Hi all,
After seeing an increase in terms of masters related questions over the forums I have decided to do a ranking for all masters, as well as their focus. As always any input will be appreciated and will update the post with quotes.
This is purely for IB and London - European masters would probably be higher if considering T2 cities such as Paris/Frankfurt/Zurich
Tier 1 - IB, PE and MBB placement:
Oxford MFE: very academic program placing very well in IB/Consulting (albeit lower demand)/PE (rare but doable). Requirements are GMAT>720 + 1st class or equivalent, little focus on work experience
LSE MSc Finance: program a little less academic than Oxford but with an amazing placement in IB + sometimes PE. Requirements are 1st class, GMAT is optional but I'd say GMAT>700, work experience is a bonus.
LBS MFA: career focused program, amazing placement across the finance spectrum. Requirements: high 2.1 (65+), GMAT>680, work experience highly valued
Tier 1.5 - Almost top tier - less known internationally (outside Europe):
HEC MIF: Great placement both in France and London with people at MBB, in PE/IB
Bocconi MSc Finance: Similar to HEC for Italy
LSE MSc A&F: Similar as above although less competitive therefore less recognised but with a great placement nevertheless
Tier 2 - Strong IB and MBB Placement:
LSE MIM: Samilar requirements as A&F, places in consulting too, less finance focused - 2 years, allows to do summer internship -> FT for people with less work experience
LBS MIM: similar to LSE's MIM in terms of placement, career focused and similar to the MFA in terms of requirements.
SSE/ESSEC/ESCP/St.Gallen/WHU: Great placement across the board, often favoured by local students, GMAT>680, 1st class, work experience counts for 20%~
Imperial MSc Finance: Similar to LSE A&F program
Tier 2.5 - Strong IB Placement:
Warwick MSc Finance: Places well for some people with solid work experience - only for Europeans - internationals struggle placing into IB.
ESADE MSc Finance:
Tier 3 - Good but placement not guaranteed:
EDHEC: Places for French student mostly - Financial Markets>>>>>Corporate finance
Imperial MSc A&F/ Cass MSc Finance: placement similar as Warwick MSc.
IE/CBS MSc Finance: Smaller European schools that place some students
Note: didn't consider Cambridge as most of their masters are small cohorts/niche/post experience - but they would certainly be in tier 2
Hi! This is a really good ranking and I bet very much appreciated for the community.
Overall, I agree on almost every single rank, however I strongly disagree in one. I do not consider LBS MFA tier 1 as LSE MFinance or Oxford MFin as it has 1)less reputation 2)worse placement 3)new program 4)LBS brand comes from its MBA and MiF (2 year experience). On top of that, the placement of the program might be upper skewed and the program’s impact not as high as opposed to the LSE and Oxford, becaude its students do usually have great experience in IB. All in all, I would downgrade the LBS MFA to Tier 2.
Nice job!
Strongly disagree with this.
The faculty of finance at LBS is arguably the best in Europe, and the MBA top 2 in Europe with Insead.
The MFin consistently gets the top spot in the rankings.
This goes to show the strength of LBS as an institution, and the MFA greatly benefits from this. The opportunity to network with MBAs is a huge advantage for MFA students vs Oxford and LSE.
A quick Linkedin search is enough to show that placement is stellar, despite the programme being only 3 years old.
The cohort is very impressive, with people from Harvard, Oxbridge and LSE undergraduate degrees. While this is also true of the other tier 1 programmes, what surprised me about LBS was everyone's work experience.
I wouldn't necessarily say the MFA is better than the Master in Financial Economics at Said or the MSc Finance at LSE, but I definitely think they are on par with each other. I hold offers from LSE and LBS and did not apply to Oxford due to quant requirements.
Oxford MFE shares some classes with the MBA, mostly electives. Also the students of both programmes are taught in the same building. So I think there should be plenty of networking opportunities.
you were at lbs?
What about the work experience?
As specified at the top of my post this is purely based on job placement. These 3 schools are the only ones that placed directly kids into PE, hence Tier1.
I know for sure that also HEC and Bocconi placed some kids directly into PE. I agree with your rankings, but I would not consider "direct placement into PE" to discriminate between tier 1 and tier 2. I Consider the fact that a mandatory requirement to be considered tier 1 should be the fact that the schools are located near London, as even an average student through networking can easily get better placement than a top class student from most of the other schools. Also would rank HEC as tier 1.5 as it's not on par with SSE/ESSEC/ESCP etc...
So I guess you do not consider BX, Silver Lake and CD&R as Tier 1?
Thanks a lot for this, great post.
The average GMAT for the MFA was 716 last year, so getting in with a 680 would probably be an exception rather than the norm.
I used the GMAT as a minimum threshold to be considered for admission.
Thanks again, great post. However, the minimum thresholds for LSE Fin and Oxford MFE are not 700 and 720 respectively. Neither is it 680 for the MFA, though it’s recommended.
Actually think LBS has bias against very high GMAT (>730). All my friends including myslef with GMAT>=750 got rejected & 710-730 got in with comparable profile in other sections.
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This is more in regards to how much weigh recruiters put on academia or work experience. For Oxford it's minimal ie 10% max. It just so happens that A+ students have most of the time great internships.
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True about WHU/ESCP, not very familiar with MSc outside the UK.
I agree that all of them are targeted, however MBB (except for CBS/IE/ESADE) is not possible for tier 3, and PE for tier2 and below. I think that being at Oxford will out weight any of the masters below in terms of name recognition throughout your career.
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I am from one of the school listed/similar schools and all I can say is that whilst yes some people are going to McK its more exceptions rather than the norm. There is usually 1kid going there per firm per year max. That makes 3 kids/year out of usually 300+ applicants. A 1% offer rate is very low, hence Tier 3.
Note that a majority of people getting into MBB from these schools are most of the time diversity/LGBT/women - speaking from experience as one of my good friend is one of them. My friend is clearly saying that he gets such opportunities because of his profile not his CV.
Out of curiosity, how do you let people know that you're LGBT? A friend of mine said that I should put all the terms that apply to me on top of my CV. But that seems a little strange. So how do you do that?
Is SSE tier 4 or something? Does Riga branch matters?
SSE is tier 2, no clue how the Riga branch differs from the core school in Stockholm.
Disagree with Imperial Finance Msc being tier 2.5. Especially in the past few years, Imperial's Finance course has got better and I would place it at 1.5. Certainly not lower than LSE A+F.
No one has yet mentioned anything about LSE Finance & Private Equity masters program? How this in your opinion rans compared to LSE Finance masters program?
Does the PE-program give any advantage to land to PE compared to normal Finance program?
It's a very similar course with the option to take a private equity module.
Might help slightly to tell your story better when they ask why PE but not really.
A true ranking from a french perspective:
[This ranking changed the initial post thanks to me].
Tier 1:
Tier 1.5:
Tier 2:
Tier 2.5:
Tier 3:
What about tier 1 vs US programs like MIT MFin globally?
Places well into IB/MBB - probably tier 1.5/2. Great recognition due to brand name, although not their strength (usually better MBAs).
The MIT MFin Program is a Finance-Computer Science tailored for extremely highly quant appliants (Perfect applicant profiles are Engineers OR Computer Science Majors).
Not the same Program as the European pre-experience Finance master's, which are not-so-quanty MBA-like pre-experience programs for IB & MBB.
The MIT MFin is highly quanty +++ Frankly, it has nothing to do with all the other European programs that are being discussed here, in terms of curriculum & career outcomes.
For instance, try to successfully complete the "eligibility test quant exercises" on the program's admission website. I couldn't do any of them. Also, a typical applicant should be proficient in a programming language (Python, etc.).
(Attended a Presentation Seminar (in-person) about the Program. Talked with an Associate Dean of Admission and a Senior Program Director about eligibility, quant requirements, etc.)
You can tailor the program to be less quant though.
I think you're overestimating how quantitative it is. And for the financial maths test questions, that is pretty standard linear algebra, which even people who study Economics should be familiar with.
Agreed - updated mine with more details! Do you have any clue in regards to entry requirements/what is valued for these masters?
Good one. Just wanted to add that for the French schools it's rather the MiM (Grande Ecole / sometimes with Finance specialization in Year 2) degrees than just MIF/MSc Finance that place best
Love the [] - but as said the rankings would be updated and improved with the help of other users - I did my ranking in a rush but thought that it would add value to users regardless. I have little knowledge of European schools and this is where the major change lies.
following
what about Bocconi MiM
Thanks for the post. Could anyone give me some advice on my current predicament.
I have 2 offers:
LSE A&F (£28k)
Warwick Finance & Economics (£35k but received 50% scholarship)
I would definitely prefer to LSE but the cost is extremely high. Come from a middle class background and parents can help me but the total figure is not close to the £28k (+ London living costs) needed. Could defer for a year and would hopefully work and save enough for 2020 entry.
Is it worth it or shall I just take Warwick?
Probably want to go into IB but only about 75% sure at the moment.
Placement from LSE A&F>>>>Warwick. For Warwick it depends on your current work experience. If you have a strong CV feel free to PM - Warwick can be a good balance between cost & opportunity for you. However if you haven't had experience/good brand name on your CV LSE will be the best for you.
CV is not particularly good, one internship at BB in PWM, Economics (1st) at low Russell group. Another thing to consider is the ability to network in London etc but by the time term starts in September this will be too late for the recruitment cycle. Also would prefer to study A&F in comparison to E&F.
get a loan
I will be getting a £10k UK government one. I am very hesitant to look for private student loan companies, I got an ad for one of them with 18% APR...
Could need some help. Got into Imperial's climate change, management and finance program. Obviously a specialized degree and but I hope to go into energy/clean tech banking (corporate banking or development bank is the goal but open to IB too) or corporate finance (FP&A, strategic finance, etc). I have around 2 years of experience in valuation. Should I apply for graduate roles or more experienced roles (senior analyst)? Also, I understand specialized degrees are tiers below finance or finance/accounting in terms of recruiting but how far below? Tier 2.5?
Probably somewhere in tier 3. I have no clue for the level you should be recruiting - maybe ask the career center there they should be able to help you!
Surprised to not see HEC MiF in Tier 1, especially when the programme is (was) ranked highest for pre-exp. Masters in Finance. Otherwise the list is fairly spot on. I'm trying to choose between HEC and LBS and struggling considerably, but atm it seems HEC has better relationships with MBB/BBs and PE firms + great post-grad. salary statistics, whilst LBS network built seems far stronger due to the exposure to MBA/MFin students. Thoughts?
You have ZERO chance of landing MBB out of HEC if you're not perfectly fluent in French. 1 - Competition on-campus for MBB is monstrous (your colleagues are far from being naive); 2 - Actually, language fluency is a strong requirement, as is boldly stated on each and every MBB networking event in Paris throughout the school year.
Good luck with that
Thanks for the insight, I was unaware of this. So HEC would be a preferable school for those already fluent in other languages - otherwise LBS MFA/MiM would be the better course for landing IBD/PE gigs?
Definitely would like to object: First of all - you'll not get a job in French MBB If you're not French native.
BUT, HEC is placing excellently at MBB internationally and most of them hold country specific events (e.g. McK Germany, Bain Italy etc.) at HEC/ in Paris.
However, best for Consulting would be a Grande École/MiM if you're considering French schools
Bit surprised to not see HEC in Tier 1 either as I know atm ~10 people joining PE directly at very reputable firms.
I don't agree with your statement. Most of the international students compete for MBB in their home countries and having HEC on CV will give you an edge on other students who didn't go to study abroad. Lots of Germans and Italians landed internships in MBB back home
Is that for maters or MBA? Are you fluent in French? What is your goal?
Not for MBA, this is purely based on pre-exp masters courses. I can speak French to a conversational level but by no means am I fluent or have business-level French. Ultimately looking at any improvement on Big 4 Adivsory, whether that is best to transition to Corp Fin. IBD or MBB i'm unsure but long-term the current aim is VC/PE
Former MBB London. There are 5 target unis, 70% of the intake is Oxbridge, 20% is UCL/Imperial/LSE, 10% is other. LSE is in reality not dominant at all in consulting. I think UCL and Imperial do actually better. Might be different for banking. For LBS only the MBA is seen as a target, the masters degrees not.
STEM disciplines are favoured more than arts but you can get in from any of them. Finance masters aren't favoured that much in reality. You're better off doing Theoretical Physics than a Masters of Finance
Yep, can confirm all these numbers via my own intel. Although, LBS does place pretty well for their MiM.
Surprising, knew very few in London. Could be it's internationals who place into local offices where the LBS brand is potentially more favoured.
Does the LSE A+F have access to the same recruiting / networking as the pure Finance course? Just curious as its housed win the Dept of Accounting.
Recruiting is LSE wide afaik