The University of Southern California MSF program continues to perform well considering how relatively new the program is. The placements last year were great and the program continues to build on this success. I find that it usually takes 2-3 years for a new MSF program to hit their stride and I am comfortable in saying that USC has done so. I look forward to more success in the future as well. Without delay, here are the 2016 placement data for the University of Southern California MSF program.
MSF Class of 2016
- Class Size 32
- Students Seeking Jobs 69%
- Received an Offer 68%
- Accepted an Offer 68%
- Jobs before graduation 55%
- Jobs after graduation 14%
- No Recent Information Available 6%
- Not Seeking 25%
This is pretty standard, especially with programs that have a sizable international student body or that send kids to PhD programs. So about 2/3rds of the class receiving an offer, with over half before graduation is on par with peers.
MSF CLASS OF 2016
Base Salary – Max – $93,000 / Mean – $67,000 / Median – $66,364
Bonus – Max – $12,000 / Mean – $6,667 / Median – $5,000
I don’t really have much commentary around this. I’ve seen similar stats at other schools. IB salaries are fixed and have increased over the last couple years. Sign on bonus’s are what they are.
Employment Source
- School Facilitated – 60%
- Student Facilitated -40%
Honestly, this is pretty good. Shows that USC has a good career center that is helping students, providing quality OCR and is also giving students the tools to go out and find their own opportunities.
Hiring Companies
- American Realty Advisors/ PM Realty Group
- Angeles Investment Advisors
- Bank of the West
- CBRE
- Citics Securities
- Deloitte
- Eastdil Secured
- Ernst & Young
- Farmers Insurance
- FTI Consulting
- GCA Savvian
- Goldman Sachs Group
- Huasheng Investment Company
- Irvine Company
- J.P. Morgan
- Kayne Anderson Rudnick
- KPMG
- Mattel
- NBCUniversal
- Oak Circle Capital Partners
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Salem Partners
- Stout Risius Ross
- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey
- U.S. Bank
- Walt Disney Company
- Warner Brothers
- Wedbush Securities
- Whittier Trust
Now this isn’t a complete list and I haven’t highlighted the companies that have hired multiple students (I will include a link to the placement report at the end of this post), but this list is a pretty good representation of the places students recruit for. I also typically tell students to inquire what places MSF students interview, but don’t receive an offer from. This is more indicative of the chances you will have from the program.
As far as industries that students go into, roughly a third is front office finance (split between banking, IM, CRE), with another third going into corporate finance and the rest going into consulting, credit, etc.
Conclustion
I was pretty excited when USC rolled out their MSF program. The west coast doesn’t have as many MSF’s as elsewhere and I thought the brand, school reputation and overall academic quality of USC would make this one of the top programs. The last two placement reports have proven this out. I have no doubt the school will continue to succeed and I look forward to reporting on it in the future.
For a the full 2016 placement report, please click here.
Here is a link to the University of Southern California Masters in Finance Program
