<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>So I have got into four MS finance programs... Tulane, University Florida, Villanova, Rochester</p>
<p>I wanted to know if the MS finance will be a degree worth seeking to work as an analyst in the northeast when the economy recovers. Also, what would be your rankings of the above programs. What are your opinions of the degree and the "prestige" of the above schools.</p>
<p>Thanks guys</p>
<p>I think so…</p>
<p><a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington;
<p>“The Gator Finance Professionals Network
In 2007, the MSF program and its friends, along with
UF Foundation members, began assembling a list of
UF alumni working in investment banking, buy side
asset management, corporate finance (raising capital
and arranging deals), sales and trading, venture capital,
hedge funds and asset management. In June 2008, the
first Gator Finance Professionals Network reception
was held in New York City with over seventy Wall St.
Gators in attendance. An update
was given on the Hough Masters
in Finance Program and the
electronic network, Gatorfin.com,
was introduced. Gatorfin.com is
a password protected, invitation
only, website for members to find
one another, ask questions, share
ideas and mentor others.”</p>
<p>I think the prestige of the 4 programs are abut equal. Have you looked at Vanderbilt (if its not too late). I would place vandy SLIGHTLY above your schools, and just below the elites: Berkeley, Princeton, etc!</p>
<p>Rochester is considerably better.</p>
<p>Rochester MS Finance is better, based on…</p>
<p>Actually, it looks to me that Florida might actually be better connected on Wall Street than Rochester. The placements are pretty impressive:</p>
<p>[MS</a> Finance - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - Warrington College of Business Administration](<a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington)
[MS</a> Finance - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - Warrington College of Business Administration](<a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington)</p>
<h2>[MS</a> Finance - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - Warrington College of Business Administration](<a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington)</h2>
<p>This doesn’t surprise me, as the students are more impressive in terms of GMAT and academic achievement than Rochester’s students. The average GMAT of Florida’s most recent MS Finance Class is 709, rivaling the average score of Harvard’s MBA program.!!!</p>
<p><a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington;
<p>[MS</a> Finance - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - Warrington College of Business Administration](<a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington)</p>
<hr>
<p>I can’t find the percentage offered jobs at graduation, but It HAS to be better than Rochester’s 58%.</p>
<p>[Class</a> of 2009 Graduate Employment Summary* : Simon Graduate School of Business](<a href=“http://www.simon.rochester.edu/why-choose-simon/career-planning/employment-statistics/index.aspx]Class”>http://www.simon.rochester.edu/why-choose-simon/career-planning/employment-statistics/index.aspx)</p>
<p>Florida is up and coming, and if you want to work on Wall Street or in a “sexy” finance position, but didn’t make it into a Financial Engineering program like Princeton, Berkeley and the like, then Florida should be high on your list. Within the past 3 years, UF has received (separately), a 35million dollar gift and a 15 million dollar gift…both to be used to bolster the business graduate programs only ie- not for the undergraduate business school.</p>
<p>Note: I’m not comparing UF to the top shelf financial engineering programs, clearly, those are better. Most people in finance could neither make the admissions cut, nor could they survive in the theory-rich mathematical environment of these programs. What I am saying is that there are some strong MS finance programs, too and UF is among them. </p>
<p>I’ve made my case for UF being at least as good as, or better than Rochester…</p>
<p>Yeah, I think you’d be fine coming out of all of them and trying to work in the North East. I’d be hesitant to rank them but might put either Rochester or Tulane 1st, then Villanova, then Florida. But again, they’ll all be fine. Vandy is certainly great too. I received my MFin from Tulane. TU opened a ton of doors for me. Here’s some about the school’s finance department:</p>
<p>Energy Trading Video from CNBC:
[Video</a> - CNBC.com](<a href=“http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=615836031&play=1]Video”>http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=615836031&play=1)</p>
<p>Tulane’s Finance Dept. ranked in Top 10 in World
[Tulane</a> University - Financial Times Names Tulane University Among World’s Top 10 Schools for Finance](<a href=“http://tulane.edu/news/releases/012808.cfm]Tulane”>http://tulane.edu/news/releases/012808.cfm)</p>
<p>Tulane’s Equity Research Program
[Freeman</a> School @ Tulane](<a href=“http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/burkenroad/whatis.php]Freeman”>About Burkenroad Reports - Freeman School | Tulane)</p>
<p>Tulane’s Darwin Fenner Program
[Freeman</a> School @ Tulane](<a href=“http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/fenner/]Freeman”>http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/fenner/)</p>
<p>^^^^^
“Rochester or Tulane 1st, then Villanova, then Florida”</p>
<p>Based on your opinion, or based on actual data? Florida has, by a good clip, the best students with an average 709 GMAT score and their placement is very impressive. All shown with the links I provided above.</p>
<p>Why would you rank UF last?</p>
<p>Thanks guys for the replies.</p>
<p>I think I am deciding on going to Villanova. Rochester’s program is considerably longer. Florida might have a high gmat but the curriculum is not as focused. Also, I spoke to Florida adcom and she stated that almost all her students are UF undergrads. Tulane is a little too far south and I think their program is more geared towards Energy trading/ management. Also, I want to work in New York and Villanova has considerable alumni/connections.</p>
<p>As for vandy…I just didn’t apply. I want to live near a city and also might not have made the cut.</p>
<p>I am kind of scared that no one mentioned anything about Villanova…is it that mediocore. Their student profile is not updated from years past.</p>
<p>Well, in 2008 Rochester and Tulane WERE ranked in the Top 10 worldwide by Financial times so it’s safe to say it’s not just MY opinion. I also stressed that it’s hard to ‘rank’ such a varied degree and all would be fine. Frankly all rankings of this sort, including the undergrad US News ranking, are subjective. PA component scores are the perfect example of that. [FT.com</a> / UK - A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: THE TOP TEN SCHOOLS IN SELECTED CATEGORIES](<a href=“A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: THE TOP TEN SCHOOLS IN SELECTED CATEGORIES”>A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: THE TOP TEN SCHOOLS IN SELECTED CATEGORIES) </p>
<p>FT ranked the best Finance departments worldwide and had Rochester at #3 while Tulane rounded out the Top 10. U of Fla was ranked 4th in Marketing worldwide. Since the MFin is the degree in question, I think an international publication’s Finance dept ranking carries some weight. Having Louisiana-based Tulane, with only ~11,000 total students, so highly ranked by a publication in Great Britain shows the strength of an education in Finance from there. Florida, while still a great school, and hopefully with yet another SEC championship in about 10 minutes, is not known specifically for the strength of its Finance department. Rochester and Tulane are known specifically for Finance, as U Chicago is for Economics. </p>
<p>Other notes:
-Vandy is in Nashville with 1.6 million people.
-Villanova is fine but its finance department doesn’t stand out among it’s other departments. So, you could look at it in that it may be a more ‘balanced’ school discipline-wise. As an example, I know Tulane has much more emphasis placed on Finance and then Entrepreneurial study. Tulane is ranked 4th in that by another publication. [Top</a> 25 Graduate Entrepreneurial Colleges for 2009 - Entrepreneur.com](<a href=“Top colleges and business schools for entrepreneurs.”>Top colleges and business schools for entrepreneurs.)<br>
-Tulane has more Energy Finance OPTIONS than pretty much another other school but you don’t have to take any energy classes at all. They are all electives. It just helps set the school apart in the energy rich region of the country so they advertise that fact.</p>
<p>As another note, I worked for Morgan Stanley before going back to get my Masters and now work for a private fund. Villanova is well respected and you shouldn’t have to worry about it if that’s where you choose to go. Best of luck.</p>
<p>As a Tim Tebow fan…this game was painful to watch. Thanks again Benetode for the great info. Since you said you have been in the industry…can the MFIN help me breakthrough to a smaller investment company as an entry level analyst??? I dont mean a merryl or GS or Citi or any of the big firms. There is so many smaller investment firms and I would love to break through into one of them. Considering the economic climate will will be better in June of 11 is this a realistic goal?</p>
<p>I am going to choose between Tulane or Villanova.</p>
<p>Tomlawsky;</p>
<p>The plain fact is that Simon (Rochester) is a legitimate school for finance hiring. Nobody in Financial centers takes Florida seriously, but Rochester is considered a fringe school and to an extent is “in the club”. </p>
<p>Your extremely vague link is almost completely worthless as all it does is name a few people from each year that got analyst jobs at a bank.</p>
<p>[MS</a> Finance - Finance, Insurance & Real Estate - Warrington College of Business Administration](<a href=“Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington”>Finance, Insurance and Real Estate Department | UF Warrington)</p>
<p>The only insight I get from this link is that only 12 students positions were not too embarrassing to list in 2009.</p>
<p>The Simon numbers you are quoting are misleading in that they are for graduate students in general and thus have little bearing on this conversation. Still, within 3 months of graduation > 4/5 Simon students were employed in 2009 (a horrible year for recruiting), and most of them were making considerably more money than graduates of UF’s business school.</p>
<p>Also, there are only 12 students that had been admitted by the time your 709 number was posted. 12 is too small a number to be considered statistically meaningful with any high level of confidence. The mean GMAT for the program for the classes of 2008-2010 however is 665 - at 84 total students, this is a much more representative number.</p>
<p>Clearly you are from Florida and have some sort of bias.</p>
<p>MSFIN, </p>
<p>I would recommend Rochester’s business school over Nova’s by a fair margin. That said, Villanova is a perfectly decent school if you are not as prestige obsessed as many in the Finance industry. But there will be a difference in recruiting.</p>
<p>Storch, </p>
<p>Yes Rochester is probably the highest regarded of the group but their program is considerably longer…I would hope to crank it out in a 1 year time frame because of cost and time. What is your opinion on Tulane vs Villanova…with the same aspirations post grad.</p>
<p>I think the MFin will definitely help you get your foot in the door at boutique firms. They are much less interested in whether or not you went to one of a handful schools in my experience. My fund doesn’t care where you went as long as you did well and took the requisite coursework and have some intern or other relevant experience. I don’t mean to sound like they don’t care at all, but going to a school like Villanova or Tulane is certainly fine.</p>
<p>Both Nova and Tulane are fine schools, I’d lead toward Villanova as is is a slightly better school in a much better recruiting location.</p>
<p>Storch:
I understand that you don’t want to believe that Florida is up and coming, but the fact is that it is. Let me lend some perspective here. Here is a quote from you:</p>
<p>“The only insight I get from this link is that only 12 students positions were not too embarrassing to list in 2009.”</p>
<p>You should do some research before you throw aspersions around due to not wanting to accept fact. UF is a SMALL program and in 2009, there were only 20 graduates. Having 60% of the placements listed as EXCELLENT placements is pretty darned good.:</p>
<p>Class 2008 2009 2010* 2011*
Graduates 34 20 30 12
Average GMAT 663 662 668 709
GMAT 700+ 9 6 10 9</p>
<p>So, for a comparison to Simon:</p>
<p>UF- placed 60% of it’s 2008 graduatres in VERY respected jobs in finance upon graduation.</p>
<p>Simon- Placed 56% of its class in jobs at graduation.</p>
<p>Where is the advantage here?</p>
<p>Also, for the class of 2011, UF’s average GMAT is a full 50 points higher than Rochester (Simon’s). 9 out of 12 students, a full 75% scored a 700+ GMAT. On a percentage over 700 basis and average GMAT score basis, this is comparable to Harvard’s business school. No, I’m not saying UF = Harvard, but what I am saying is that UF MS Finance students are AT LEAST as academically gifted as Simon’s students.</p>
<p>University of Florida MS-Finance statistics:
Class 2008 2009 2010* 2011*
Avg GMAT 663 662 668 709
GMAT 700+ 9 6 10 9</p>
<p>UF also holds 90 point GMAT advantage over Villanova:
Villanova MS Finance Stats:
* Average age of MSF students: 22 years
* Average GPA: 3.5
* Average GMAT: 620
* Average work experience: 1 year</p>
<p>If you really think that 90 points is insignificant, then I really must say that you don’t know much about the GMAT. It is HUGE, in SAT Terms, that would be ~equivalent to a 200-250 point (out of 1600) or 300-350 points (out of 2400) difference. </p>
<hr>
<p>Given the current environment with more and more firms using GMAT scores to narrow the list of job candidate, this puts Florida in a great position to place candidate above “fringe” schools such as Rochester:</p>
<p><a href=“Information about the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test)”>Information about the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test);
<p>"According to a recent article in Business Week titled: “GMAT: The MBA Job Seeker’s Best Friend” – it appears that many schools are encouraging students to take the GMAT time and time again. A very eye-opening article by Anne VanderMey, it seems the GMAT is not only important for MBA admittance, but also for job recruiting after graduation.</p>
<p>According to VanderMey, with companies being flooded with resumes due to the recent economic recession, it appears recruiters are using GMAT scores to weed out applicants. This is unusual, as never before has the GMAT taken on such added weight, but it appears for some companies, your score could very well be the factor that gets you an actual interview.</p>
<p>Due to this, professors and career services directors are encouraging students to retake the GMAT time and time again thanks to the tough recruiting climate. VanderMey profiles several schools that are taking this advice seriously and putting it into practice:</p>
<pre><code>* University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business: Stacey Rudnick, director of MBA services is advising recent admits with mediocre GMAT scores to consider retaking the test if they think they can score higher.
<p>As suspected, a person’s quantitative GMAT score does seem to be linked to salary while some GMAT scores appear to be linked to managerial status. However, VanderMey informs us that not every company considers GMAT scores to be important when considering new hires. At the University of Connecticut’s School of Business, for example, the executive director was never even asked for GMAT scores from its student body.</p>
<p>It appears, however, that a high GMAT score simply helps you get your foot in the door for the actual interview. A high score, in general, won’t get you the job of your dreams, but it will get you into speaking with someone face-to-face. VanderMey quotes Mareza Larizadeh, the founder of ********, a career networking site popular with MBA students: “The GMAT isn’t going to get you in. But it’s something that can prevent you from getting in the door.”</p>
<p>While it seems the GMAT is becoming important for more than just MBA admittance, VanderMey concludes (along with the above schools) that ultimately, the personal elements of the job search – interviews and references, primarily, will always be more important than test scores."</p>
<p>What sort of positions would be available to someone who completed a MSFin at one of these schools?</p>
<p>I think Florida is probably the best option here. I’m sure the other schools are good too but UF’s graduate business admissions standards are close to that of the Ivies.</p>