Our first list is aimed at those students who have an interest in business. As you examine this list, which is of CEOs and presidents of 100 of the most recognizable US companies, keep in mind that extremely few people ever make it to this position in a major company. Many people have long, productive, happy careers that culminate in a position just below or even significantly below this, and the lists of where they went to college would be very similar.
Note that not only are some of their alma maters not among the most selective, they’re schools that you might never have guessed would produce such leaders and may never even have heard of. Why is this? Well, there’s not one answer to that.
Some blossomed late. Some aren’t strong with testing but are excellent with people. Some are excellent with testing but chose to stay close to home for college for some reason. Some went to the college they could best afford rather than the one that was the most selective. Some wanted a specific program only offered at less selective schools. Some really wanted to go to the college where their friends or boyfriend/girlfriend were going. For some, going to a less selective college allowed them to shine in a way that gave them the confidence they needed to become a leader. Quite a few did apply to one or more MC25 colleges, but weren’t admitted because those colleges have far fewer seats than qualified applicants, and they just barely missed making the cut. And so on.
There are as many stories as there are people on this list. What seems clear, though–with 77% of CEOs having not attended an MC25 college–is that if your kids end up going into business for a career, they will have similar options open to them whether they attend an MC25 school or one that’s less selective.
Company
Abercrombie and Fitch
Aetna
Airbnb
Allstate
Alphabet
Amazon
American Airlines
American Express
Apple
AT&T
Bank of America
Boeing
BoozAllenHamilton
Capital One
CBS
Cigna
Cisco
Citigroup
Comcast
Corning
Costco
Cray Supercomputers
CVS
Dell Computers
Domino’s
Duke Energy
eBay
Exxon Mobil
Fedex
Ford
General Electric
General Motors
Goldman Sachs
H+R Block
Halliburton
Hershey
Hertz
Hilton
Home Depot
Honeywell
IBM
Intel
Intuit
JPMorgan Chase
Johnson and Johnson
Kaiser Permanente
Liberty Mutual
LL Bean
Lockheed Martin
Lowe’s
Marriott
McAfee
McDonald’s
Merck
MetLife
MGM Resorts International
NBC Universal
Netflix
Nike
Northrop Grumman
Nvidia
Office Depot
Pitney Bowes
Pixar
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Procter and Gamble
Raytheon
ReMax
Rite Aid
Rosetta Stone
SAIC
salesforce.com
Sirius XM
Sony Pictures
Sotheby’s
Southwest Airlines
Starbucks
State Farm
Sunoco
Target
Texas Instruments
Time Warner
Tyson Foods
Unisys
United Airlines
UPS
US News and World Report
US Steel
Vanguard Group
Visa
Walmart
Walt Disney
Wayfair
Wells Fargo
Yelp
Zillow
College CEO/President Attended
Lafayette College
Wayne State U
Rhode Island School of Design
U Michigan
Villanova U
Princeton
Albion College
Manhattan College
Auburn
Loyola Marymount U
Brown
Virginia Tech
U Wisconsin–Eau Claire
Stanford
Yale
Texas A+M
U North Carolina Chapel Hill
Harvard
U Pennsylvania
Lehigh
San Diego State
Washington State
U Pittsburgh
U Texas–Austin (dropped out)
U North Carolina Chapel Hill
Miami U of Ohio
Princeton
Texas A+M
Harvard
Yale
Georgetown
Washington College
Kettering U
Hamilton College
U Dayton
McNeese State
Shippensburg U
West Virginia State
U Virginia
Michigan State
Michigan State
Rice U
U Buffalo
U Central Florida
Tufts
US Military Academy
Oglethorpe U
Hartwick College
UC Davis (dropped out)
Dickinson College
US Air Force Academy
U Memphis
Luther College
Lehigh
Duke
Penn State
Syracuse
U Nevada Las Vegas
UC Berkeley
Bowdoin College/Arizona State
Dartmouth
James Madison U
Oregon State
Pacific Lutheran U
Yale
Denison U
Syracuse
SUNY Oswego
Duke
Purdue
Metropolitan State U of Denver
U Virginia
U Illinois
U Arizona
U Southern California
St. Bonaventure U
SUNY Albany
Yale
U Texas–Austin
New Mexico State
Illinois Wesleyan
Trinity U
UC Los Angeles
Union College
U North Carolina Chapel Hill
New York U (dropped out)
Miami U of Ohio
SUNY Binghamton
US Air Force Academy
U Wyoming
Springfield College
Bradley U
Harvard
Iona College
U Arkansas
Indiana University
Cornell
Johns Hopkins
U Illinois
Stanford
Sources: Corporate websites, Bloomberg News, Wikipedia
(last updated 11/14/2020)