A system and method for a symmetric switching fabric includes a first switching tier that includes a plurality of leaf switches, a second switching tier that includes one or more spine switches, and a plurality of interlinks for coupling the leaf switches to the spine switches. Each of the leaf switches includes one or more first ports configured to couple each of the leaf switches to other network devices outside the switching fabric and one or more second ports for coupling each of the leaf switches to each of the spine switches. A ratio of a number of first ports and a number of second ports is selected based on an oversubscription ratio. For each pair of a first switch selected from the leaf switches and a second switch selected from the spine switches, a same number of first interlinks selected from the plurality of interlinks couple the first switch to the second switch.