2017 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

[QuantNet]

NEW YORK, October 27th, 2016 – QuantNet today released its 5th rankings, selecting the Best Master Programs in Financial Engineering, Mathematical Finance, Quantitative Finance in North America. The 2017 rankings also provide much greater statistics on each program, making it easier for prospective applicants to decide on where to apply and enroll.

QuantNet surveyed programs administrators, hiring managers, corporate recruiters, and finance professionals to get the information used in the 2017 rankings.

In additional to the top 30 rankings, this year we rank the top 10 programs with the best employment outcomes and the 5 most improved programs.

2017 Quantnet Ranking of MFE programs​

 

[Alexandre Chretien]

Let the flame war begin.

 

[IntoDarkness]

oh no! wtf! my program is not no.1????!!!

 

[flios]

where is the University Of Southern California???

 

[Andy Nguyen]

where is the University Of Southern California???

We only rank programs that respond and provide sufficient data to our survey.

 

[HaoYang]

UW-CFRM continues going up. GREAT!!

 

[Leo.N]

Peer Assessment Score (20%)
Each program was asked to rate the 30 programs in the 2017 QuantNet MFE Programs Rankings from 1 (marginal) to 5 (exceptional).
Is this survey reliable enough to be put as 20%?

Placement Success (55%)

• Employment Rate at Graduation (10%)
  This is the employment rate for the latest graduate cohort at their graduation.
• Employment Rate Three Months after Graduation (15%)
  This is the employment rate for the latest graduate cohort 3-month after their graduation.

• 
  I think nowadays it's not the matter of finding a job. It's the matter of knowing about what you want to do and get what you want. Thus putting 25% of employment rate makes no sense to those top programs.

• Starting Salary (20%)
  The average starting salaries (exclude bonuses) of the most recent graduate cohort.

• 
  Exclude bonus would be unfair to those programs less quantitative oriented?

• 
  
• Employer Survey Score (10%)
  Employers were surveyed to identify which of the 30 programs in the 2017 ranking whose graduates they have interviewed or hired from within the last two years.

• 
  What kind of employers? Bank? Funds? Trading shop? Risk? Quant? Trading? AM?

Student selectivity (25%)

• GRE Scores (15%)
  This is the average ETS GRE quantitative scores of students accepted in the most recent incoming cohort.

• 
  Who cares GRE score?

• Undergraduate GPA (7.5%)
  This is the average undergraduate grade-point average of those most recent incoming cohort of the program.

• 
  Is it on average harder to get good GPA from more selective colleges?

• 
  
• Acceptance Rate (2.5%)
  This is the percent of applicants to the program who were accepted.

• 
  To me this part is the most import, especially for the fact that these programs are accepting the same pool of students. It has only 2.5%, meanwhile, GRE has 15%. 6 times.

Overall score

A score for each program is accumulated from the points in each category multiplied by the category's assigned weighted average. The final scores were rounded to the nearest integer. A tie is determined if any two or more programs have the same final score and tied programs are listed alphabetically.

Programs that did not provide enough data will be denoted as NR (not ranked).

First, It's good to have this kind of ranking to help students better understand the programs and thanks for Quantnet's effort for the past few years. I also benefit a lot from it.

Second, a perfect ranking system just doesn't exist. US news ranked many Chinese University higher than MIT, Stanford, Princeton for Engineering school. Every ranking has its own bias. Thus I just provide some potential opinions on the other side.

Third, it would be helpful to provide more information about those programs, such as the student profile, placement including team and position, curriculum and career services, alumni network. Those are the things students care more than some scores.

Thanks.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

A place to get student reviews of the programs is https://www.quantnet.com/resources/

 

[tsilaeri]

I highly doubt the ranking of Baruch program. Although it is undoubtedly a sound program, it is nowhere close to CMU's program(or other top 5). I see that from 2016, Quantnet has been tweaking percentages to bump up Baruch's ranking, such as increasing weight for GRE quant score, and pushing down survey score, etc. Compare the weights vs 2013-2014. Somehow 2015 record is missing.

Everyone knows that GRE quant test is a high school level joke unless it's a math subject test. Those who didn't get 170 probably didn't even bother to take it twice. Yet, you increased its weight so that Baruch can go up.

Hmm.... why? I'm sure it absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that 1) Andy, who runs this site, is from Baruch, and 2) this site constantly advertises Baruch's C++ program.

When you publish standardized measures like rankings, your objectivity should not be compromised.

 

[Ilya W]

Somehow 2015 record is missing.

you can find it here: https://www.quantnet.com/threads/20...nancial-engineering-mfe-programs.21977/page-2

GRE was 15% as it is in the 2017

Just IMHO, I would put even more weight into the placement success because at the end it is the only unbiased component.

 

[tsilaeri]

GRE was 15% as it is in the 2017

Then the bump happened in 2015, from GRE of 12.5% to 15%.

 

[vvarma]

Surprised to see that people are complaining of bias. According to Baruch's materials, they are winning trading competitions repeatedly. IAQF competition (1st in 2016, 2015, 2nd in 2013), the RITC trading competition (1st place in 2016 and 2012, 3rd place in 2013 and 2011, 4th place in 2014). Isn't that the best evidence of a strong program?

 

[mhy]

Surprised to see that people are complaining of bias. According to Baruch's materials, they are winning trading competitions repeatedly. IAQF competition (1st in 2016, 2015, 2nd in 2013), the RITC trading competition (1st place in 2016 and 2012, 3rd place in 2013 and 2011, 4th place in 2014). Isn't that the best evidence of a strong program?

Not necessarily, the best evidence is placement of graduates and reputation on the Street. (Baruch fares well in both, by the way)

 

[tsilaeri]

Surprised to see that people are complaining of bias. According to Baruch's materials, they are winning trading competitions repeatedly. IAQF competition (1st in 2016, 2015, 2nd in 2013), the RITC trading competition (1st place in 2016 and 2012, 3rd place in 2013 and 2011, 4th place in 2014). Isn't that the best evidence of a strong program?

I am in no way saying that Baruch is a horrible program. It is a sound and decent one. What I'm saying is that it is not at par with programs like CMU's computational finance. I'm pointing this out because there are potentially thousands of students out there who rely on these kinds of rankings to make their decisions. If Baruch is ranked around 5th, I'll say okay that is acceptable given the efforts of site administrators and contribution of Baruch to this site, but when you rank Baruch 1st in the list, you've gone way too far.

Just ask yourself, for example. If you have a choice between Princeton and Baruch, will you go to Baruch? (Disregarding the tuition difference, since it's not part of the ranking methodology anyways) Name value of the host institution is a huge, if not the biggest factor in the financial industry, and job placement % does not account for quality of employment. (btw, I'm not a Princeton alumni)

 

[MRoss]

I am in no way saying that Baruch is a horrible program. It is a sound and decent one. What I'm saying is that it is not at par with programs like CMU's computational finance.
...
Just ask yourself, for example. If you have a choice between Princeton and Baruch, will you go to Baruch?

Why wouldn't you? If:
1) Baruch had better professors (not saying it does, just hypothetical)
2) Cost less
3) Nearly everyone got a job

Why go for a school with 4X as many students that costs 3X as much and no greater chance at employment?

For the record: A student in my undergrad program with a 4.0GPA got accepted into Baruch and Columbia MFE years back. He chose Baruch which had me wildly confused, but I completely understand now.

I'm not backing Baruch at all; I'm backing the concept of a Ranking that looks at pure data and leaves the emotional "My son went to Harvard" feeling out of it.

 

[tsilaeri]

I'm not backing Baruch at all; I'm backing the concept of a Ranking that looks at pure data and leaves the emotional "My son went to Harvard" feeling out of it.

No ranking can ever be just a pure data. A person or a group of people subjectively decides on the weights, and subjectively decides on which factors to include. And I am just pointing out that this subjectivity went too far in this case.

 

[omrangassan]

Why you put stevens NR ; even it did not share any of the data you use in the ranking methodology ?

Iff you get these input data from these universities ; how come you trust them ?

 

[BeepImaJeep]

I am in no way saying that Baruch is a horrible program. It is a sound and decent one. What I'm saying is that it is not at par with programs like CMU's computational finance. I'm pointing this out because there are potentially thousands of students out there who rely on these kinds of rankings to make their decisions. If Baruch is ranked around 5th, I'll say okay that is acceptable given the efforts of site administrators and contribution of Baruch to this site, but when you rank Baruch 1st in the list, you've gone way too far.

Just ask yourself, for example. If you have a choice between Princeton and Baruch, will you go to Baruch? (Disregarding the tuition difference, since it's not part of the ranking methodology anyways) Name value of the host institution is a huge, if not the biggest factor in the financial industry, and job placement % does not account for quality of employment. (btw, I'm not a Princeton alumni)

I'm seriously questioning if this is true any more. This isn't 10 years ago. Reputation is generally a lagging factor of the success of the school, and comparing the current student profiles, it really doesn't seem Baruch is any weaker, nor is Baruch's job placements any worse. It also doesn't really matter if most of us would take a Princeton offer over a Baruch offer but it seems like more and more that the marginal top candidate is selecting Baruch over Princeton.

 

[TehRaio]

I mean if you're going to rely on century old history then this ranking is useless, and you just need to pick an Ivy league school. Problem Solved.

Seems to me in the case of financial engineering, you have to see how much better is CMU/Princeton/Berkeley compared to Baruch. If in fact there is not much difference, you're free to make the decision based on your own personal biais. Like If I got an offer from Berkeley, Baruch, or CMU I would consider CMU because of location, cost of life etc...
Ranking is just one variable.

 

[s.sy]

Ranking doesn't make sense for some of the schools in the list. Placement Success Score can be fabricated as it doesn't consider quality of employers.

When you see this ranking, only consider Peer Assessment Score and Selectivity. They are the most reliable and consistent with the industry reputation, don't and can't cheat.