I would greatly appreciate your advice about which offer to accept!
I've been made offers from the following universities/programs:
University of Buckingham-- MSc in Finance and Investment
University of Birmingham--International Accounting and Finance MSc
University of Strathclyde-- Finance (MSc)
Cardiff University--MSc in Accounting and Finance
THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM--Finance and Investment
(I am also waiting for a reply from St Andrews (MSc Finance) but for unknown reasons my application is still pending for decision).

My top choices for the moment are Strath and Nottingham (but looks like I'll have to re-apply to the later as I am deferring my studies to Sep'13 and they have some issues with that).
My plans/hopes after the graduate school are to work as a finance manager/consultant/investment banker in the UK.
My profile is the following:
BSc of Art in Business and Economics (American University in Bulgaria) (Honors- Magna Cum Laude; cGPA: 3.88/4.00)
2 years of experience as an accountant and financial analyst (SGS BG)
1.5 years (by the time I start the masters) of experience as a Consultant at the Transactions & Restructuring department at KPMG BG.
Also, I have the ambitious plan to finish my ACCA and CFA (I&II, III in Dec'13) exams till Sep'13.
Thank you in advance for your guidance!
Best Regards,
Dimitar

THe Financial Times ranking of MSc degrees in finance is quite reliable. Use that. Buckingham should be ignored.

Have you looked at CFA Partner programmes? Durham seems like an obvious omission from your list.

Hi Duncan, thanks for the reply. I was hoping to hear your advice.
In my previous post I forgot to mention that I did not apply to the London schools because I want to limit the cost of the graduate diploma I'm going to get so basically I am trying to find the best value for money so to say.
When choosing the graduate schools I used QS, FT & Guardian's rankings. According to all 3 of them Strathclyde should be (theoretically) better than Durham, that's why I did not apply there.
Concerning the CFA programmes- I think they are a bit irrelevant in my case as I plan/hope to take Level I&II before the graduate school (& level III in Dec'13).
So, given that St Andrews is still not an option as they haven't replied yet, which one would you recommend me, between Strathclyde and Nottingham? Two people I know already recommended me Nottingham, but if one is to judge by the rankings, Strathclyde should be the better/more prestigious one?
Thanks again for the help!

Either you do CFA or you do an advanced MBA/MSc Finance.
Employers only need either

Donho is right. The pre-experience MiF degrees only make sense if you are not already at or above the CFA II level. You would spend the whole year and just revise what you already knew.

Plus that I imagine that you would have a fair bit of work experience as well as an undergraduate degree in relevant field already. Most of your colleagues would have minimal work experience in finance or not proper finance work or ppl who want to switch career.

How about a research based masters, like an MPhil, at one of the top schools ?

Now I see your point about the CFA Partner programmes. You are right that to some extent I will be revising stuff I already know. On the bright side, this revision would be helpful for the Level III exam and also would guarantee me high grades ;)
Concerning the MPhil- I am not interested in research/PhD programmes at this stage of my career development. I like the idea of teaching one day, but not before I turn 40 :)
I don't like the idea of an MBA at this stage either, it think it's too early for me to do an MBA and also I won't be able to afford the tuition cost at the schools where it would make sense to study that.
That's why I am looking at the master of science programmes although I am aware that the length of my work-experience is approaching the MBA domain.
Frankly, I think the graduate school will be useful in terms of strengthening and improving my knowledge but I think the main reason for doing the masters, for me, will be to use it as a stepping stone to securing a job in the UK. Although I am an EU national I need a permit to work in the UK and getting a diplomma from a UK graduate school is one of the ways to secure a permanent work permit.
So going back to the original issue- do you still think that a Finance MSc from Strathclyde/Nottingham would be a waste of time?
Thanks for the help!

I don't think they would be a waste of time: they don't totally duplicate the CFA curriculum, they would help you to transition into the UK market... so that's a big change.

However, I would take a close look at the salaries (http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2011) and look to see if you could get a place at a school with a higher starting salary. There's a chance that at somewhere like Cass, ESSEC, Henley, Rotterdam, St Gallen, Warwick etc you might find higher quality students and recruiters.

Between Strathclyde and Nottingham, Strathclyde seems to be ahead on every factor.

One more thought. Rather than take the year to get the CFA, why not start a year early on a CFA partner programme? Then you'd have both the MSc and the level II CFA a year early.

Hi Duncan, thanks for the quick reply!
I intentionally did not apply to schools outside UK, first because I am not sure I'll manage to get the work permit for UK if I did not study there and second because I doubt it I'll be able to find a job in the other countries due to the language barrier. I have a couple of friends that did a masters in Holland and couldn't find a job there afterwards.
Concerning the UK schools you mentioned- they are ~3 times more expensive than Strathclyde (7k GBP). The tuition at Reading is 18k GBP, Cass- 22k GBP, Warwick- 27k GBP. Of course, probably there's a reason why they are so expensive but I am not willing, at the moment, to invest so much money into a graduate school, mainly because that would require a huge loan.
About the year to get the CFA- in the period to Sep'13 I plan also to finish my 6 remaining ACCA exams, get the most in terms of experience from my new job (consultant at KPMG) and last but not least save some money for the graduate school as to minimize the amount of loan I would have to take in order to finance the degree. So, although I agree that there's a lot of time time till I start the graduate school (17-18 months), I will be quite busy in the meantime :)
If I start this September, I won't be able to finish neither the ACCA nor the CFA I&II exams before I graduate. I think that combining the masters with an ACCA & CFA memberships would greatly improve my chances of landing a decent job in the UK.
Btw, I am curious to what extent are the biggest companies selective in terms of what school did one graduate. Many people cite the starting salaries of the graduates as if these levels are fixed, meaning that if you graduated from a top 10 school you are guaranteed to achieve such a salary while if you graduated from a top 20-30 school you are bound to earn much less...
Thanks again for your help!

Indeed, it is the case that many employers recruit only from particular schools. If you can't bring yourself to invest in higher tuition rate that pays back in the first year, then perhaps your priority is not high salaries in the first place?

Strathclyde is a strong school and the EU fee rate is excellent. However, looking at the first term curriculum, I wonder what you would learn.

Yes, to some extent it is true that securing a $100,000 job is not my priority, Strathclyde's starting average of $44,000 seems decent enough for a single guy with no kids. Then I would save for a couple of years for an MBA at a more renowned university. I just want to play it safe for now (in terms of debt burden) so it is normal to expect a lower return ;)
I hope that Strathclyde is renowned enough to be considered by the Big4 though!
About the first term curriculum- you are right of course, but on the other hand that would be the time I would be preparing for the Level III exam (at least according to my plans) so an easier workload at school will be a good thing.
As I already said in my previous post, I view this masters just as a stepping stone to my career in the UK.
Thanks again for your advice, I really appreciate it! :)

I would rather go for a program offering me with coursework at Level 3 equivalence.

44000 is entry level job for an undergraduate degree holder

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44000 is entry level job for an undergraduate degree holder

In the UK, 30,000 GBP (around $47,000) is a pretty normal salary for a top-tier firm to pay a top-tier undergraduate: not just banks but firms like Unilever

Yes, the number seems realistic to me as well. I recently found a website containing info about the starting salaries at the Big4 in UK. The starting salaries for the college graduates were around 27,000 GBP. That's around 4.5 times more than what they pay the college graduates here :D :P

(And the costs here are only double the costs there...)

Here's a brief overview of the costs here:
Actually the cost of the food in the supermarkets is more or less the same (some things are cheaper but some are more expensive!), which is normal given the fact that many of the products are international brands sold in both countries.
The costs that are double in UK, and in Western Europe in general, are the costs in the cafes, restaurants, etc. (A Big Mac menu is around 4-5 EUR).
The petrol/diesel is 1.20 GBP per liter right now here.
The cars are a bit cheaper (~10-15%).
About the housing here- 50,000 EUR is the cheapest 2 room apartment (~60 sq m) in the outskirts of the capital. The rent of a decent apartment is around 300-500 EUR.
About the healthcare here- on theory it's definitely cheaper here (though still ~7-8% of the paychecks), but if you want to get things done properly, 99% of the time you have to pay additionally and even then there's no guarantee that you'll get quality service as the good doctors already left for Western Europe.

quick update on my case: I decided not to wait another year for the masters so this Sep will start the MSc Finance at Strathclyde. I was wondering however whether there is any sense in registering for the Dec'12 CFA Level I sitting? Do you see any benefits to that? 'cause I see one big disadvantage in the amount of $1,500 exam fee :D Thanks

To rule of thumb is as I pointed out, if the program is CFA partnered, then after 1 year, you will cover most CFA level 1 content ONLY.