Cranfield or Bath?
I got accepted into MSC finance at cranfield and university of Bath. Which one should I choose with ultimate goal of launching into investment banking in London.
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Don't bother either either. Work harder on your profile and apply again to business school in the future.
Don’t bother with either. Work harder on your over all profile and apply to a better school in the future.
Hey - am afraid have to echo the same as above. Did a target masters and undergrad now in EB.
It sucks that London is hyper competitive because you have all of the U.K. and EU applicants applying - because a lot of banks have centralised summer internships in London (with far fewer spaces for off cycles in regional offices), which they use to recruit regardless of whether you like working in London or not
Assuming you don’t have prior BB IB experience you won’t stand a chance in direct FT recruiting (just think about other people who had BB IB experience and wants to switch shop or simple didn’t convert, they are much better candidates on paper) so you need summer internship during your masters. Yes you can do summer internship during your masters. Sadly neither of the schools above are targets for BB summer internships, Bath has presence in selected banks due to the fact that they do industrial placements. Everyone in my firm form bath came through industrial placement according to LinkedIn.
A finance masters is only worth doing at Oxbridge, LBS, LSE, Imperial and
maybe UCL/Warwick, preferably the first 3 I mentioned. No point paying £30k tuition and not even land an internship.
What about Cass?
Personally no and that’s just because I know people went to my target undergrad and then Cass, definitely didn’t make much of a difference to where they ended up. The association with city uni is too big of a problem.
Would bath be good for private equity?
Did you just blatantly ignore everything everyone said?
you don't have to worry about ever getting into PE, it's ok.
I did not, but my cousin is an associate at UBS in London and I’ve been talking to him a lot and he said that Bath is a great school, so I’m getting confused. I’m sorry if it sounds stupid. I’m just trying to make a right decision for my career
Bath is a good school but it is still a non-target at masters level for finance
Maybe it’s better at undergrad level
I am sure your cousin isn’t wrong (I.e. it’s a great school in general for STEM etc). You just have to look on LinkedIn and see how many Bath people are in places you want to work in, that speaks more volume than anyone’s opinion (including mine).
It’s just from my general obersvation at work and interviews that Bath doesn’t represent that well and you’d be better off beefing up your CV and reapply.
at UG it's a semi-target because it sits in that group of "Oxbridge reject" schools w/ a high private school population and generally people there are a little smarter than at non-targets
at masters, it's a cash grab vanity program for Bath's biz school to make money from gullible international students thinking the degree will get them a top job.
best thing to do is check LinkedIn and see where people end up after that msc.
I appreciate everyone’s insights. I’ll do more research
For what it's worth, I did a non-finance undergrad+masters at Bath and now work in PE on the portfolio side. I went through the consulting route, and know people who did similar and went to deal side PE. Also know people from finance backgrounds from Bath who went into IB, but not the 'big leagues' as job 1. I won't profess to be an expert vs others here but, in my experience, yes starting at a target uni helps you get to where you ultimately want to go, but it's not impossible - it just might take more steps, time and effort vs the 'optimal route'. I may be way off but just felt lots of people focusing on 'there's only 1 way'. Also, never heard of Cranfield but Bath is a great city to live in :)
I agree with this totally
Got into Cass for MSc banking and international finance. Any recommendations if I should take it?
Again, like everyone else has said, if it's not oxford, LSE, LBS, or Imperial, it will be difficult breaking into FT FO. (Even the placement rate for UCL/WARWICK/Cambridge's master of finance program isn't that good).
Cambridge's programs are great, more academic / research focused but the small class (~30 people) means placement rates are pretty solid.
You need to properly assess your options and be honest with yourself. If you are IB/PE or bust you're setting yourself up for failure with the aforementioned schools
What kind of a career should I target if I can’t get into better universities than Cass-bath
Bath / Cass > Cranfield
Low chance at all to get into IB, but if you have a strong resume... there's a chance
If you can get an off-cycle opportunity through Bath's extensive network, it will be worth it... I recently saw on Linkedin - 3 undergrad kids this year from Bath got offers from KKR off-cycle - insane
The sneaky way as a Master's student is apply for placement years/off-cycles intended for Y2 undergrads... you will be eligible and likely a much stronger candidate than them (and no competition from Oxbridge/LSE/Imperial/UCL undergrads etc. because they don't offer them)
If not for IB, you can always go for Big 4 audit/financial advisory -> IB later, tier-2 consulting, corp finance, plenty of roles
So I have both- Cass as well as Bath, though I don’t think there’s an option to do internship while doing either of those programs. Which one would you recommend me to choose?
Please refer to the above threads - the general consensus from recruiting point of view is that a c.£30k finance masters is only worth it at the well-known targets because what is the point to pay that sort of money and not get a job that pays more than a year's tuition.
Bath and Cass are weaker semi targets at best at the Masters level (Bath UG is more a solid semi particularly through industrial placements, Cass UG is too inconsistent so more a non-target). Note a few people above have mentioned it is not impossible to break in it will just take a lot of external factors such as branded work experience or networking/referral to get you past screening. If you still decide to do it then the above replies have suggested for you cast your net even wider and go for other jobs such as audit to then get into IB later (id argue depending on wheres your undergrad you can just go straight into audit without paying 30k).
The target schools are mentioned everywhere on this forum and when it comes to semi targets/non-target it depends on your conviction in being able to get a job that pays enough to justify the tuition.
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