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Oxford MFE results

Joined
11/4/11
Messages
3
Points
11
Hi,

I have been offered a place in the Oxford MFE program. Though I am very thrilled and excited, I have a few issues on which I would like your inputs/suggestions.

1. Considering the current economic scenario (specially the European), how do you consider getting an MFE degree from oxford ( I am an international applicant and would be changing my career to finance).

2. I was thinking of applying to 1-2 US based colleges also ( actually was expecting the result a month later :D ). Any suggestions whether I should go with Oxford or try the US colleges to ( I dont have any specific interest to work in US/Europe).

@Andy Nguyen
3. Is there already or any plan to release a similar rating for European Colleges too. would like to know how Oxford actually stnds amongst it's peers.


I know I should have done this research myself ( and actually I have done it), but wanted a second opinion on the topic.
 
I graduated from the Oxford MFE in 2010, and I'll be able to provide you with first-hand information about the program.

First off, I want to congratulate you on getting accepted. I know, even after I graduated, they were making the admission standards even stricter for the ensuing years, so it's no easy feat to get admitted.

I do not believe that the current economic situation should affect your decision. When my classmates and I graduated in 2010, the job market was quite bad as well; however, still upwards of 20% of the class had offers well before graduation from McKinsey/Bain/BCG, Goldman, and top hedge funds. The recruiting -- and acknowledgement of Oxford's reputation around the world -- is really unparalleled. Banks and hedge funds are still hiring, and I can assure you, from my experience, that with the education, connections, and prestige you get from attending Oxford, you will be the first candidates that companies look to hire.

In a similar light, the career services at Oxford is second to none. They provide you with the most comprehensive, individualized service possible (with career counselors that continue to work in the various fields that they are advising you on), and they will all but ensure that you get a job. I can't recall one person from the 2010 class -- even those with no prior experience/internships in the field -- that did not get the job that they wanted.

As for the colleges in the US that you're considering, I would love to talk with you more about the various colleges you have applied to. I'm from the US, and I was accepted to the one other program I applied to. Since I don't know which other programs you were accepted to I can't comment on how they compare to Oxford, but if you want to send me a personal message I could give you my contact information and we could talk more about the comparison. I know most of my classmates were accepted to LSE and other schools in the US, so I can offer you a lot of advice about other programs. Off hand, I can't think of a comparable program in the US that has the same prestige, and offers the same combination of extremely technical courses along with more qualitative courses (which are particularly interesting and useful for someone coming from a non-finance/econ background). I would be interested to hear which programs you were considering in the US, and I could hopefully give you some guidance.

Here's a ranking from the Financial Times of Finance masters programs around the world:
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2011

As you can see, the MFE has a very good reputation around the world (4th overall in the world, and the 2nd highest post-graduation salary).

I hope that answered some of your questions, but I'm sure you have many more as I did when I was in your spot. If you'd like, you can send me a personal message on here, and I will provide you with my contact information so that we can discuss any additional questions you may have. In the interim, enjoy the difficult but exciting decisions ahead of you :)
 
Here's a ranking from the Financial Times of Finance masters programs around the world:
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2011

MFEOxford: I dont know about the Oxford MFE program and it may be as good as you are portraying it to be but i can tell you that the rankings of FT are poor.The best school in US according to them is:



14 Brandeis University USA MA International Economics and Finance 67,432 24

which is ranked 14th across the globe.
 
I suspect the timescales for the Oxford offer don't give you a big enough window to go through the application process anywhere else before you have to decide, so I see the question as whether you take Oxford or not.

I think one has to ignore the current economic shitstorm, not because it is important but because it is neutral with respect to your decision, because...

a) You want out of your current career path, presumably that does not vary with the economy.

b) Education is not just a way of moving forward, it also helps keep you afloat when things go bad, in effect the cost of the Oxford program can be modeled as an insurance premium that reduces the risk of your career sinking, note I say reduce.

c) I know little about you, but you say you are "thrilled" at getting into Oxford based upon that small piece of data I suspect that you did not go to a very highly ranked university before, Oxford is a good buzzword to have on the CV in that case. If I'm wrong then the marginal value of the course goes down a bit.

I don't take the FT rankings seriously, firstly because they are to broad to be of use to the sort of people we work with (ie Quants, MFEs etc) and they do not correlate well with what hiring managers tell me. As a for instance, never not once has a hiring manager ever said to me that they would like to see people from IE Business School in Spain which FT want us to believe is ranked higher than Oxford which would be funny if people weren't making career critical decisions based on this junk. IE better than Warwick ? What colour is the sky in the planet of the person who wrote that ?

Sometimes I believe that the rankings are actually a function of who advertises the most in the FT, but seeing this list I don't think it is even that rational.

Their "methodology" includes "research" but because they want the freedom to produce the results they want, do not expose the weighting for this or indeed anything else. Maybe the research at IE is good, anyone know ?
I'm ambiguous about "research" in this area as having value for the students, good researchers sometimes make appalling teachers. My undergrad course had an higher number of Chinese students than others and one day a delegation of them grabbed me over lunch, they wanted me to explain the lecture to them because their English wasn't good enough. This was nonsense, the lecturer was the main man in his topic and had actually been born within walking distance of my home, and I couldn't understand him. I suspect I missed less of his terribly incoherent speech than they did, but no way did I make it all the way to understanding. It didn't help that this was an advanced course, indeed the main (American) text said it was for masters students and we were 2nd year undergrads.

That's my story, as a headhunter I hear lots like that. Some top tier academics are very good, others aren't, but what you are buying is an upgrade to your understanding plus a badge to confirm it.

I don't do recommendations for courses, but in your case I don't see much option except going to Oxford or staying in your current job.
 
I don't take the FT rankings seriously, firstly because they are to broad to be of use to the sort of people we work with (ie Quants, MFEs etc) and they do not correlate well with what hiring managers tell me.

The rankings were meant for the Masters in Finance and i am still in shock what FT came up with.

Also DominiConnor where is Cass placed in your books?
 
Thanks DominiConnor. I really like the way you analyze the information :).
Adding more info , Yes, I am not from a world renowned university and really want to move over to the finance field, however it's not because I hate my job it's just I am too much passionate about finance. Academically I am not too bad either , have a gpa of 4 and a 99 percentile GMAT, good work ex, recos etc.
Coming back to the question, I assuming that I will be getting an interview first and the results around mid of dec and by that time I would apply to a couple of colleges in US. Now since they decided to offer me a place without any interview, I was thinking whether I should apply to other colleges at all. I was looking at three features in a college brand , course structure and jobs. Ox does have a very strong brand name and I like the course structure too ( I dont need too code heavy course as I believe I am already good at it). Now for the job scenario , the website shows that 98% of their 2010 class was placed in 3 months and the ave salary was 42k ( not sure if that is base or total). would like to get you unbiased view as a headhunter on how an oxford MFE is viewed on the street in respect to other courses by the major firms.
 
FT rankings put LBS as no. 1. Come on now. LBS may be good but is it better than Wharton, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford.....etc. And Oxford MBA is ranked 27th

IE is better than Oxford. Or IIMA better than Chicago, Duke or Berkeley. And HKUST is at number 6 above MIT. The test is this take any Asian student even from India and tell them they have been offered a place at MIT and HKUST - which would they choose. As for IIMA well not so long ago they were doing double MBAs. One from IIMs and one from a Columbia or Wharton like school in US. I met a few who went to Chicago and Columbia

I think these rankings are totally useless. One can't buy prestige it develops over a long time. And the Asian schools while competitive and good have a long way to go before they start competing with the prestige factor. And for MBA or MFins what you are really after is prestige. Not sure what you would learn there anyway or remember.
 
Thanks martin and Kevin, but I am least interested in the FT ranking, my decision to apply to Oxford was no way based on the ranking. I started the thread to get some more info /perspective about the program so would be glad if we stick to that only.
 
I graduated from the Oxford MFE in 2010, and I'll be able to provide you with first-hand information about the program.

First off, I want to congratulate you on getting accepted. I know, even after I graduated, they were making the admission standards even stricter for the ensuing years, so it's no easy feat to get admitted.

I do not believe that the current economic situation should affect your decision. When my classmates and I graduated in 2010, the job market was quite bad as well; however, still upwards of 20% of the class had offers well before graduation from McKinsey/Bain/BCG, Goldman, and top hedge funds. The recruiting -- and acknowledgement of Oxford's reputation around the world -- is really unparalleled. Banks and hedge funds are still hiring, and I can assure you, from my experience, that with the education, connections, and prestige you get from attending Oxford, you will be the first candidates that companies look to hire.

In a similar light, the career services at Oxford is second to none. They provide you with the most comprehensive, individualized service possible (with career counselors that continue to work in the various fields that they are advising you on), and they will all but ensure that you get a job. I can't recall one person from the 2010 class -- even those with no prior experience/internships in the field -- that did not get the job that they wanted.

As for the colleges in the US that you're considering, I would love to talk with you more about the various colleges you have applied to. I'm from the US, and I was accepted to the one other program I applied to. Since I don't know which other programs you were accepted to I can't comment on how they compare to Oxford, but if you want to send me a personal message I could give you my contact information and we could talk more about the comparison. I know most of my classmates were accepted to LSE and other schools in the US, so I can offer you a lot of advice about other programs. Off hand, I can't think of a comparable program in the US that has the same prestige, and offers the same combination of extremely technical courses along with more qualitative courses (which are particularly interesting and useful for someone coming from a non-finance/econ background). I would be interested to hear which programs you were considering in the US, and I could hopefully give you some guidance.

Here's a ranking from the Financial Times of Finance masters programs around the world:
http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/masters-in-finance-pre-experience-2011

As you can see, the MFE has a very good reputation around the world (4th overall in the world, and the 2nd highest post-graduation salary).

I hope that answered some of your questions, but I'm sure you have many more as I did when I was in your spot. If you'd like, you can send me a personal message on here, and I will provide you with my contact information so that we can discuss any additional questions you may have. In the interim, enjoy the difficult but exciting decisions ahead of you :)

Am I reading this right? You say 20% of your class got offers, mainly from management consultancies, and use that fact to justify the integrity of the Oxford MFE?

My advice: save yourself a pretty penny and do MASt Maths at Cambridge.
 
20% had offers at the top firms I mentioned. I don't recall anyone in the course that was looking for a finance job that did not get the one they wanted.

And no, the jobs were not MAINLY management consultancy; I would say mainly Goldman and top hedge funds in London.
 
You mention 20% had offers from [insert names here] prior to graduation. What % had offers in all if you had to judge?
 
If I could estimate, I would say 90% or so had offers prior to -- many well prior to -- graduation. Within 3 months of graduation, easily 95%+. There was really no struggle amongst any classmates in securing a job that they wanted. All had numerous interviews extending throughout the year with banks, hedge funds, and prop trading firms.
 
And, I should mention, the reason for a handful not securing offers prior to, or immediately following, graduation was generally because of the extreme rigor of the course; the course timeline tries to allow time for interviews in the first term, but the second and third terms become very time-consuming. Those that were very serious about the coursework, and less concerned with the immediacy of their job situation, put off the job search for some time.
 
Hi everyone. I am doing chartered accountancy from India. I am planning to drop this course and instead do MFE at oxford or Mf at HEC paris. Is this advisable? I want to pursue a career in finance or marketing...and not in auditing or taxation, which is offered in CA...What should I do?? I even wish to do an MBA after MFE...Please advice..
 
If you want a career in marketing why even bother thinking about MFE... Apply directly for the MBA programs and choose finance or marketing...
 
You are quite confused and I would advise you to do some soul searching... How will marketing fit into your career after an MFE ? In that case your priority 2 will be useless... Apply to MFE the day you think your only priority is finance and not only finance but say a particular field inside finance...
 
sir can you answer my main question?? should i leave CA and do MFE assuming that i am not interested in marketing??
 
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