MSc Economics at UCL or defer a year for LSE?
Background: BSc in Economics from a top 20 RG non-target looking to break into high finance
I have offers from UCL and LSE for MSc Economics. Your first question may be why Economics and not Finance and that's because of the difference in price tag. Finance degrees are considerably more expensive and I'm rather looking to leverage the reputation of the university instead.
Problem is LSE's MSc programme is £10k more than UCL's course and I've left it too late to secure funding. Thing is, I could opt to defer a year, save up and re-apply for 2023 LSE intake. But ideally, I'd rather jump straight into a postgrad programme this summer.
Question is - which route do I take? To what extent would an MSc degree from UCL be subpar to one from LSE. Is it worth deferring a year just to go to LSE? Employability wise, for FO roles
Neither degree will give you great odds. LSE MSc Econ isn't rly gonna afford you better odds for BBs/most EBs as both will probably be seen as extensions of the ug schools since you're not doing MSc Finance. Even if this was Oxbridge your odds of landing an FO role at a BB/EB is extremely low due to how London recruiting works (basically its very random) so you can't really measure the incremental advantages university x affords over y if both are targets...
Thanks for the response and I agree to some extent about the randomness of hiring procedures. However wouldn't an MSc regardless of major from a target be favourable to its non-target BSc counterpart? If my understanding is correct, firms tend to focus on the institution rather than its contents. Nevertheless, would you say the career prospects between UCL and LSE are marginal?
However, wouldn't an MSc regardless of major from a target be favourable to its non-target BSc counterpart
>Yes but you're literally looking at an increase in chances of like 2-5% for any individual. Obviously for a university in total this aggregates.
would you say the career prospects between UCL and LSE are marginal?
> For BBs/EBs like Laz/Roths/PWP etc there is literally 0 difference. No recruiter is going to honestly look at a CV from UCL or LSE and reasonably care about one institution over the other. Same goes for Oxbridge. For other, more exclusive opportunities? Yes, there's a difference and it is more significant than marginal. PE recruiting, hedge funds, MBB and some other EBs will favour LSE/Oxbridge more.
The above comment is not true and I know some HRs that worked at BBs, the school is important. Graduated from a UCL at MSc myself, but LSE clearly opens more doors. If you defer then learn a European language intensively in the meantime. And maybe take the CFA Level 1 if you want to partially close the gap with MSc Finance or MSc Accounting. And drills the technicals.
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