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.
So I guess you do not consider BX, Silver Lake and CD&R as Tier 1?
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.
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:
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
You forgot to include RSM in Tier 1.5/2.
RSM is not Tier 1.5/2.. I would put it in Tier 3/3.5.
I don't think so. I know over 30 people that went to BB/EB in the last two years + it's definitely a better school than the Scandinavian ones.
In the end, which school you come from matters much less than actual experience, making this entire thread pretty useless.
Now that INSEAD has decided to join the pre-experience Masters in Management (MiM) market* (just as LBS did ten years ago, in 2009, when it launched its MiM), *The INSEAD MiM inaugural starting class is scheduled for the 2020-2021 academic year
I think it is only extremely fair and logical to assume that in a couple of years, the whole pre-experience MiM landscape will shift to a two-tier stratum, in regards to overall firms deciding to switch pre-experience target programs, and to the FT pre-experience Rankings, etc.
This will be especially true (and very bad news!) for the big 3 Paris-based french schools (HEC-ESSEC-ESCP): They will lose their monopolistic position for pre-experience MBB placement.
This is really a big deal.
Given both INSEAD & LBS's total domination of all non-US MBA at the MBA-level (post-experience level), I wouldn't be surprise if the whole European PRE-experience recruiting & prestige landscape will lean towards the pre-experience programs that are offered at those specific two business schools, which already are the only non-US alternatives to MBA business schools">M7 MBAs, and the only non-US European competitors to the US MBA business schools">M7 MBA programs.
I know for a fact this newly-launched INSEAD MiM will cannibalize the MBB recruiting market for the Continental Europe offices (for pre-MBA Associate Consultant/Consultant positions). Which I think is a good thing. There's been too much stagnation in the pre-experience MiM market in Continental Europe. And we, motivated Prospective applicants, deserved such a high-caliber player to add to our respective application lists.
Curious and eager to witness what their first published employment report for the first graduating class will look like. Definitely something to look forward to.
Not disagreeing here but I think a nearly €50k price tag for a 10-months pre-experience program is absolutely insane
Honestly, I'm doubtful that firms are going to turn around and start yanking folks from INSEAD's program because it's "INSEAD".
Just take a look at the Said and Judge programs.. they came on the scene fairly recently as well but the momentum has still mostly been from the stronghold programs of HEC, LBS, LSE, Bocconi, St Gallen, etc. It takes a lot more than just a name to disrupt an already established talent pipeline.