The decision of where to go to college can be a stressful one. It feels like there are a million factors to consider, from student life and culture to academics and figuring out finances, and it can be hard to ultimately decide which one can be the best fit for you. Of course, college is also meant to set you up for a successful career once you graduate, so another factor on the endless list of things to consider is also how much said school is going to help you end up with career success, whatever that may look like. Considering how expensive college is and how much hard work goes into getting that degree, it’s important to know that it will all be worth it in the end. That’s where LinkedIn comes in.
On Aug. 12, the professional networking platform released a list of top 50 colleges — but it’s not just any list; it’s a list of the Top 50 Colleges for Career Success, aka the schools that, according to LinkedIn, best set up graduates for long-term career success. This list can be super helpful for high school students who are considering their options, and it could give them another perspective that they could use to make those decisions. So, which schools made the cut?
LinkedIn’s 2025 List of Top 50 Colleges for Career Success
- Princeton University
- Duke University
- University of Pennsylvania
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Cornell University
- Harvard University
- Babson College
- University of Notre Dame
- Dartmouth College
- Stanford University
- Northwestern University
- University of Virginia
- Vanderbilt University
- Brown University
- Bentley University
- Tufts University
- Lehigh University
- Columbia University
- Yale University
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Bucknell University
- Boston College
- Villanova University
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Wake Forest University
- University of Chicago
- University of Southern California
- Fairfield University
- Washington and Lee University
- University of California, Berkeley
- Rice University
- Georgetown University
- Purdue University
- University of Michigan
- Miami University
- Colgate University
- Southern Methodist University
- Bryant University
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Pennsylvania State University
- California Institute of Technology
- Trinity College, Hartford
- Boston University
- University of Richmond
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- The University of Texas at Austin
- Indiana University Bloomington
- Lafayette College
- Providence College
- University of Wisconsin, Madison
How did LinkedIn choose its Top 50 colleges?
According to LinkedIn, the criteria for this list included five main areas of interest: job placement, internships and recruiter demand, career success, network strength, and knowledge breadth. The job placement category is based on how many graduates landed a full-time job or started a grad school program within a year of graduation, and the internship category is based on percentages of undergrad students who complete an internship while in college. Career success is based on the amount of alumni with entrepreneurship or C-suite experience (meaning, being in a top-level executive role of a company). Network strength is based on the amount of connections alumni have with each other and current students, and, finally, knowledge breadth is based on unique fields of study and skills graduates gained during their time in college. The data used to calculate all of these categories all came from data gathered by the LinkedIn team, on LinkedIn.
However, as helpful as this list can be to those considering which school to ultimately decide to attend, it’s also important to remember that this is not the only determinant of how successful your career will be. There is so much more that goes into getting a job than just the school on your resume, so don’t take this list as the end all be all. Also, career and life success looks and feels different to everyone, so as long as you are on a path that will make you happy and fulfilled, that’s all that really matters!