MSF Choice, Need Advice!

I wouldn't fly to Vanderbilt unless you get accepted. I don't think they will hold a phone interview against you.

As for Vandy vs Villanova. It depends. I went to Villanova and obviously love it, but I am pretty unbiased when I talk about it. Vanderbilt has some really great placements and students. They also have a lot of kids going into F500 roles or staying down south. You need to be open and prepared for that option.

The Vandy program allows for flexibility with the classes because they utilize MBA classes. The Villanova program is lock step and only MSF classes. Vanderbilt has udergrad and MBA recruiting so the MSF's can go after both. Villanova really only has UG OCR (although some MBA options). Villanova places about 50/50 in NYC and Philly. If you absolutely do not want to work in Philadelphia, you need to realize you might have to turn down some jobs.

Vandy doesn't place in Philly, but it also places down south a lot. If you're cool with that, Vandy is a great option.

I think Vanderbilt does a better job than Villanova at showcasing their MSF. The Villanova site blows. I pushed for placement stats to be online and we have managed to get a careers tab. Still not ideal, but moving in the right direction. The whole university will be revamping the website sooner rather than later so I think you will see things change.

I am extremely familiar with Nova and the MSF and I can honestly tell you, the program is rocking and rolling now. The right people are in the grad office, the professors have it down, we have extremely relevant classes and our alumni base will be over 100 MSF's with this class graduating.

We competed at Rotman this year for the trading competition (we sucked, but it was our first year with short notice). We just won the regional CFA competition and will be moving on to NYC. My year and the year before were semi finalists in Philly so this is a nice improvement. We won the ACG cup in '08, took 2nd in '10 and hopefully will do well this year.

I am really pushing to get a lot of alumni support and internships and stuff. If you go to Nova you will be seeing me a lot. We are tracking placements and now have some real solid information. At 30K for an MSF it is a really good bargain.

Needless to say, I think Vandy and Nova are both great programs. You just need to do some soul searching and decide what you want to do and where you want to be.