<p>What are the best undergrad schools for finance? Would greatly appreciate it if someone could post some of the rankings.</p>
<ol>
<li>Wharton</li>
<li>Ross</li>
<li>Stern</li>
<li>Haas</li>
<li>McIntire</li>
</ol>
<p>Continuing down the list (and clarifying which universities these schools of business are at):</p>
<ol>
<li>Wharton (Univ of Penn)</li>
<li>Stern (NYU)--actually is ranked ahead of Ross for finance--but lower for business in general</li>
<li>Ross (Michigan)</li>
<li>Haas (UC Berkeley)</li>
<li><p>McIntire (Univ of Virginia)</p></li>
<li><p>Sloan (MIT)</p></li>
<li><p>Kelley (Indiana)</p></li>
<li><p>Kenan-Flagler (UNC)</p></li>
<li><p>Marshall (USC)</p></li>
<li><p>Goizueta (Emory)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Can you post the rest up to maybe 15? Thanks</p>
<p>I'm doing this all from memory--so I can't guarantee the exact order as listed in USNW. Also, keep in mind that Business Week has a different order than USNW.</p>
<p>But my best guess is that these would be the next 8.</p>
<ol>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Villanova</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Georgetown</li>
<li>Wake Forest</li>
<li>Boston College</li>
</ol>
<p>Also, I should clarify--this is for undergraduate programs. For graduate programs you would have to include Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA and Duke</p>
<p>There are various types of programs in finance. If you are interested in the normal finance program, what has been posted above is probably accurate. However, if you are interested in financial planning concentration or minor in undergraduate school or even for graduate school, you should consider:</p>
<ol>
<li>Texas Tech</li>
<li>Bentley College
3.Towson University ( in Maryland)</li>
<li>Maybe UCSD ( not sure if the offer undergrad courses in this)</li>
</ol>
<p>Kelley is pretty high. I'm suprised.</p>
<p>irishblues : kelley's is pretty reputable for its biz sch man!</p>
<p>taxguy,</p>
<p>I agree with your assessment on the first three schools, but UCSD's financial planning program is in the grad school only.</p>
<p>I quite familiar with the Bentley and Towson programs--my son applied to Bentley and we toured the school during their open house (it ended up being his #2 choice), and my wife graduated from Towson's business program. </p>
<p>Texas Tech is not a program people think of quickly, but they have made a real specialization out of financial planning.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. Texas Tech
2. Bentley College
3.Towson University ( in Maryland)
4. Maybe UCSD ( not sure if the offer undergrad courses in this)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's pretty sad how I have never heard of any these universities, except UCSD. Do employers respect UCSD's grad finance program though?</p>
<p>As taxguy indicated, corporate finance and financial planning are completely different fields. I would say accounting is better preparation than finance for the latter. There really is no need for a specialized financial planning concentration, as there really is no core curriculum for a CFP certification.</p>
<p>redhare317, actually there are six specific courses that are required for the CFP exam. Towson does offer those six. Schools like Bentley and Texes Tech have even more offerings in addition to the required six courses.</p>
<p>Aquamarine, Bentley started out as a specialized school for training in both finance and accounting. They, therefore, have very strong programs in both areas. The fact that you never heard of them doesn't negate the quality of their offerings. Don't discount them in those two subjects. They also have a phenominal trading room with a ticker tape that rivals that of any stock brokerage office with lots of the top software for stock analysis.. It is quite an operation, and I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in finance check out this school.</p>
<p>Well, its no official ranking but i love and respect Jim Cramer and he says if he was going to school for finance he would go to Boston College:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/departments/finance/%5B/url%5D">http://www.bc.edu/schools/csom/departments/finance/</a>
(scroll to bottom of page and click link for short video)</p>
<p>That guy has made tens of millions in the finance sector and become a celebrity from it so his opinion must be worth something.</p>
<p>(fyi, yes im biased and heading to bc finance next year)</p>
<p>Wharton, hellz yeah</p>
<p>And dear god don't go to Texas Tech</p>
<p>If you're interested in investment management, here are the CFA Institute Program Partners:</p>
<p>These are schools that teach at least 70% of the CFA exam material as part of the curriculum. A lot of these schools are graduate (MS in finance or MBA) and international (mostly Europe). However, there are some undergraduate finance program partners in the U.S. as well:</p>
<p>Marquette University
University of Richmond
Virginia Tech
MSU
University of Missouri-Columbia</p>
<p>I should note that there is a difference between the CFA and CFP. CFP is more for personal financial planning.CFA are for analyst positions. It is not as entrepreneural as the CFP. This is what makes finance so interesting. There are a lot of options.</p>
<p>What about Carnegie Mellon? Do you guys think their finance program is up there?</p>
<p>Northwestern is starting an undergraduate financial economics certificate through Kellogg this year. There's a set of pretty rigorous prerequisites, suggesting the program is highly quantitative.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is known mostly for their quantitative research program. CMU also has a stellar econometrics program. These guys are know (along with NYU) as the mathematical finance experts.</p>
<p>I would like to note that some programs that are rated higher than others are not necessarily the best for getting a job in the more competitive fields of finance (or business in general). For example, Princeton might not be in the rankings because they don't have an undergraduate finance program; that does not mean that they do not have good job placement. In general job placement is just as important if not more important than school ranking (depending on what you want from business). As we all know getting into the door at certain firms requires connections and some schools have those connections, others do not. Prestige and alumni networks also play a role. This isn’t to suggest that you can’t advance coming from a school that isn’t laced with connections. It only suggests that some colleges provide more opportunities earlier in your career than others.</p>