York,Leicester,Birkbeck,Leeds

grithe · August 5th, 2007, 9:38 pm

Could you please rank the math fin/fin math/fin eng Msc's in the following universities : York,Leicester,Birkbeck,Leeds .I am trying to make my final decision among those universities. Any kind of comment concerning the quality and structure of these programmes would be most helpful. thanks

Arbitrary · August 5th, 2007, 10:04 pm

Birkbeck first.Has much greater recognition than the other ones and is based in central London.

grithe · August 5th, 2007, 11:30 pm

but is it worth the fees it charges? its more than 7000 pounds more expensive than York's Msc in Mathematical Finance for example.

DominicConnor · August 6th, 2007, 12:47 pm

The 7K is irrelevant.I appreciate you haven't done finance yet, but do a net present value calculation for your career upon a starting salary of (say) £40K growing on some sort of S shaped curve.From that you can work out how little difference 7K makes to your lifetime cash flows. That ought to be part of the entrance test for any MFE...Not only does it show basic maths skills, but also whether in your heart you can cope with applying theoretical ideas to real money that you personally care about.

Traden4Alpha · August 6th, 2007, 1:10 pm

Yes, the 7k is irrelevant if the name recognition gets you a job a few months faster or with even a modest increment in salary (getting an extra 1000/year for a better CV will provide a decent ROI on the 7k). The only condition under which the 7k is not worth it is if you think you have a high probability of failure or a high chance of deciding to abandon your quant career.

PlasticSaber · August 7th, 2007, 5:39 am

We are talking about financial maths here. Given your destination is the financial industry, Birkbeck has a very important location advantage. On one hand, closer to the City makes networking/ interview/ internship much easier to organise. On the other hand, London based schools are much better recognised/visible by City workers ...If you are talking about maths purely, York is quite good (at least according to biased samples that I ran into when doing research).

kkna9877 · August 8th, 2007, 7:50 am

Birkbeck first, York second. If fees are an issue consider the Edinburgh / H-W MSc, its one of the longest running in the country and has a good reputation. I would say Leeds and Leicester are marginal.York's staff are good but there will be little on practicalities. Leicester focuses on computational aspects (so it is the opposite of York). Leeds has an MSc to make money but no real track record.

ephraimscu · August 8th, 2007, 12:12 pm

Yes, Birkbeck is the best. It has good reputation and perfect location.

grithe · August 24th, 2007, 1:38 am

thanks for the replies..i would also appreciate to have your thoughts on the Msc in Quantitative Finance and Financial Engineering at Manchester ,compared particularly to York and BBK

hartman · September 14th, 2007, 6:23 pm

Hi, I'll be starting the MSc at york...do you think we could get in touch ?Thanks