2011-2012 Quantnet Ranking of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

[MRoss]

How do baseball rankings help people? They don't. It's just fun/entertaining/something to fight about

 

[alfisti]

Hello,

after the release of the rankings and all the previous not so informative "conversation" I would like to ask you something. I am curious about NYU-POLY program. I saw it now in pos. 17 which is a pretty decent position in that ranking among top schools.
Before that ranking I have seen that many of the members of the site don't have a positive opinion about that program. Could you give me some more light about it? Has something changed?

Andy, do you have something to discuss about? I am very interested in learning some more specific details from you!

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[MRoss]

I saw it now in pos. 17 which is a pretty decent position in that ranking among top schools.

Andy said:
22 master programs in Financial Engineering, Mathematical Finance, Quantitative Finance were surveyed from July to August 2011 on admission, placement, and career services information. 21 of the 22 programs responded, of which 19 programs (86%) provided the data needed to calculate the rankings based on a weighted average of the categories described below.

I know nothing about NYU-POLY. However, I do know that ranked 17/22 is not a "pretty decent position"...

 

[darth]

How do baseball rankings help people? They don't. It's just fun/entertaining/something to fight about

I would disagree on that, baseball rankings like any other authentic ranking definitely help people. One, it may help a professional baseball player to decide which club to join , two, it may be a yardstick for the baseball clubs to measure themselves , they could strive to get to the numero uno spot as the advertising revenue to the clubs may depend on the rankings as any advertiser is most likely to consult a reputed ranking before putting his money.

 

[alfisti]

I know nothing about NYU-POLY. However, I do know that ranked 17/22 is not a "pretty decent position"...

I believe that this list is "22 programs out of (maybe) 100+". So, I encounter that NYU-POLY (and so the others) is the one of the first 22 programs. Am I wrong?

Also, there are different students with different goals and standards. For some it may be heaven, for others it may be hell.

Anyway, thanks for your answer. Hope for some others to respond too!

 

[Alexander Krosky]

Also, there are different students with different goals and standards. For some it may be heaven, for other it may be hell.

Great point. I think this is true with any MFE program.

 

[MRoss]

Let me rephrase.

Andy did an awesome job. This list is interesting/fun/ and will shed some light. However, everyone's needs and requirements are different. A different program will be #1 for each individual. Do not let this list decide for you. Apply to all and then after you get accepted to some, weigh their pros and cons.

 

[SYau]

The list will serve its purpose if program directors see the ranking and works hard to address parts of their program that doesn't rank as high. After all, better MFE programs across the board is what prospective students would like to see.

 

[ndirish]

Andy. Great job with the rankings. Thanks for the info. I have personally found this site to be very useful in finding an MFE program that works best for me. Out of curiosity, do you know how many MFE programs exist in the USA in total?

 

[ian.ward]

Wow this thread gets bigger and bigger every day. People just need to stop replying. A lot of you are arguing in circles, making no progress.
1. Emalu is most likely a troll (stop feeding him, he is probably loving every second of this shit storm he created)
2. All ranking methodologies have their faults. Everyone should know this by now.
3. If you don't trust the methodology simply disregard the rankings? Then it has NO effect on you.
4. Saying oh boo hoo Andy is biased and this whole site is centered around Baruch is a complete waste of time (not to mention by saying this methodology is geared towards Baruch you are in effect saying that U.S. News' methodology is also geared towards Baruch. And let me tell you, U.S. News doesn't give a flying fuck about Baruch. No offense.) However, IF you still feel this way then leave. No one is making you come to quantnet. If you must, let your point be known then agree to disagree. Be the bigger person.
5. Have a good day everyone. I just had to get this all of my chest.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Andy. Great job with the rankings. Thanks for the info. I have personally found this site to be very useful in finding an MFE program that works best for me. Out of curiosity, do you know how many MFE programs exist in the USA in total?

That's a good question and I don't have an accurate count yet. Depends on who you ask and their definition of what an MFE program is, the number range from 50-100.
The data we keep has around 60 programs while IAFE list includes programs like Brandeis University's MS Finance, Golden Gate University's MS Finance with Concentration in Management.

That's one of the reasons we don't rank ALL 60-70 existing programs because applicants will most likely ignore the rest of the list except the top 20 or so programs. The US News ranking of Business School only lists the top 100 programs and the rest of the 437 programs surveyed is listed somewhere else.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

MSF degrees generally are not quant enough to be in the same league as MFE programs. I just looked at that IAFE list and it includes most MSF degrees such as BC, Alabama, Brandeis, etc. I think Andy's list is much better and truly represents what an MFE ranking would look like.

 

[FallSky]

Andy, would it possible to disclose the schools that refused to participate the survey but still in the ranking?

 

[fallingleaf]

why is it so hard to tell people which school does not want to be in the ranking but Andy still put them in the ranking? I don't get it.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Andy, would it possible to disclose the schools that refused to participate the survey but still in the ranking?

No. There is a high level of trust between Quantnet and every programs involved in the ranking that we will take our promise of client confidentiality seriously.
We made every effort to accommodate every program that like to participate, will be able to, and ALL did.

 

[fallingleaf]

sure there is high level trust between you and the schools that would like to be ranked. But for those schools that would not like to participate in the ranking and requested not to be ranked by quantnet yet you still put them in for some reason, I don't see the trust here.

Quantnet certainly has the right to put any school in its ranking . I really, really don't see any problem if you put something in the parenthesis saying that this particular school requested not being included in the ranking but you used public online information in your ranking. What is wrong with that?

From a business point of view, you might be concerned that not including certain schools in the ranking hurts the quality of the ranking. Therefore you included it anyway. But using public incomplete information from some school puts some doubt in your overall ranking. Your reluctance of releasing any more information is a bit puzzling to me.

 

[bansalmohit]

he has to look into future too. maybe those schools participate next time. writing about the schools that did not participate can make the relationships sour.

 

[TraderJoe]

For MBA rankings, US News, Business Week, Financial Times, and Forbes publicly release full information on all the schools which they collected as well as the methodology which they used to generate the ranking.
This way, any person can use their algorithm to calculate the same rankings and verify the same results of the rankings.
The schools are also free to verify the information about them which was used in the ranking and is publicly available on the ranking wek site along with the rankings.
I think this open disclosure of information and algorithm used generates more confidence in the rankings which they produce because people know that the schools have themselves verified the information.
Probably, the schools which refused to submit any information should have been excluded from the rankings to avoid conflicts.
At the very minimum, it should be disclosed on the rankings page, which schools refused to provide any information for the rankings.,

 

[MRoss]

Andy is not responding to any of you because he already said that:

In the interest of full disclose, the MFE programs participated in our 2011 ranking survey with an understanding that the data they submit will not be made public in the ranking, either aggregate or program specific. It will only be used to produce a partial score on which the ranking will be based.

 

[CN Chen]

Andy is not responding to any of you because he already said that:

But that doesn't preclude him from releasing the aggregate scores for each program... can you explain why Andy is not responding to my request for aggregate score disclosure? US News grad program rankings are scaled 5.0 to 0. Is it too unreasonable to ask for the same here?

Edit: Thanks Andy for your response below!