QuantNet Ranking Q&A

[Alex Ng]

Given its focus on quant finance programs, QuantNet's ranking is one that I have relied on for the most part (along with other rankings such as QS ranking for finance programs), but I also have questions regarding how the list is built.

My first confusion is that there seems to be inconsistencies between the programs that the rankings decide to include. If you look at the 2023 rankings from last year, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Stony Brook University were included (although they were not ranked which I assume was due to a lack of data). These programs are not included in the 2024 rankings at all. Some finance programs have also not been included over the years as well such as JHU's Master of Finance program in the Carey Business School. So why has QuantNet left some programs out and decided to include/not include them from year to year?

The second question is about the value of QuantNet's ranking. Exactly how credible is QuantNet's ranking, compared with the most well-known ones such as U.S News and QS? I know that some HR look at these rankings to screen applicants, but QuantNet has a very niche focus, so it would be great if someone can weigh in and maybe talk about where QuantNet is used other than within student groups.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Given its focus on quant finance programs, QuantNet's ranking is one that I have relied on for the most part (along with other rankings such as QS ranking for finance programs), but I also have questions regarding how the list is built.

My first confusion is that there seems to be inconsistencies between the programs that the rankings decide to include. If you look at the 2023 rankings from last year, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Stony Brook University were included (although they were not ranked which I assume was due to a lack of data). These programs are not included in the 2024 rankings at all. Some finance programs have also not been included over the years as well such as JHU's Master of Finance program in the Carey Business School. So why has QuantNet left some programs out and decided to include/not include them from year to year?

I'm going to address the first part. While there are dozens of MFE programs in the US, we only rank the top programs. The list of these programs may vary over the years because our inclusion criteria gets more stringent over years.
As you rightly pointed out, UNCC and SB (among others) are not included in the 2024 rankings while they were in the 2023. The reason is that starting from the 2024 ranking, we only rank programs that have a minimum of 10 graduates in their latest class. Programs with a declining enrollment will disappear from our rankings. They may be ranked in the future when their numbers meet our inclusion criteria again.
The only MSF programs we rank are Princeton/MIT/etc which are more quantitative than the traditional ones.
I believe the work and the amount of unique data we collect from the programs every year make the QuantNet MFE ranking the best there is.

 

[Alex Ng]

I'm going to address the first part. While there are dozens of MFE programs in the US, we only rank the top programs. The list of these programs may vary over the years because our inclusion criteria gets more stringent over years.
As you rightly pointed out, UNCC and SB (among others) are not included in the 2024 rankings while they were in the 2023. The reason is that starting from the 2024 ranking, we only rank programs that have a minimum of 10 graduates in their latest class. Programs with a declining enrollment will disappear from our rankings. They may be ranked in the future when their numbers meet our inclusion criteria again.
The only MSF programs we rank are Princeton/MIT/etc which are more quantitative than the traditional ones.
I believe the work and the amount of unique data we collect from the programs every year make the QuantNet MFE ranking the best there is.

Hi Andy, thanks for the response! I really appreciate your work around this community.

Would QuantNet consider providing a ranking for global financial engineering programs or ranking for Asia/Europe or even by country?

In addition, it seems like the methodology adopted focus heavily on student quality and employment rate. Does QuantNet expect to continue its focus on job placement or will it include other factors considered in other rankings such as faculty quality/school reputation/class size in the future?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Would QuantNet consider providing a ranking for global financial engineering programs or ranking for Asia/Europe or even by country?

This has been asked many times. It comes down to whether it makes sense for QuantNet to do so given the number of random rankings popping up these days.
For financial engineering and quant master programs, QuantNet has been doing the ranking since 2011 and our rankings and methodology have been pretty well known. We recently released our first UK ranking which is extremely well received. Stay tuned to see what in store in the future.
I am aware Risk Magazine does a global ranking of quant programs as well and they include class size, faculty in their methodology.