2016 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

[curltron]

I like how you show the methodology, but can you see the scores in each category for the programs anywhere? I'm curious to see how these ties keep occurring.

 

[Berk Torun]

I like how you show the methodology, but can you see the scores in each category for the programs anywhere? I'm curious to see how these ties keep occurring.

You are absolutely right. I would love to see how those schools would rank by peer assessment only.

 

[Berk Torun]

Here is my summarized criticism of methodology with both positives and negatives.

Peer Assessment Score (20%): This assessment is useful in my opinion. Some academics might be irrationally bigoted towards some schools but in general the judgment of the academia is valuable.
Employment Rate at Graduation (10%): It is a very misleading criteria. Does it take into account where alumni works. Which institution and which department? Judging on the given description, it doesn't. This is a very complicated issue actually because all sorts of combinations are possible: Working in a prestigious firm and competitive department or a prestigious firm and non-competitive department or a non-prestigious firm and competitive deparment or a non-prestigious firm and non-competitive department. Categorizing which firms are prestigious and which departments are competitive is highly subjective of course.
Employment Rate Three Months after Graduation (15%): Same issue explained in Employment Rate at Graduation.
Starting Salary (20%): This might be the most accurate criteria ever. Not just it almost perfectly illustrates how qualified the students are, it also enables applicants to do investment analysis. Tuition Fee / (Starting Salary) can be used like a P/E ratio.
GRE Scores (15%): It is a mediocre indicator in my opinion because even the lowest schools in the lists probably have very high GRE Average score.
Undergraduate GPA (7.5%): GPA is a useless indicator and even graduate schools take into account in which school the students studied. The competitiveness of schools is very varying.
Acceptance Rate (2.5%): I think that this really shows how many people desire the particular school so I believe that it is a useful criteria.
Employer Survey Score (10%): I value recruiter opinion just as I value the opinions of scholars.

My suggestions:
-Schools should publish each year in which firm and in which department their most recent alumni works. Quantnet can categorize firms and departments and score accordingly. Of course the categorization must be disclosed.
-Remove GRE Score and GPA sections because as explained above, they are useless.
-I suggest adding location section. Schools in financial centers enable their students to work part-time during their studies and this is not completely useless. Though this criteria should have an impact of max 5%.

 

[mhy]

I think Acceptance Rate is overrated and should remain at 2.5%. Sure you can have a low acceptance rate but sometimes you get a heckload of admissions just because of the overall name of the school and not because a particular department or program is good.

Also starting salary is really unreliable - it skews the measure favorably towards schools that admit students with a lot of work experience which really isn't relevant for evaluating a program's worth. Someone fresh out of school is highly unlikely to be able to negotiate a salary much beyond a certain range.

 

[mathewfok]

This is great news to hear for Baruch. As well to see Stevens Institute of Technology on the board. Congratulations all!

 

[Haoyan]

Has anybody know about Quantitative Finance track in Applied Mathematics and Statistics in Stony Brook University? What do you think of it? Has it been considered for this Quantnet Ranking?

 

[PepeQuant]

UK schools should be added. Oxford's MscMCF and Imperial's Math Finance are pretty awesome.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Congratulations to all.

 

[TehRaio]

UK schools should be added. Oxford's MscMCF and Imperial's Math Finance are pretty awesome.

I dont think they provide enough data for that, it's been requested before.
I wish this ranking was more international than it is.

 

[diegosanaz]

Hard to be very international about it. Comparing jobs data from different countries is comparing apples and oranges. Even there is a little of bias within the US. NY living is much more expensive, so while a salary of 100K in NY is good, it is awesome in some other city.

 

[Berk Torun]

Hard to be very international about it. Comparing jobs data from different countries is comparing apples and oranges. Even there is a little of bias within the US. NY living is much more expensive, so while a salary of 100K in NY is good, it is awesome in some other city.

You are right. Perhaps a separate list then? It is obvious that there are not as many UK schools as there are in US but some schools have a lot of separate quant programs such as Cass Business School. Maybe the scope can be extended to EU. There are good quant programs in Switzerland as well.

 

[Juggernaut]

You are right. Perhaps a separate list then? It is obvious that there are not as many UK schools as there are in US but some schools have a lot of separate quant programs such as Cass Business School. Maybe the scope can be extended to EU. There are good quant programs in Switzerland as well.

How about schools in Asia, East Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East? I know of NUS and NTU having a good reputation in Asia. Also, Netherlands and Germany have some decent programs.

 

[Jedison]

Is there a category for number of quantnet mods that attended each program?

 

[Jonoh]

Great to have this ranking!

 

[ZHOU QIAO]

How about schools in Asia, East Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East? I know of NUS and NTU having a good reputation in Asia. Also, Netherlands and Germany have some decent programs.

I wound honestly say that the placement of NTU/NUS MFE programs are just average, and many graduates end up in mid or back offices. Relatively speaking, NTU MFE has better reputations than NUS since it has collaboration with CMU and graduates will receive a certificate from CMU.

 

[duyong.lee]

I am very proud of the BU's improvement. As one of alumni '15, I'd like to comment that it is no surprise that our program is the 8th on the employment section.

 

[MFE Vigilante]

I would like to point to the visitors of this thread that the rankings are published by the same people who run/are involved with the Baruch's MFE program. A conflict of interest is really apparent here. As a university, most people would agree that CUNY stands nowhere compared to the other universities that mentioned among the top 10 in this list. Just a thought.

 

[diegosanaz]

Yes, most of the top 10 list comes from brand name schools. And although I agree that a conflict of interest is evident, I think Baruch program is a member of the top 10.

Their placement stats are comparable with any other in the top 10 list.

Employment Statistics - Baruch MFE Program

At the end of the day, the comparisons should be made without any bias of the branding of the school.

 

[pingu]

I would like to point to the visitors of this thread that the rankings are published by the same people who run/are involved with the Baruch's MFE program. A conflict of interest is really apparent here. As a university, most people would agree that CUNY stands nowhere compared to the other universities that mentioned among the top 10 in this list. Just a thought.

Yo, you couldn't get into Baruch?

This place has been running this ranking for the past, I don't know, 5 or 6 years. I think the person running this site is as associated with Baruch as he is with CMU, NYU and Columbia.

I don't think you have been around the Baruch MFE program a lot but they seem to be on top of the food chain when it comes to placement and Faculty (Dr. Gatheral and Dr. Andrew Lesniewski are well known people from the industry). Also, it seems their director pulls like a freight train when it comes to the students.

This argument about the name of the school has been rehashed before so, this is nothing new.

 

[TehRaio]

These MFE degrees are like MBAs for math people,
students just want to buy brand names. It's unfathomable that a "no name" university like Baruch could be top 10, smell fishy.