I spoke with a friend who suggested me if the application to the tier1 uni in London (LSE,UCL,Imperial, LBS) will not work. I have seen the website and the placement, over the programs.. look nice!
In other forum I have seen St.Andrews > Warwick/Kings etc.
Suggestions?
For MSc Finance and a BB future career
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St Andrews is somewhat called the Oxford of the Scotland. Still keep in mind a fact that St Andrews is just a small Uni Town and it will be hard for you to adjust if you are from a big city.St Andrews is somewhat a Semi Target Uni for the Investment Banks. while Warwick is a target Uni. I would say that Networking is the key to get into BB and it will be better if you are from Kings (As its in London) but still Its all upto you.
I would say Warwick>St Andrews>Kings in terms of rep in UK and it drastically changes if you go outside EU due to the name of University of London, So it depends on where you wanna work as well.
Good Luck
Thank you buddy. So, you suggest to me Warwick? It's hard to be part of the MsC finance program? (and it's so expensive than St.Andrews!)
St. Andrews is Harvard of St. Andrews.
St. Andrews won't give you a leg up in finance. It's simply seen as a "good" university, nothing less nothing more. The only UK "targets" if you will are:
Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Warwick and Imperial. No particular order.
Outside of that you have a tail of good universities that don't give you a massive leg up but will not weigh you down either. This is stuff like Bristol, Durham, York, Nottingham, St. Andrews, Edinburgh etc.
St. Andrews for London IB or US MBA (Originally Posted: 08/15/2011)
Just a quick question, how well is a degree (First) from the University of St. Andrews in Economics looked upon by the IB community? Would this be enough to get through the door at a good BB? I curious as to how well this degree is looked at with regards to landing internships throughout the course of the degree. Also, how do US B-schools look upon UK undergrads, bearing in mind that Scottish degrees are more similar to American ones than their English counterparts.
NB: This is for IB in both London and NY (though London will be the preferred choice).
You are right.
The ones you mentioned first ie LSE(They feeds the most number of Bankers to the IBs), Oxford(Kind of a Generalist), Cambridge(Same as Oxford), Warwick, UCL, and Imperial (Although Imperial is famous for science subjects, the proximity to the firms actually makes me to include them in this list) are the target schools
While the ones you mentioned later ie Bristol, Durham, Kings, Nottingham, St Andrews and Edinburgh comes under the category of semi target while York is somewhat "marginally" behind those unis i mentioned.
I could tell you one thing for sure. The top 5% student in Bristol can also get into the IBs as well as a top 5% student of a target school can also get into the IB workforce but if you attend an Semi Target school, you should have to do some frequent travelling to London to attend networking events and so on. Plus you need to show your interest in the field of banking and finance by being something like holding a respectable position in the finance or banking society at the uni you are attending or something similar to that. If you are motivated to be a future Banker, then no one can change that goal unless you demotivate yourself and thus distracting yourself from your goal. Even though i told you this, getting into a Target School also dont guarantee you a better future. So in short, it all depends on you.
Absolutely agreeing with you! I think if I'll not accepted to the top (LSE IMP etc) I'll try here in Italy with Bocconi or with other Eu uni.
There's really no such thing as a semi-target in the UK. Either you get heavily recruited or you don't. Given that the UK doesn't have on campus super days (at least at most places), the how heavily a university is targeted also becomes of lesser importance.
There are plenty of places that exclusively look at LSE undegraduates only, there are others that will do just Oxford, others that will do Oxbridge, but as far as banks go they just want to focus on as few places as possible and to be able to apply a simple screening process. Hence, there are very few true target universities and you're always safest just going to Oxbridge - you can't ever go wrong with those.
LSE's stats are a bit skewed, it's a banker factory (i.e. people go there just to get into that field), but it doesn't mean LSE kids have the most success in terms of hit rate. It's largely self-selection if you compare LSE vs. Oxbridge. Having said that, it's not a knock on LSE, just an observation.
Thanks. So in case i'll not be admitted in the top 5 you suggest me to find other msc in Europe? Like Bocconi Rotterdam etc.?
I believe it is considered as a target school for london office.
But your main competition will be the standard Oxbridge, UCL, Imperial, LSE, Durham kids
Not sure about NY office.
For MSc, unless your credentials really aren't good/decent, you should definitely get offers from Warwick and Imperial, especially for Finance orientated subjects. LSE is also not difficult for certain less competitive MSc subjects. Of course, I have no idea about your credentials / background / grades etc., but generally everyone tends to make it sound as if it's incredibly difficult to get into some of those universities. As an example, LSE has so many degrees on offer at MSc so if you do some digging you can very quickly understand which ones aren't really too competitive if all you're after is the branding for future hiring.
Bocconi's good, but I personally wouldn't go outside of the UK for a London career if I'm honest. Do see some Bocconi people, but not too many. Way fewer from Rotterdam or SSE. In short, I'd say go after the Top 5 names and you'll definitely land an offer, especially Warwick / Imperial for their Management / Finance / Economics degrees.
In a way you are right. The top people who did their degree from EU nations certainly look for a London based Internship which later will help them to land in a job in London, but we got to be so much motivated and we should keep a goal in front of them that our aim should be to London in a job at London IBs
Great answer! Thanks TheFamousTrader ..Anyway I'm 22 yrs old, will graduate in December from top 10 Italian uni (but public) with 2:1. Studied 3 months in London for take the IELTS. When I'll be graduate I will do an internship (I have proposals from EY, BDO etc.) and take the GMAT (hope to obtain >650). So I will wait 8 months from graduation to start the MsC. Is good profile? I know it will depend mostly from the GMAT
Not sure what are the requirements if you come from non-UK universities but getting into Warwick/Imperial from another UK university (regardless of where it's "ranked") a 2.1 is plenty sufficient. You need to remember that some of these programmes are created as additional income and they just want to collect as much money as they can, so competition is not too stiff at new business schools like Imperial or at Warwick where it's very competitive for UG but not so much at masters level.
GMAT of >650 should be fine for non-Oxbridge/LSE. Having said that, I have no knowledge what's the average class GMAT, but I guess if we take Oxford's MFE programe as a proxy for the upper end, their latest class had an average of 734 for the GMAT. This shouldn't scare you though as that's definitely top end, complete guess / stab in the dark but I'd be amazed if Warwick's programmes amount to more than a 650 GMAT average.
I think that Warwick is one of target schools instead of Imperial.
I seriously wonder that Durham is generally so well known in London and NY.
Bump, also considering St. Andrews Econ
St. Andrews
Well as this thread has been resurrected...
(Full disclosure I went to a UK target for UG and PG, and went into the grad scheme at a tier 2 consulting firm)
St. Andrews is absolutely a target / semi-target. Their finance programme is quite good and they are relatively well represented in the City.
With that said the UK university target list looks something like this:
Targets (in rough order): Oxbridge LSE Imperial Warwick UCL St Andrews Edinburgh
Semi-targets (in no particular order): Bristol KCL Bath
Non-targets that get a look: Newcastle Manchester Leeds
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