LSE MSc Finance — Worth the £££ or Overhyped Brand?
I’m considering applying to the MSc Finance at LSE (the 10-month flagship one, not the Management/Finance hybrid). On paper, it looks like the dream: target school, London location, insane alumni network.
But here’s the dilemma — it’s short (10 months), insanely expensive, and doesn’t even include a compulsory internship. From what I hear, it’s basically a “sink or swim” program where you need to land off-cycle internships or go straight for grad schemes.
So my questions to the WSO crowd:
• Is the roi actually worth it vs other options (MBAs, continental European masters like HEC/ESSEC, etc.)?
• Do employers really hire straight out of this without much prior experience, or do you get dinged without a strong CV?
• Alumni — what’s the real placement outcome like? FO IB/PE/AM vs people ending up in Big 4 or back-office?
Would love some brutally honest takes. Is LSE MSc Finance still the golden ticket, or just another overpriced brand play?
Pick your side in comments
1.100% Worth It ; still a golden ticket 2.Depends on background and hustle 3.Overpriced brand, better options existMix of 1 and 2
If british go for it, if not build the experiences first and apply for MBA or other european schools.
Well, generally its a "win more"-thing. You already said it, you cant do an internship in the programm. Consequently, your profile has to be very solid to recruit for FT. I believe there is better programs, especially when money matters to you. For example the HSG MACCFIN / HSG MBF or the MFin from SSE. 2 years, less expensive and still very good schools. Not LSE/Oxbridge/HEC-level branding, but enough to work with it.
My shops never hired into PE unless it was Oxbridge/ LSE / some hyper EU school like HEC or that top Spanish school, Bocconi too. You have to take the pain and fork the money out, also you need to come away with a distinction!
Oxford, HEC, and LBS are better choices imo, LSE is still super strong.
I know of more strong profiles from LSE not getting IB roles in London than from the other unis mentioned just in terms of placement.
Network is also closer at HEC and LBS, given the unis are much smaller.
LSE is still a great, great uni that will open you many doors. It’s likely the best for undergraduate recruitment with Oxbridge in Europe, but for masters this can sometimes be a negative, given many spots at banks are already allocated to LSE undergrads and banks don’t want to hire >20% of their class from one uni.
Think of it as an increasingly high risk high return investment. On one hand you can hit big, but each passing year the possibility of hitting gold reduces (think immigration rules tightening, reducing roles, acceptance rates and so on). At one point you have to think that it's maybe overvalued.
From my experience top EU schools for masters (HEC, escp, bocconi etc.) currently offer the best ROI and the best chances to break in since you get recognition in two markets (EU offices prefer their own schools than UK ones) and lots of opportunities to retry (gap semester or year doing off cycles) for instance. If you don't make it in London but land the Paris/frankfurt office, you can always pivot after.
Could I pm you for advice? I will potentially have to choose this year between these schools and don't want to fck it up
Of course
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