NYU/UCLA/Boston College/USC

Hi all,

I'm currently deciding which Masters program to commit to. I graduated undergrad with a STEM degree and business/finance minor, and I want to transition into IB/Corporate Banking Analyst role, which is why I thought that a Masters program would be the best way for me to transition.

I currently have offers from UCLA's MFE, BC's MSF, and NYU Stern's Masters in Quantitative Finance. I am also waiting on USC's MSF admission decision as well.

I've read that MFE is not the best way to go if you want to land an analyst role in IB/Corporate banking, as it lends itself to more of a quant role in companies, which could be an option but isn't my top choice at the moment. However, I do know that UCLA's MFE is a top ranked program and it would definitely be a strong choice.

NYU's MSQF is an extremely new program, and it was co-founded last year along with NYU Shanghai, which is why I'm hesitant to commit despite it still being under Stern. I know that NYU Shanghai's reputation isn't really comparable to Stern's reputation in NYC. Furthermore, the program recently changed its schedule to starting the first 2 semesters in Shanghai, and coming back to NYC in February, which would mean that I would lose out on a lot of networking resources offered by Stern in NYC.

In terms of BC and USC's rankings and placements, each website has different rankings for every school but the main takeaway I got was that BC has stronger placement on East Coast and USC has stronger placement on the West Coast.

I'm really new to all of this stuff, since my undergrad was extremely STEM-oriented, so any advice or tips would really be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!