Cambridge MPhil Finance vs. ICL MSc Finance and Accounting
My GF got an offer for both recently. What option, in your opinion, is best for a London finance career?
Apr 03, 2021Apr 03, 2021
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Comments (19)
For whatever reason - these MPhil are often post experience programs. Although I have met few (very few) people from this Cambridge master in IB, they seem to always be in a weird bucket - ie quite experienced for analyst roles but not good enough for associates. Purely on that basis I'd be inclined to go for the Imperial masters.
They have 2 masters in finance -> MPhil Finance (pre-experience) and MFin Finance (post-experience)
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/research-programmes/research-masters/mphil-finance/
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/master-of-finance-mfin/#
Whether they are targeted for IB or not idk. The MPhil is £15K which is much cheaper then other finance masters tho
It's a research Master's, and is not comparable to the MFA or a pre-experience MSc Finance. Agree with Pan European Monkey, on the sole basis of it being a practical course, I would pick Imperial.
Also, to the above poster, many of the MPhil candidates have work experience and are transitioning into academia. They aren't distinguishable into pre and post-experience programmes like the MFA or MFin would be at LBS. The MFin is a post-experience Master's in Finance and the MPhil is what you do for the PhD if you want to be an academic.
You're thinking of the Masters in Finance buddy.
MPhil is a research masters and is mostly pre-experience. Cohort is a lot smaller than usual pre-experience masters.
Cambridge without hesitation.
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Learn more1) Does your girlfriend want to do finance research, or work in finance?
While the Cambridge brand is very strong, that particular course may be very difficult to justify convincingly in an interview. The argument 'but it's Cambridge' wouldn't necessarily hold because there are better universities to study vocational finance at, as opposed to researching finance. Therefore would pick Imperial although you're not going to hurt your career chances at either!
Do you really think that they would interrogate OP over why they studied finance at Cambridge? Comon
Seriously what the hell are some of these replies
Researching finance is not the same as studying it on a taught Master's at a top school. My point isn't about studying finance at Cambridge, it's about deciding to do an MPhil when, if you were set on working in finance, you'd probably go down the route of a normal MSc at Oxford or in London.
I have a friend who did the MPhil and regretted it because of that very perception and was actually asked why he didn't study an MSc instead during an interview at a boutique. Doing an MPhil is a demonstrated commitment to doing a PhD later on. Thus, you need to be ready to justify what changed from wanting to pursue academia to wanting to work in finance. It's an overly critical way to think about it, but if you want to edge ahead in something as competitive as recruiting, your reasoning needs to be bulletproof. As my comment said, going to Imperial, in my view, would sound more convincing to an interviewer than someone who copped out of going the PhD route and now wants to suddenly work in finance.
It's an important decision to make, I only want to play devils advocate and flag potential issues to consider! I have nothing for or against either program! In any case, it's like comparing apples with oranges because of how different the programmes are. Hence why I asked whether there's interest in academia or working in finance.
You'd be surprised what interviewers are willing to grill you on if they're in a bad mood.
She wants to work in research - but it still is not a bad idea to explore whether alternative career paths are possible.
When did your GF apply? I thought decisions get released on April 20.
Early December. According to the site, they give out most offers around March.
Is this for ICL or Cambridge? I applied for ICL msc finance and accounting in late February and haven't heard back yet.
Got an offer for the Mphil at Cambridge but went with LSE MFin instead. If you've ever talked to anyone in the industry you'll realise an MFin will set you up way better for recruiting. Eg: KKR etc even directly recruit from the LSE finance department.
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