UK vs US for an international student

[entropy]

I have been accepted into NYU Tandon MFE and City St. George's, University of London MSc Quantitative Finance (also waiting for UCL Computational Finance).

I am slightly concerned about the overall cost of attending NYU. I understand that there are ways to earn while studying (as a TA or RA) which can at least help offset the living costs. But regardless of that, NYU seems quite expensive to me. I want to understand the ground reality of the current job market situation after graduation and any insights on how the current/potential policy changes by the US government may affect the difficulty of securing jobs (I also understand that the job market is already quite tough to break into for international students).

The offer from City, University of London seems lucrative to me due to its low cost (tuition fee = £33,100 ≈ $43000) compared to NYU. However, after searching as much as I could on LinkedIn, I was only able to find a few international students working in the UK after graduating and even they aren't responding to my connection requests/messages. This has left me with skepticism for the current job market situation in the UK (which I had heard isn't doing too well right now due to a slight slowdown). I didn't apply at Imperial as I don't feel they will accept a student with an engineering background for their MSc in Finance and Mathematics.

I would truly appreciate any insights from any current students or people with any information about the recent graduates from either universities or any general information or advice.

Cheers!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Hi @entropy
Congrats on getting these 2 programs and thank you for sharing it on the Tracker. Appreciate it.
Have you applied to other programs as well. I imagine you did but didn't get in. If so, would be really great if you can share them. You can choose to make it anonymously. I see you have UCL as well. The more data, the better we can advise our members.

The City St. George's, University of London MSc Quantitative Finance is part of their quant cluster. It's going through some change with a new director Laura Ballota who is making the programs much more actively than previous admin. They are consolidating their quant masters into this Quantitative Finance track.
It's under the Bayes Business School so you won't have the rigorous math training like you would from Imperial or Oxford (under math dept). Also, the job market in the UK is such that it's extremely hard to get quant jobs unless you are from the top 5 programs or so.
I'm having a hardtime finding graduates for a review as well. Without graduate reviews, we are just guessing from the sideline. In general, I would not advise doing a program until you have full picture and data.Otherwise, it will be a very expensive mistake.

NYU Tandon is in a very crowded market but at least it's in NYC and you know what to expect. We have plenty of alumni or current students here that you can learn from. @markbogorad is a very active member here and has generously contributed with his knowledge and insights.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Maybe @tronaitor can please share some insights?

 

[entropy]

@Andy Nguyen sir I really appreciate your reply!
I applied to other programs and I will surely add them to the tracker (including the rejects)

You are right about not joining a program that does not have enough reviews.

As far as NYU is concerned, I feel that the opportunities are tremendous (even though its expensive). Looking at the alumni (especially Indian students) has given me a sense of assurance that I’ll find my way to the role I aspire to work in.

I did come across @markbogorad’s profile and I am in fact using some of his resources to prepare for my master’s degree in advance.

I am also considering applying to Mathematics courses in the UK (only LSE and Imperial). Some of them allow engineering graduates to apply so I think its worth a shot.

Also I would like to thank you for maintaining this community. It has been a great and reliable resource for the past few months.

Cheers!

 

[markbogorad]

Hey @entropy ,

I actually did my undergrad in finance at Bayes, so I might be able to offer a helpful comparison between your options.

While I wasn’t that focused on quant roles back then, I can say Bayes generally has a good academic environment. I was well-supported in terms of teaching quality. They made an effort to ensure we understood the foundational math, even for non-quant finance students. I took a class with Prof. Ballota in my 1st year and she’s an excellent professor. Bayes is best known for their shipping and energy finance MSc programs, so if you're looking to dive into those sectors as a quant, it can be a great move.

That said, career support was a bit of a weak point. While I had a positive academic experience, the school's brand and career services didn’t move the needle much when it came to job hunting, especially for competitive or quant-oriented roles. If the Quant programs have dedicated career support separate from the general services, that would definitely make a difference. But if not, it could be a steeper climb to land a role—especially if you’re targeting the UK job market, which, as you mentioned (and my classmates would agree), is pretty slow at the moment.

I think your opportunities will be better overall at NYU as well. Very roughly speaking, the Tandon program is 2x the Bayes program in both tuition and average salary. Over the long run (but depending on personal factors like loan rates, career goals, etc.), it should come out to be the better investment under most cases simply because you're earning more, sooner. I'm thinking of this in simulation context (shoutout to Prof. Shimko at NYU), but you can definitely value these two choices under different personal factors and assume some kind of stochastic processes for how you see your career playing out over X years. Would be a fun and informative exercise, but the difference should be wide enough for you to make a mental estimate. NYU qualifies for the HPI visa in the UK as well, so you can apply there for full time as well (additional real optionality).

Given how rare it is for people to do multiple quant master’s programs, I’d say if you only have one shot at it, it’s worth going all in on the one that gives you the strongest edge.

Feel free to reach out if you have more questions about Tandon

 

[tronaitor]

Hey @entropy, as @Andy Nguyen mentioned, I am currently doing my MSc in Bayes, send me a dm and I will be happy to answer anything you need