I am not deciding to take the GMAT. I have the following offers. Sorry, but the Financial times rankings dont make any sense to me. Noone in their right minds would choose Skema or Essec over MIT or Oxford and I havent seen anyone doing so. In any case, I have the following options-

HEC Lausanne- msc finance
UCD- Strategic management
Cranfield- management and finance
Nova- master in management
UC3M- Master in finance
Victoria uni wellington and Otago- Mfin

I would like to work in the finance department of big 4 in any place apart from my home country. I have internships in marketing analytics at one of the largest insurance firms in the world, luxury brand management at a top Italian luxury brand and in the finance dept of one of the largest automotive manufacturers in the world.
NZ gives me an option to stay back and work in the country for 3 years, france- 2 years, Spain- 1 year. Switzerland- 6 months. HEC is the best for finance academia.

Further to that, I would like to enquire why financial times lists employment rate of UCD as 100 percent whereas its own site pitches the number close to 80 percent.

The cohort or point at which the employment measure is taken make differ.

The cohort or point at which the employment measure is taken make differ.

The cohort or point at which the employment measure is taken make differ.

I don't think your comparison of these schools is useful. Bocconi is a Ferrari and Cranfield is a Mondeo. These are not bad choices for the people who select them.

Bocconi is Italy's only world-class university for business and economics, with around 14,000 fulltime students. Cranfield is a small graduate university for aerospace and environmental engineering, management and defence. It's not a huge domestic draw for finance students because it's not our top business school, or even in the top five: its business school has hundreds of full-time students, not tens of thousands. Any university without an undergraduate programme has less visibility, but if you expect these two schools to complete for alumni networks in investment banking then you will be disappointed.

Similarly, most people who work in finance don't work for investment banks. That's not the right measure for a MIF. EY is the biggest employer of Bocconi alumni. If you think that someone in a finance role at EY, the non-IB parts of HSBC or PwC is a failure, then you misunderstand the wide range of career goals for MiF students. Similarly, what is a good firm? Is it a company your friends at Bocconi know?

Cranfield and Bocconi simply don't complete. Who takes the MiF at Bocconi? Italians, 3/4rds of them. Internationally it is not even completing with excellent schools like ESCP, ESSEC and HSG because.... Italians. Cranfield is for international students who want to work in the UK. They do not limit themselves to IB roles. Indeed, they often start on lower salaries but, to be honest, in Italy there would be no finance jobs for them because of language barriers and racism and because most of them would not be accepted by Bocconi. They would attend Siena, LUISS or Tor Vergata, and get nothing relevant.

You have seen the salary data: Cranfield finance alumni have similar outcomes to comparable UK schools: http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2018 If you separated out the data for non-Italian speakers at Bocconi, I think the numbers would surprise you. For salary increase, Cranfield is similar to Imperial and ESADE. For career progress, it's similar to Nottingham and Edinburgh. For aims achieved, it's above UCD and Warwick. It's competitors are the UK schools for very good (but not excellent) candidates, the people who go to Cass, Edinburgh, Lancaster and Henley.

And Cranfield, like most mid-tier British schools, had a shitty year when every decision was put on hold. Now Brexit is agreed by parliament, things are opening up and hiring is improving. So, it's a better time than last year to come to the UK.

Similarly, Nova is a great school to find work in Portugal, and HEC in Switzerland. The idea that you are unsure if these are good schools because they are not known by your friends from Bocconi is just bizzare. Is the ETH not one of the world great universities, even though few people know it? Is the Sorbonne really better than Cass because more people have heard of it?

Thinking this way does not help you to make choices. Writing so dismissively of strong schools shows unrealistic expectations and helps convince other people, evaluating second tier schools, that there are no opportunities for them.

[Edited by Duncan on Jan 15, 2020]

I don't think your comparison of these schools is useful. Bocconi is a Ferrari and Cranfield is a Mondeo. These are not bad choices for the people who select them.

Bocconi is Italy's only world-class university for business and economics, with around 14,000 fulltime students. Cranfield is a small graduate university for aerospace and environmental engineering, management and defence. It's not a huge domestic draw for finance students because it's not our top business school, or even in the top five: its business school has hundreds of full-time students, not tens of thousands. Any university without an undergraduate programme has less visibility, but if you expect these two schools to complete for alumni networks in investment banking then you will be disappointed.

Similarly, most people who work in finance don't work for investment banks. That's not the right measure for a MIF. EY is the biggest employer of Bocconi alumni. If you think that someone in a finance role at EY, the non-IB parts of HSBC or PwC is a failure, then you misunderstand the wide range of career goals for MiF students. Similarly, what is a good firm? Is it a company your friends at Bocconi know?

Cranfield and Bocconi simply don't complete. Who takes the MiF at Bocconi? Italians, 3/4rds of them. Internationally it is not even completing with excellent schools like ESCP, ESSEC and HSG because.... Italians. Cranfield is for international students who want to work in the UK. They do not limit themselves to IB roles. Indeed, they often start on lower salaries but, to be honest, in Italy there would be no finance jobs for them because of language barriers and racism and because most of them would not be accepted by Bocconi. They would attend Siena, LUISS or Tor Vergata, and get nothing relevant.

You have seen the salary data: Cranfield finance alumni have similar outcomes to comparable UK schools: http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2018 If you separated out the data for non-Italian speakers at Bocconi, I think the numbers would surprise you. For salary increase, Cranfield is similar to Imperial and ESADE. For career progress, it's similar to Nottingham and Edinburgh. For aims achieved, it's above UCD and Warwick. It's competitors are the UK schools for very good (but not excellent) candidates, the people who go to Cass, Edinburgh, Lancaster and Henley.

And Cranfield, like most mid-tier British schools, had a shitty year when every decision was put on hold. Now Brexit is agreed by parliament, things are opening up and hiring is improving. So, it's a better time than last year to come to the UK.

Similarly, Nova is a great school to find work in Portugal, and HEC in Switzerland. The idea that you are unsure if these are good schools because they are not known by your friends from Bocconi is just bizzare. Is the ETH not one of the world great universities, even though few people know it? Is the Sorbonne really better than Cass because more people have heard of it?

Thinking this way does not help you to make choices. Writing so dismissively of strong schools shows unrealistic expectations and helps convince other people, evaluating second tier schools, that there are no opportunities for them.

It's a tiny school, and scholars work in tiny communities. In my field, for example, I can't name a researcher I follow at Harvard or Penn, so why should be able to name someone at a tiny school like Cranfield, Dartmouth or Yale? Indeed, in the UK the vast majority of research is in the Russell Group, which excludes Cranfield and most of the schools I name as its peers.

Overall, Cranfield is in the top quartile for research, on a par with Birmingham, Nottingham, Reading and Strathclyde https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/Attachments/2014/12/17/k/a/s/over-14-01.pdf . There are high-impact researchers and scholars there, including David Denyer (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=UOwFvyMAAAAJ), Eassam Shehab (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mR9VYwgAAAAJ) and Howard Lightfoot (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RGlQ93UAAAAJ).

But, to be honest, unless you are aiming at the PhD research doesn't matter. Almost all these schools work with the core curriculum set by the AACSB, and the one by the CFA. They will almost never go off-piste into leading-edge research discussions.

Do those Big 4 people you speak to recruit MiFs? Because in almost years Cranfield dramatically outperforms Bath. In the most recent FT ranking, for example: $78k alumni salary versus $48, and 100% employment versus 81%. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2018 I am sure your professors are unaware of those outcomes, as professors assess schools by their general brand power and research impact in their niche. If you showed them the FT salary data for the last ten years, they might have a different view.

[Edited by Duncan on Jan 16, 2020]

It's a tiny school, and scholars work in tiny communities. In my field, for example, I can't name a researcher I follow at Harvard or Penn, so why should be able to name someone at a tiny school like Cranfield, Dartmouth or Yale? Indeed, in the UK the vast majority of research is in the Russell Group, which excludes Cranfield and most of the schools I name as its peers.

Overall, Cranfield is in the top quartile for research, on a par with Birmingham, Nottingham, Reading and Strathclyde https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/Attachments/2014/12/17/k/a/s/over-14-01.pdf . There are high-impact researchers and scholars there, including David Denyer (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=UOwFvyMAAAAJ), Eassam Shehab (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mR9VYwgAAAAJ) and Howard Lightfoot (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RGlQ93UAAAAJ).

But, to be honest, unless you are aiming at the PhD research doesn't matter. Almost all these schools work with the core curriculum set by the AACSB, and the one by the CFA. They will almost never go off-piste into leading-edge research discussions.

Do those Big 4 people you speak to recruit MiFs? Because in almost years Cranfield dramatically outperforms Bath. In the most recent FT ranking, for example: $78k alumni salary versus $48, and 100% employment versus 81%. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2018 I am sure your professors are unaware of those outcomes, as professors assess schools by their general brand power and research impact in their niche. If you showed them the FT salary data for the last ten years, they might have a different view.

[Edited by frasier12345 on Jan 16, 2020]

Would you like a tin foil hat?

Would you like a tin foil hat?

If you don't speak French don't worry about Skema. It works for the people it works for. Focus on your goals.

You should study in the country you wish to work for.
You should also know the local language, it will help a lot.
If you have specific companies targeted where you wish to work at, then you can use linkedin to find out where people working in these companies went for their degrees.

These three tips should help you narrow down the countries you should target, and then with linkedin the best schools for the specific companies at the specific countries.

Because really your offers are all over the world. Which usually means you have not sorted out your goals yet.

From a Cranfield alumnus- I must be honest with you. Cranfield as a university itself is considered a tier 2-3. So, i would not bank my hopes too much on school or course. The programs at Cranfield are not intensive at all, in my opinion, and while the quality of the content is good, the quality of the students isn't.

As far as MSc Finance is considered - i do know the students who studied there, the program is kind of superficial (and you cannot blame the school for this, the program is bulit to accomodate the low quality of the students). The job situation in UK is bad, at least during my time. I'm not sure how the new visa policy will help though.

Similar responses from master in finance students at Bath, Durham and Edinburgh

The quality of students at the lower-ranked schools is what it is. I'd say, personally, that the MSc students generally perform less well than the undergraduate because of the language barrier and the uneven prior education. Contributing in class, looking beyond the assessment and thinking critically are hard to teach. However, year after year, those schools do produce better outcomes for those students than they would get elsewhere. On average, MiF students get a 50% boost in salary and that salary is really strong. But, of course, the schools we are talking about underperform the top 5 in the UK.

If you think Cranfield is not intensive, with four terms, then you'll love Oxbridge's two terms.

I noticed that the new QS World University Rankings for subjects can be filtered by country. The business ranking pushes a number of UK schools up: While the seven UK schools in the global top 50 are unsurprising, the next three schools listed are Aston, Cass and Cranfield. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/business-management-studies