The Financial Times 2014 Masters in Finance Ranking has been released to much celebration and disagreement. I personally think the ranking is best for international programs (with a few caveats), but overall it is beneficial to the degree and helps increase awareness. I think rankings should be only one part of your overall decision and I am thankful that someone, anyone, is ranking this wonderful degree. Hopefully in the couple of years the Financial Times will not be the only one comparing these programs.
The FT ranks the programs according to pre and post experience criteria. This is probably done so as the MSc. is more prominent overseas and more experienced applicants tend to apply to these programs. Here in the US nearly all the MSF programs are for pre-experience applicants.
Pre-Experience Master in Finance Rankings – 2014
1) HEC Paris
2) ESADE Business School
3) EDHEC Business School
4) ESSEC Business School
5) IE Business School
Post-Experience Master in Finance Rankings – 2014
1) London Business School
2) University of Cambridge – Judge Business School
3) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
4) University of Hong Kong
5) Florida International University
This is just an abbreviated list of the rankings, but I wanted to give everyone the top 5 for both ranking criteria. Obviously these rankings will cause much debate and argument among my readers, but remember, most US MSF programs are excluded from this ranking for a variety of reasons. That being said it is interesting to see how the Financial Times ranks programs and the metrics they look at.
