Editorial standards

Who writes this site

Every guide on Honestquo is written by Jus V., a former Goldman Sachs TMT and Consumer Group investment banking analyst. Before Goldman he worked at Wells Fargo Securities in the Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging group, and before that in biotech investor relations at Solebury Trout. He advised on more than $20 billion in M&A, capital raising, and investor relations transactions, including Amazon's acquisitions of One Medical and iRobot.

He reached Goldman without a target school, a finance degree, or a finance internship. That matters here because most finance career content is written either by people who came through the traditional pipeline and cannot describe the alternative route, or by content marketers who have never sat in a deal room. Neither can tell you which rejections are fatal and which are noise.

Where the numbers come from

Compensation figures come from a combination of first-hand experience, offers reported directly by candidates in recruiting cycles, and published industry compensation data. Where a range is wide, we show the range rather than a single flattering midpoint.

Degree ranking data comes from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study dataset, which is built from IRS tax records and federal student loan data linked to IPEDS institutional reporting. It is not survey data and schools cannot edit it. Tuition figures are checked against each school's own published tuition page. The complete scoring formula, weighting, and exclusion criteria are documented on the rankings methodology page.

What we will not do

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or any other consideration in exchange for a ranking position, a favorable mention, or inclusion in a guide. There is no affiliate program on this site today. If that changes, the affiliate relationship will be disclosed on the specific pages it affects, and it will not alter the underlying scoring formula.

We do not invent statistics, quotes, or testimonials. If a figure cannot be traced to a source we can name, it does not go on the page. Where the honest answer is that the data does not exist or is not verifiable, the guide says exactly that.

We do not pad lists to look comprehensive. Our online economics degree ranking includes three schools rather than the ten or twenty that competitors publish, because three is the number that survived verification.

How we handle updates

A guide is marked as updated only when its substance changed: new compensation data, a changed process, a program that closed, a correction. We do not refresh the date on a page because a crawler might reward it. If you see an update date on a Honestquo page, something on that page actually changed.

How we use AI

Research, data processing, and drafting assistance may involve AI tools, the same way they involve spreadsheets and search engines. Every factual claim, number, and recommendation is verified against a primary source and reviewed by Jus V. before it is published. We do not publish machine-generated text that nobody with domain experience has checked, and we do not publish content whose only purpose is to occupy a keyword.

Corrections

If you find an error, email the specific claim and a source and we will correct it. Corrections that change the substance of a page are noted on that page with the date. Nothing is quietly edited away.