2024 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

We are pleased to announce the publication of the QuantNet 2024 Rankings of Financial Engineering programs.
The full 2024 QuantNet MFE ranking will be released here
For comparison, the 2023 QuantNet MFE ranking is here.

New in 2024 QuantNet MFE ranking

• New programs added: UC San Diego (Master in Finance)
• Programs need a minimum of 15 students in their Fall 2023 incoming cohort and 10 students in their latest graduating class to be ranked.
• Added more historical data on ranking, admission, employment. Contributors @MikeLawrence @marcusaurelius. This is an ongoing update with more to come.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

How to interpret the employment rate numbers.
Take this program for example, of all graduates seeking FT jobs, 76% of them reported getting a FT job at graduation. At 3 months post graduation, that rate increases to 88%.
55% of those seeking FT jobs reported having a FT job in the US and 33% having a FT job oversea.

 

[yannten]

Hi everyone, as the 2024 official QuantNet ranking for MFEs will be out in just about 16 hours, I was wondering if anyone would like to share their predictions (along with some quick arguments) ?

I’m very impatient to discover this ranking as I am a candidate for entering one of these programs for fall 2024.

Thank you to everyone that participates !

 

[Dickson]

Me too!

 

[Lukee]

I'm very curious to see if there will be new programs ranked like Yale Asset Management and Columbia Financial Economics

 

[zephyrus]

Hi everyone, as the 2024 official QuantNet ranking for MFEs will be out in just about 16 hours, I was wondering if anyone would like to share their predictions (along with some quick arguments) ?

I’m very impatient to discover this ranking as I am a candidate for entering one of these programs for fall 2024.

Thank you to everyone that participates !

I think top 3 would largely be the same: Baruch, Princeton, Berkeley. The next three, CMU, Columbia, MIT might interchange places among themselves.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Due to a very compressed timeline this year, we are not able to display as much info as we would like during launch. It's actually quite a lot of data processing.
Hopefully over the next few days, we will update the ranking layout incrementally to provide useful info for prospective students.
For example, how the employment data from a program has changed over the past 5 years.
Eventually, you would be able to select any program from the rankings and compare A to B from salary, cost, placement rate at graduation, acceptance rate, etc.

 

[MikeLawrence]

I don't expect the rankings to change much.

Princeton may take the top spot, but the top three from 2023 are a league ahead of the rest and probably won't move out of that range

4-7a in the 2023 rankings could all move around

I'd like to see UChicago and NCSU make large jumps this year, their salary outcomes have been better than the NYU/Columbia FE programs and those others directly above them, and they are more cost efficient (UChicago often gives hefty scholarships not reflected in the stated price tag used in the rankings).

 

[MikeLawrence]

Sneakpeak:

If you go to the 2023 rankings, on the top (by the toolbar, under the 'home' 'forums' bit) you can find the 2024 rankings methodology.

The methodology stayed the same, but the number of programs surveyed is listed. So we know that only 25 programs were surveyed this year, down from 33 last year. Worth noting is that only 29 programs were included in the rankings last year, nine of whom were 'Not Ranked' (*NR).

This is honestly still a larger list than I thought might be coming when Andy told us he has slimed it down.
Given that many of the *NR programs were probably among those not surveyed, I'm not sure this years list (of those actually ranked) will be a whole lot shorter. But the dead space at the end with programs no one really wanted to apply to is probably gone.

 

[yannten]

they are more cost efficient (UChicago often gives hefty scholarships not reflected in the stated price tag used in the rankings

That is a very good point. I believe an information that would be interesting is the average final cost paid per student instead of only the tuition (that can be found online)

 

[MikeLawrence]

That is a very good point. I believe an information that would be interesting is the average final cost paid per student instead of only the tuition (that can be found online)

Not feasible though, you'd need to get a response from EVERY incoming student each year to avoid assuming they pay full price.

Known scholarships will spread a programs benefits by word of mouth, and by those who include the information on the tracker when they update their applications.

 

[yannten]

Not feasible though, you'd need to get a response from EVERY incoming student each year to avoid assuming they pay full price.

Known scholarships will spread a programs benefits by word of mouth, and by those who include the information on the tracker when they update their applications.

Can’t that information be provided by the office of admissions of the programs by any chance ? Just like it is possible to find online the average cost after aid for pretty much every college (and I would doubt that they wait to have a response from every student)

 

[zephyrus]

Wow, did not expect some of the changes. MIT fell hard.

 

[yannten]

Wow, did not expect some of the changes. MIT fell hard.

And UChicago improved a lot, from 12 to 6 ! Other notable changes include the improvement of Columbia MFE from 9 to 5 while Columbia MathFin did the exact opposite by falling from 5 to 9. Another surprise to me is that CMU took the 3rd place from Berkeley. What do you guys think about this new ranking ? Thank you @Andy Nguyen for your great work, it is truly helpful.

 

[zephyrus]

And UChicago improved a lot, from 12 to 6 ! Other notable changes include the improvement of Columbia MFE from 9 to 5 while Columbia MathFin did the exact opposite by falling from 5 to 9. Another surprise to me is that CMU took the 3rd place from Berkeley. What do you guys think about this new ranking ? Thank you @Andy Nguyen for your great work, it is truly helpful.

Looks like CMU and Columbia MFE improved their employment outcomes post graduation.
At graduation, CMU went from 88% to 92%, while UCB fell from 88% to 84%. Columbia MFE from 40% to 65%. I see similar trends in post 3-month rates. CMU also improved its peer score (equal to Baruch now).

 

[johnnyb]

As a current student of UChicago FinMath program, I am very pleased for the 6 spot jump and can vouch for the extremely strong and growing faculty and career service!

 

[MikeLawrence]

And UChicago improved a lot, from 12 to 6 ! Other notable changes include the improvement of Columbia MFE from 9 to 5 while Columbia MathFin did the exact opposite by falling from 5 to 9. Another surprise to me is that CMU took the 3rd place from Berkeley. What do you guys think about this new ranking ? Thank you @Andy Nguyen for your great work, it is truly helpful.

Good on UChicago. NCSU did not see a salary bump at all, and seem to have earned their place. Berkeley seem to be in the same boat, but still very strong.

MIT is now ranked closer to what I think they deserve. Still far too expensive for what you get out of it.

NYU MFin got a very nice exiting salary bump, after halving their class size. They may have upped their standards. Maybe we can expect better things out of this program in the future.

Princeton's class size grew by 48%, which is very interesting

 

[MikeLawrence]

Is it possible to know which employers were surveyed for that portion of the rankings methodology? That would be very interesting.
I'm guessing not, but might as well ask.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Looks like CMU and Columbia MFE improved their employment outcomes post graduation.
At graduation, CMU went from 88% to 92%, while UCB fell from 88% to 84%. Columbia MFE from 40% to 65%. I see similar trends in post 3-month rates. CMU also improved its peer score (equal to Baruch now).

I updated the second post with an example of how to interpret the placement numbers reported. This will hopefully give you some useful insight on where the graduates end up.

 

[mr_spectre]

I think MIT deservingly has gotten 9th place. Can't expect someone to pay 120k to get so little value.

Another surprise was GATech. I thought they would also improve along with UChicago. Everything seems great except for the peer score. Maybe there is some bias from competitors as they have improved massively on RiskNet. Still the #2 choice for me according to value for money after Baruch.