Target Universities in Switzerland or France?

I am  fed up of the UK & my parents at the moment! 

Wanting to escape  to Europe - pref Switzerland or France  - to read a Masters in Finance or Econ

Any target recommendations? Any other places in Europe you might recommend. Would love to go to the States but doubt I would be able to afford it. 

Thanks 

 
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Switzerland, look at St. Gallen. For France, there are no target universities. The French system is unique in that the top schools are "Grande Ecoles" and you can only access them by going through a French preparatory class or if you already have an undergraduate degree. Good semi-target universities are PSL, Sciences Po, Dauphine, and ENS, but none of them are targets in the sense that HEC, ESSEC, ESCP, and Polytechnique are. 

If you want to study in Continental Europe, I'd also recommend Bocconi. Top school and has strong ties to London in case you want to come back home to work

 

What this guy said, except that HEC, and to a lesser extent ESSEC and ESCP have traditional Master degrees for internationals that are well regarded still (not Grande Ecole track)

 

What this guy said, except that HEC, and to a lesser extent ESSEC and ESCP have traditional Master degrees for internationals that are well regarded still (not Grande Ecole track)

Yeah that's what I meant when I said that you need prepa or an undergraduate degree to access these schools

 

Despite often being no.1 in rankings, St Gallen is only a good school if you're interested in working in the German-speaking part of Europe (Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland, parts of Luxembourg...). Otherwise it's pretty shit

 

Actually, targets in France for finance specifically are Science Po, Dauphine, HEC, ESSEC, ESCP, top 3 engineer schools (some actual have a stronger reputation in certain areas, for instance engineers schools and the 203 Master at Dauphine tend to be better for trading and quants roles)

 

As a Frenchman with close friends at all of the schools you mentioned, I think it's a bit of a stretch to include Dauphine and Sciences Po as targets. They're semi-targets in France, non-targets for London. Further, Dauphine itself isn't recruited - its Master 203 is. The same goes for Sciences Po, with its Masters in Finance & Strategy. But even then, representation as good banks pales in comparison to the "Parisiennes". You may argue that Mines Paris Tech is targeted, but not for pure IB (more so quant/S&T roles).

 

Hello. I saw that the 203 is highly regarded for trading. However, my intention is to break into IB/Consulting in the next 3 years. I'm going to apply for the 203 this year since my university (spanish) has an agreement with Dauphine for the M1. 

I wanted to know if it's feasible to get some interviews and ideally some junior position at an IB in paris or london with only one year of the 203.

Second, how hard is it to get the mandatory internship (in a good bank and later extend it) of the second semester if u talk spanish and english, but a crappy B2 in french (Will start studying again)? 

Context for the first question: In spain MOST of UG are 4 years so I have to wait until I can apply for the master I originally want at SSE. In the meantime I will be at dauphine, which has more recognition than my home university, to obtain the join bachelor's degree and the M1.

If it's not totally feasible to get a job offer or a nice work experience either at paris/london after the compulsory internship and the dauphine brand. I will apply for SSE at both mfin at mim to have better chances in Spain/london IB or (London/Spain/Sweden) MBB

Also, I read some threads about people studying the M1 first at dauphine and later getting into the MIF/MIM at HEC, how likely is this?

Thanks!

 

Spent some of my younger years in CH.

ETH Zürich, Lausanne, St. Gallen are typically the ones you hear all the time or see on CVs.

We have a colleague who did ETH and Lausanne and managed to build a career in the US. therefore not impossible, but if you have no interested in the local culture/language/region/.. then I'd probably pick another region or school.

there are interesting jobs in the DACH region.

 

For Switzerland:

Tier 1: St Gallen (by far the best business school in Switzerland), ETH, EPFL (latter two for quant finance, I guess you can do M&A from there but should be pretty overkill to do their quant finance Masters with this in mind)

Tier 2: UZH, HEC Lausanne (place decently domestically, harder to go abroad but possible)

If you want to do finance, go to St Gallen but know that the school will place well for German speakers mostly, if you want to do quant stuff look at ETH and EPFL. 

 

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