Do we need yet another college ranking? Thought not. Here’s one anyway.
The first ten or so look familiar other than order but then Babson and Bucknell pop up in the top 20 too, as do Washington & Lee and Wake Forest. A little further down some entries such Lehigh, Villanova etc. Sorry, the way the article is formatted it’s not easy to cut and paste the list.
Our methodology uses LinkedIn data to rank U.S. colleges based on five pillars: job placement; internships and recruiter demand; career success; network strength; and knowledge breadth.
(Obviously there can be lots of issues with their methodology.)
Is this the next version - they had one, it didn’t seem a year ago but maybe it was. If so, I wonder how it differs from last years. I’ll have to read later. But I liked last year’s. The reality is, one can rip apart any survey - but they have direct knowledge on people - without having to survey.
Like with most such rankings, the formula for best … is arbitrary, but at least LinkedIn is doing something different. As I understand the formula for this ranking is as follows. These are primarily measured based on LinkedIn profiles from recent grads.
21% – % of graduates employed in same calendar year as graduating
21% – % of students who did internship + labor market demand
21% – % of graduates who list post-graduate entrepreneurship or leadership on profile
21% – How well connected LinkedIn profiles from same college are to each other
16% – % unique majors + or unique skills in LinkedIn profile
The colleges that did best in the components above are summarized below.
and like most similar rankings - so where there’s smoke, there’s fire - schools that are more specialized or dominant in those type majors (business, engineering, etc.)
Ha, but I was thinking that part of the outcome relies on how active and engaged people are on LinkedIn, and possibly how detailed their profiles are. (I didn’t dig too deeply.)
Also, I had missed that there was a 2025 version of this ranking.
Or it could be a secondary tier of the CS job and internship market that collapsed. (or both)
(I am too lazy to look up last year’s methodology:) But looks like quickness to 1st job and internship is key… and that is REALLY REALLY hard right now for CS
There are proprietary companies out there that publish non-public studies on things like alumni engagement, employment, etc.
As memory serves, West Point is usually number 1. That data would not be captured by a Linkedin analysis. Many service members– especially senior ones in leadership roles- are not using social media. They are HIGHLY motivated to hire other academy alums, depending on the role- even when they transition into civilian life. And because many of them end up in corporate roles which require a high level security clearance, they STILL don’t use social media.
I think this list captures everything Linkedin wanted it to capture. Whether or not it captures what folks want it to say is another question. And no, academy grads do NOT do internships, paid or otherwise!
I see no issue with a methodology that basically excludes military academies, as those schools aren’t on the radars of many HS grads. And for those who are interested in those schools, rankings aren’t really relevant. IMO of course.
I agree - it’s a totally different market in so many ways (admissions “market”, job “market”) etc. I actually don’t think military academies should be on most lists… they serve (ha!) a VERY different purpose.
If nothing else, I always think it is interesting when some organization actually empirically studies something that other people merely assert is associated with generic “prestige”.
Like if people who are super into using the US News National Universities rankings to guide their college preferences are asked why they think that makes sense, sometimes what they will argue is that those are the most prestigious colleges, and the most prestigious colleges are best for business networking, and they want to go to a college with the best possible business networking. Or words to that effect.
One might already be skeptical since US News makes no actual attempt to measure such a thing as part of its methodology. But OK, then LinkedIn is attempting that. And although it is not a surprise to me, it may be “news” to some they are not in fact just regurgitating the US News National Universities T20.
By the way, we saw something similar with the wave of “ROI”-based rankings, and not surprisingly, with some of the same institutions doing better than their US News rankings. Like, there are some institutions that basically specialize in business career development, and some of them in fact do that quite well.
That is the problem with any generic ranking–highly-resourced generalist colleges may be pretty good at most things, but for any specific thing, there will be some specialist colleges, specialty schools within universities, specific departments and majors, and so on that are also very good at that specific thing.
And of course almost any such study that does not just exclude non-doctoral institutions by rule will end up with a bunch of non-doctoral institutions high in their rankings. Again, this may be “news” to people who assumed that because US News puts them on different lists, they are not “prestigious” enough to do well in things like business internships or networking. But not so much a surprise to people who actually know how those things actually work.
I doubt that it is a coincidence. I expect LinkedIn selected and incrementally modified the formula and weightings until it produced an output with familiar names on top (of overall list). Seeing familiar names near the top makes the output look right to viewers, giving them the impression that the formula and list is meaningful.
If you dig deeper and think about the weightings it makes little sense. For example, think about the specific metrics and percentages in the formula. Is that the correct weighting to produce an output for long term career success? Or what you care most about?
And look at the colleges that rank highest, in the subcomponents. Do the names make sense? For example, why doesn’t the highest % internship list include colleges like Northeastern, where ~80% of students do a 6+ month co-op leading to being ranked #1 on USNWR internships/co-ops list at https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/internship-programs ? Why is there near zero overlap among colleges listed on USNWR best for internship/co-op ranking and LinkedIn % internship ranking? LinkedIn says it is using their InMail Outreach from employers to compute which colleges have largest % of alumni that complete internships. I’m not familiar with the details of the methodology, but I expect it does not accurately reflect the listed measure.
Like most ranking lists, I’d take the list with a grain of salt – more as a source of entertainment than as a way of choosing between colleges.
I would be surprised if anyone would disagree with that, they all need to be taken with more than a grain
This is using mainly self-reported data, much of which could be entirely made up or certainly exaggerated. I have seen plenty of people with “Harvard” in their profile who did an exec ed or certificate program. I *think * they are filtered out of this, but not 100% sure they are…never mind outright frauds..
They did change the methodology slightly. The weighting for % of LinkedIn profiles with unique majors or skills dropped from 20% to 16%. While I think there may be something to L_NewEngland’s comment about longer time to find first job for CS majors, there doesn’t appear to be a general decline for colleges with high % CS majors. Instead it seems specific to WPI. A comparison of how ranking changed for tech school and others with especially high % CS majors is below from 2025 to 2026 is below. Note that Caltech moved up 10 places, which is one the largest increases among the full list.
Change in Ranking from 2025 to 2026: High % CS Major Colleges
MIT: 4 → 4
Stanford: 10 → 10
CMU: 20 → 20
WPI: 39 → >50
Caltech: 41 → 31
Stevens: 45 → >50
Colleges with large changes including the following. I don’t see much pattern among which types of colleges increased/decreased.
Largest Decrease:
Bentley: 15 → 28
Purdue: 33 → 50
WPI: 39 → >50
Penn State: 40 → >50
Largest Increase:
Yale: 19 → 9
Middlebury: >50 → 37
Washington & Lee: 29 → 19
Caltech: 41 → 31
they will have prizes for alums to connect to other alums!
