Countdown to the 2026 QuantNet Rankings

In anticipating of the upcoming 2026 ranking, you can use this to speculate discuss. Once the ranking is released, we will convert this to the official discussion for the ranking.
This follows our past tradition.
We expect to release around second or third week of November.
The same programs plus or minus a couple will be on our 2026 ranking.

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In the 2026 ranking, we introduced several updates to our methodology to more accurately reflect the strengths of each program:

• Increased emphasis on placement success:
  The weight for this category has been raised from 55% to 60%, with the 3-month placement rate now weighted at 20% (up from 15%).
• Adjusted weight of student selectivity:
  The student selectivity category has been reduced from 25% to 20%. Within this category, the new weight distribution is:
  • Undergraduate GPA: 5% (down from 17.5%)
  • Acceptance rate: 10% (up from 7.5%)
  • Yield rate: 5%

 

[kakimochi]

If you are competitive in nature, you will have your proving ground in NYC. There is a saying "if you can survive in NYC, you can survive anywhere". It's a jungle, cut throat environment in a lot of ways.
I spent all my formal study and working in NYC and that's where I thrive the most. For young people working in finance, no better place to be. Of course, there are good reasons to live and work in Chicago, Boston or elsewhere. Everyone has his own criteria.
Chicago is very generous with their scholarship and it has attracted a lot of students. None of Columbia programs provide scholarship currently as far as I know.

I've done my fair share of research through talking to uChicago Alumni on LinkedIn and it seems that uChicago has a pipeline to Wall Street as well. If this is true, I think the main focus is just to consistently study and interview prep as early as possible.

Looks like the reviews for uChicago MAFN has students saying the career support was quite helpful as opposed to the reviews for Columbia MFE. I'm curious to see what the outcomes for the two schools are in the 2026 Ranking. 9 more hours to go! haha.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Yes, the reviews are having great impact. I'm making a strong push to get more reviews from all programs. In additional to the data from the ranking, it would be very helpful for our audience to make a good decision.
There is no other place on earth you can find this much data and insights on top quant programs.