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Quantnet rank British programs?

Joined
7/17/11
Messages
76
Points
28
Question for Andy: do you think quantnet will ever rank the British financial math programs?

There are a wide variety and many of the top schools offer the degree so perhaps we can see how they rate next to the American programs sometime.
 
We have been asked about ranking European programs as well Asian programs. Without going into details, I have some idea on what needs to be done for that to happen.
so Andy you mean you can't provide any insight at the moment about what might be the top 5 programs in UK for example?
 
I personally think that the UK programs are not transparent. Even LSE does not give acceptance rate to their Finance program. It does however give admission rate which people mistakenly take as acceptance rate and feel good about.
 
so Andy you mean you can't provide any insight at the moment about what might be the top 5 programs in UK for example?
Just consider LSE, Imperial, Oxford, Warwick, Cambridge. Quite sure those would turn out to be the top 5 ;) I have looked at UK programs 1 year ago so I believe my info is more or less up to date. Of course this is only my personal view after researching the programs I cannot provide you with any data or whatever. Still pretty sure those are top 5;)
 
Although I have reservations about the LSE, I don't have an issue about their acceptance rate and I fail to see why you you sh0uld either. If they accepted more people w9uld it be a worse course, could they "improve" it by randomly rejecting people ?

Also I'd like to ask what quant course you are thinking of at Cambridge ?
 
I personally think that the UK programs are not transparent. Even LSE does not give acceptance rate to their Finance program. It does however give admission rate which people mistakenly take as acceptance rate and feel good about.
Precisely my issue, they don't put anything up and only give you the minimum requirements for entry. I wonder if anyone has data on the programs and I don't think I could really form an unbiased opinion without this info. I don't know if the British schools just take for granted that everyone knows how the universities there are ranked against each other, but outside of oxbridge and LSE I really have no clue.

I don't think people really break down the universities of England down in terms of ranking individual graduate degrees. I guess the top is always the top? Do they even feel a need to disclose things like class placements or are they so full of prestige that you should be so lucky if you are chosen to pay the 30k pound tuition rate?
 
Precisely my issue, they don't put anything up and only give you the minimum requirements for entry. I wonder if anyone has data on the programs and I don't think I could really form an unbiased opinion without this info. I don't know if the British schools just take for granted that everyone knows how the universities there are ranked against each other, but outside of oxbridge and LSE I really have no clue.

I don't think people really break down the universities of England down in terms of ranking individual graduate degrees. I guess the top is always the top? Do they even feel a need to disclose things like class placements or are they so full of prestige that you should be so lucky if you are chosen to pay the 30k pound tuition rate?

i thought of applying to UK schools but because of lack of data i gave up on them. Rutgers MFE is also in the same boat. They dont give acceptance rate and for me personally it is very important indicator of school quality and i think Andy Nguyen thinks the same thereby 10 percent weight to it in his ranking system.
 
Although I have reservations about the LSE, I don't have an issue about their acceptance rate and I fail to see why you you sh0uld either. If they accepted more people w9uld it be a worse course, could they "improve" it by randomly rejecting people ?

Also I'd like to ask what quant course you are thinking of at Cambridge ?
Their MPhil Finance program has some financial engineering specialization/track:
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/mphil_finance/programme/engineering/index.html
It does not seem as quantitative as some other programs though.
 
adt, you are correct which is why I asked why you were thinking of Cambridge. The JBS program is not a quant course ) I hear tell they may do a quant MFE at some point but I can't find out when.

Apparently people take my opinions seriously enough that I'm not allowed to endorse MFEs, but the best MFE in Europe is the Part III of the Maths Tripos, (MMast) at Cambridge which is also the cheapest decent MFE on the planet, but...
a) it's not an MFE,
b) it's in Britain not Europe, and
c) with all due respect you will find the competition to get on it really quite tough

Also be aware that "England" and Britain are not synonymous, Scotland has some decent universities.

As for "transparency", let's be clear that there is very little of it from any MFE provider, they all flatly refuse to publish actual numbers that actually mean anything. As above I find the acceptance rate pretty much the most bogus metric I can think of for judging a course.

If there is a difference between UK MFEs and US ones is that I believe the UK ones aren't hiding, they simply don't have the numbers and don't care to put in the effort to get them. You can see that as better or worse. At least two well known UK programs don't track failed applications at all. Also unlike the US, most countries have some sort of data privacy law and it would be really quite tough to give pay numbers without starting an expensive nightmare of compliance issues.

Only if a non-American watches too much US TV does he really get joke references to the malicious unhelpfulness of the DMV.

No other country has that issue so the most trollish bloody minded and frankly awful people to have in your employ are to be found in British university administration.

To quote the head of alumni relations from my old school "I don't really like talking to people".
That's the head of a team of >4, that means there are >= 4 people that the school thinks are even less good at alumni relations.
 
Which universities in Scotland would you suggest, for a good balance quality-price-prospects Master in Quantitative Finance?
Thanks
 
Let's be clear. To give yourself the best chance at getting a job in finance you should go to Oxford or Cambridge. Everything else is second best, by a long shot. Doing MPhil finance at Judge is better than doing MSc in quantitative finance at St Andrews or Edinburgh.
 
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