2021 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

We are pleased to announce the publication of the QuantNet 2021 Rankings of Financial Engineering programs. Released during the covid pandemic, the 2021 rankings reflect the great difficulties and challenges many programs face. The pandemic's adverse effects are most evident in the huge drop in employment rate and average salary graduates reported by many programs. Due to travel and visa restrictions, many programs also saw an increase in deferral, resulting in lower class size.
On the other hand, the programs that top the rankings this year show a remarkable ability to deliver at a high level, even in the toughest market.
If you are a prospective student looking at programs to apply to, please keep in mind the ongoing challenges and short/long term outlook of each program.
The full 2021 QuantNet MFE ranking is here. For comparison, the 2020 QuantNet MFE ranking is here.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The 2021 Quantnet ranking is up.

 

[Qui-Gon]

Why has MIT been excluded?

 

[m_s]

Why isn't Johns Hopkins ranked?

 

[Qui-Gon]

@m_s “Programs that did not provide placement data or salary information meeting a minimum threshold were denoted as NR (not ranked)”

 

[Wenhao Niu]

good

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Why has MIT been excluded?

They did not participate this year but probably will again in the future.

 

[ExSan]

Is there a school in TX with Financial Engineering (MFE) Program compatible with Baruch? preferably in Austin, does any one know?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Is there a school in TX with Financial Engineering (MFE) Program compatible with Baruch? preferably in Austin, does any one know?

MFE in Texas?

I'm doing my undergrad in Finance and Math at Tarleton State University in Texas, are there any MFE programs here in Texas? I would love to go to CMU but my wife is a hard sell.

quantnet.com

 

[pmartin]

What do you believe accounts for the Cornell cohort size decreasing from 78 last year to 27 this year? Is this because of CoVid?

 

[Michsund]

CMU let’s go!

 

[P. Carr]

Is there a school in TX with Financial Engineering (MFE) Program compatible with Baruch? preferably in Austin, does any one know?

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University (TTU) in Lubbock have just started a math finance program.
Brent Lindquest ( Dean of Art and Sciences at TTU) and Zari Rachev also started a PhD program in Mathematical Finance.
I'm moderating a zoom roundtable March 5th at 3pm EST on What it Takes to Be a Quant
For details contact the Chair, Dr Magda Toda.

 

[noether-skolem]

I'm surprised NYU MathFin dropped that far, considering NYU MFE and their neighbour Columbia MSFE and MathFin seem to be doing rather fine in terms of employment statistics.

 

[Felicity]

Take a look at Columbia MSFE, you will know NYU MSMF is punished for being honest

 

[onlineman]

MSCF lets goooooo

 

[binomial-torrent]

Tandon MFE > Courant MathFin, interesting

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I posted screenshots of 2021 ranking (left) vs 2020 ranking (right) for you guys to dig in and do your usual analysis.

 

[IntoDarkness]

lol nyu program employment rate at graduation only 20ish%??? lol
no nyu students jumping out to defend their program???

 

[Beginnner]

The employment information would be for 2019 graduating class? I am a bit confused.

 

[Onegin]

@Andy Nguyen - thank you for the side-by-side.

(edit 1: to add more context; edit 2: clarify Baruch in Math dept, dedicated career staff)

It's also been an absolutely terrible year. Consider for the administration threatened for most of the year to curtail the H1B Visa program many MFE student rely on to pursue their careers. Once the pandemic did set in, there was a concerted attempt to prevent international students from returning. The policy was challenged and overturned by a consortium of schools, with Harvard and MIT at the head.

The response of each school matters, and we should ask about it. At the same time, COVID infection rates and local responses were far from uniform across geographies and time.

- Investment in distance learning probably turned out to be a pretty important factor in each school's response to the pandemic and civil unrest.

- The program's department relationship may also have been a factor. It seems joint programs or programs affiliated with cash generating business schools would be well positioned to make adjustments.

- Dedicated career services, or at least a close faculty relationship to industry likely contributed to mitigating the decrease.

- It's also worth considering school's hiring trends; there are a lot of risk management jobs out there, more than there are strats / prop trading jobs. Risk management also did quite well. A school connected to the risk pipeline likely faired better than schools feeding into buyside quant for example.

Context is going to matter more for these results than ever before.

Change in Employment at Graduation / Department / Dedicated Career service
University of Chicago: 7%| Mathematics | FM career dev office
Baruch: +6%| Math | Dedicated staff
NYU Tandon: +1% | Engineering | FRE Career Team
CMU: -1% | Joint Business, Math, Stats, CompSci | MSCF Career team
Princeton -8%| Joint (Bendheim) | (Small class, pre-selects for placement)
UCB -12% | Business | (Linda K is a legend)
Cornell -18% | Engineering | Dedicated
ColumbiaMFE -24% | Engineering | IEOR Career Staff
NYU Math Fin -36% | Mathematics | Not clear