How to Find the Nth Largest Value with LARGE

Use LARGE to pull the 2nd, 3rd or nth biggest number from a list — and build top-3 totals and leaderboards.

You will learn to

• Return the k-th largest value with LARGE
• Total the top three with an array constant
• Look up who owns the k-th largest value

How it works

MAX only gives you the biggest number. LARGE(range, k) gives you any position: k=1 is the largest, k=2 the second largest, and so on. It is the building block for leaderboards, top-N reports and “runner-up” lookups.

To total the top three in one formula, give LARGE an array constant: =SUM(LARGE(C2:C11,{1,2,3})). To find whose value it is, feed LARGE into MATCH: =INDEX(A2:A11,MATCH(LARGE(C2:C11,2),C2:C11,0)).

=LARGE(C2:C11,2)