed because the outcome measures don’t adjust for cost of living differences, which matters as most schools have geographic skewing for where grads end up. It’s one reason why there are so many goofy surprises. Same with Forbes and Niche. Wait for USNWR. Or use Princeton Review. Or Fiske. The newer guides are just using what the older ones knew to avoid because they have to be different to sell.

WSJ does account for cost of living…read their salaries methodology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's refreshing to see W&M and UVA boosters going at it. Prior to that the board was infected with BU v NEU v Tufts spats, and Emory v the world rumbles!

They are not going at it. Others are going at them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how Claremont McKenna is so high and Pomona is so low? Are they really that different? I’ve read the whole thread and the methodology - and as a Colgate alum I’m happy with my college’s placement - but I still think this list is weird.

These schools are extremely different. Pomona is modelled as a West Coast Dartmouth. It produces a high percentage that go on to do PhDs. CMC has preparing for the professions in the mission statement. The school frames the experience so the kids are focused on going for MBB/finance. The school does an amazing job of framing the experience around that objective. Many successful entrepreneurs value this, so the student body tends to be well connected, and the school incorporates this into its network as much as alums. Ultimately, the outcomes are amazing & the CMC network appreciates this, in turn setting records for SLAC fundraisings for the entire country (over $1bn raised in last fund raising drive).

So if your methodology is ROI, it goes to CMC. If it’s PhD, you then it goes to Pomona.

Pomona scores very low on salary impact compared to CMC…however, salary impact only looks at kids getting jobs. There are no points detracted for kids that go to grad school.

This implies Pomona grads take very different jobs vs CMC grads.

Pomona has very academic kids. CMC has business and finance kids. Dartmouth is like those two schools put together.

What does that mean from a job perspective? Pomona kids that go into the workforce take jobs at NPOs or where?

Many Pomona kids go to grad school, medical school, or law school. The Pomona grads that go into the workforce go to different companies, not just NPOs. A CS major can go to a tech company, for example. I have heard that Swarthmore is very similar to Pomona and also like this.

So why is Swarthmore ranked 35 and Pomona 170?

Maybe because Swarthmore offers degrees in engineering and Pomona does not. Also, Swarthmore is geographically closer to banking and consulting centers, so maybe they have more kids going into those high-paying jobs.

What about Amherst and Williams? They’re even closer to NYC.

No… Swarthmore is much closer to NYC than rural Massachusetts is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VA college rankings by various categories....

Interesting! I didn’t realize it was broken down further into those categories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Surprised this thread is going on so long. The WSJ methodology is deeply flawed because the outcome measures don’t adjust for cost of living differences, which matters as most schools have geographic skewing for where grads end up. It’s one reason why there are so many goofy surprises. Same with Forbes and Niche. Wait for USNWR. Or use Princeton Review. Or Fiske. The newer guides are just using what the older ones knew to avoid because they have to be different to sell.

You’ll just complain about the next rankings that come out. And another poster pointed out that COL differences *are* accounted for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised this thread is going on so long. The WSJ methodology is deeply flawed because the outcome measures don’t adjust for cost of living differences, which matters as most schools have geographic skewing for where grads end up. It’s one reason why there are so many goofy surprises. Same with Forbes and Niche. Wait for USNWR. Or use Princeton Review. Or Fiske. The newer guides are just using what the older ones knew to avoid because they have to be different to sell.

WSJ does account for cost of living…read their salaries methodology.

Not where they end up.

But a bigger problem is the salary data is based on the CollegeScorecard data. That tells you why certain schools known for grad school placement rank poorly: the salary data is collected 6 years out from graduation. That’s when the top half or more of a cohort is just finishing grad school. Less of an issue for the tech schools where the bottom half still get decent tech jobs.

This ranking is better for measuring schools with higher floors, and that’s even assuming you prioritize salary plus years to pay off (which of course is heavily influenced by salary) at 2.5x the next highest factor.

Also note that school A with incoming higher test scores gets ranked lower than school B if all else they’ve measured is the same. The problem is, they aren’t actually measuring everything else, like influence in one’s chosen field. That’s part of the value of a catch-all category like reputation among education professionals. Beyond that, some would argue that spending four years with a higher achieving incoming class has value in itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surprised this thread is going on so long. The WSJ methodology is deeply flawed because the outcome measures don’t adjust for cost of living differences, which matters as most schools have geographic skewing for where grads end up. It’s one reason why there are so many goofy surprises. Same with Forbes and Niche. Wait for USNWR. Or use Princeton Review. Or Fiske. The newer guides are just using what the older ones knew to avoid because they have to be different to sell.

WSJ does account for cost of living…read their salaries methodology.

Not where they end up.

But a bigger problem is the salary data is based on the CollegeScorecard data. That tells you why certain schools known for grad school placement rank poorly: the salary data is collected 6 years out from graduation. That’s when the top half or more of a cohort is just finishing grad school. Less of an issue for the tech schools where the bottom half still get decent tech jobs.

This ranking is better for measuring schools with higher floors, and that’s even assuming you prioritize salary plus years to pay off (which of course is heavily influenced by salary) at 2.5x the next highest factor.

Also note that school A with incoming higher test scores gets ranked lower than school B if all else they’ve measured is the same. The problem is, they aren’t actually measuring everything else, like influence in one’s chosen field. That’s part of the value of a catch-all category like reputation among education professionals. Beyond that, some would argue that spending four years with a higher achieving incoming class has value in itself.

Fairly certain they are just tracking kids that enter the workforce and grad students aren’t counted.

However, that still doesn’t explain why Swarthmore, Davidson, CMC, Colby, Haverford rank comparatively high vs Williams or Pomona where I would think you will see similar %ages of kids going to grad school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:WM was well known at my rural high school in the 80s in DE. I knew about it just from reading history books. Maybe watch more Jeopardy? "William & Mary has been a clue or answer more than 70 times during regular play rounds — including six times as a Daily Double clue."

+1

and it's always been in a clash with Harvard about getting the 'first university in the US' title. It was the first college to become a university.

Anyone savvy about colleges has heard of it. My lord! We heard of it in the Midwest in the 80s.

The College of William & Mary calls itself "the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the country", acknowledging Harvard's claim but adding that: "Harvard may have opened first, but William & Mary was already planned. Original 1619 plans for W&M called for a campus at Henrico." This refers to the College of Henricopolis or University of Henrico established by the Virginia Company near Richmond, Virginia. With respect to the title of first university in America, it makes the claim on its website that "in 1781, by uniting the faculties of law, medicine, and the arts, William & Mary became America's first true university."[ It also is the "First institution of higher education to have a law school, which made us the first college in the country to become a university (1779)".

Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale were organized on the plans of the English colleges which constitute the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

VT is more prestigious than run down W&M

Concur. We took DC to both VT and W&M (and other colleges) during college tours, and DC's first words about W&M were that it looked 'run down.'

I was at W&M in August, and I disagree.

I have no skin in this, but I disagree with you that W&M is rundown. The campus is a mix of new and historical with charm, warmth and beauty. It’s the second oldest school in the country and embraces all that comes with its age.

[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.

Diversity has zero to do with learning or outcomes. It has no place in rankings.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of 2 schools in the Top 10 (Babson, Claremont McKenna).

Guessing I can't afford those anyway.

You probably can’t. Babson is about $80k a year. Babson is also ranked among the top 100 most selective colleges in the U.S. by the U.S. News & World Report.

Some of you are so provincial.

+1
I do have to laugh at all the posters outraged because they've "never heard of Babson." It's a niche business school with a 22% acceptance rate.

It is a business only college that draws many international students who come from rich family businesses. The job outcomes are excellent. The college is small so the job placement for their student body is excellent.

Not every kid from UVA has an awesome job after graduation. My neighbor’s child majored in liberal arts from UPEnn and is home jobless. I’m sure if you compared Wharton to Babson, Wharton would win but not all of UPenn.

Since Babson is business only, it should only be compared to other business schools. This analysis compares business schools and shows Babson at 42 among schools with BBAs. Locally, it is behind UVA, Georgetown, William and Mary, and UMD despite being ahead of all of them in WSJ.

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

The same way people here have never heard of Babson, I never heard of W&M. I didn’t even know W&M had a business major.

I’m not so concerned about rankings. All I know is that the kids from Babson are usually rich and have good jobs after graduation. The rich probably helped them more than the actual college. The school is known for entrepreneurship.

How many state schools can you name that don't have business majors?

[Anonymous]

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I didn’t even know that uva was a good school. I would not know the difference between Ohio state or UVA.

People don’t go down to 50 on some paper list before the internet. I have no idea what ranking W&M is now either. I was looking at T20 back in the nineties. I have one kid in high school and he is also looking at T20 schools. UVA is the bottom of his list.

There is no reason for pp and others to get so bothered by people who don’t know about W&M. Many people also don’t know William, Swarthmore, Pomona, Claremont McKenna and other smaller excellent schools.

So UVA was T20 in the mid 90s... https://publicuniversityhonors.com/2017/09/13/u-s-news-rankings-for-57-leading-universities-1983-2007/

Plenty of intelligent people know that Williams, Swarthmore, Pomona, CMC, Bates, Colby, Wesleyan, Haverford…I could go on…exist as colleges.

It’s really a weird flex that people brag about their stupidity.

I have heard of all those colleges but not W&M. It is weird that you can’t fathom that people from the west or north didn’t know about VA’s schools. I wasn’t looking at any large state schools and I definitely was not looking for a small state school either.

You never listened to Steely Dan??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Finally, a ranking criteria that makes sense. Kudos to WSJ! As a parent, I'm a lot more interested in financial impact of degree vs how many pell grants students at a particular school obtains. You naysayers are the sheeple.

Agree. Yay U of Delaware! Great school. Great outcomes.

[Anonymous]

It's funny how triggered and dismissive some people are on this thread because this list doesn't conform to the world view they had grown comfortable with. I think it's great to have another list other than the tired old USNWR list that I honestly never trusted. And I like that the WSJ one focuses on salary outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how triggered and dismissive some people are on this thread because this list doesn't conform to the world view they had grown comfortable with. I think it's great to have another list other than the tired old USNWR list that I honestly never trusted. And I like that the WSJ one focuses on salary outcomes.

The "tired old USNWR" list is BS also. Just not this bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's funny how triggered and dismissive some people are on this thread because this list doesn't conform to the world view they had grown comfortable with. I think it's great to have another list other than the tired old USNWR list that I honestly never trusted. And I like that the WSJ one focuses on salary outcomes.

Once more, only look at the WSJ salaries rankings if that is all you care about. The WSJ overall rankings do in fact incorporate many non-salary outcomes.

The list actually looks quite different on salary alone. As an example, CalTech jumps to #6 vs. #39 on the overall rankings. Carnegie Mellon jumps to #10 from #56. Harvard drops from #7 to #24.