Johns Hopkins Master in Finance Student Review #3

It has been a while since I posted about the Johns Hopkins Master in Finance program and I wanted to update all of you on it by posting a great student review. This is a little different than the format I usually do, but it is very detailed and provides a lot of job and career color that I think you’ll find helpful. Enjoy!

I chose the MS Finance program at Hopkins primarily as a way to relocate to the D.C. area and obtain a bolstering credential for better recruiting opportunities. I matriculated shortly after finishing my undergraduate degree at a flagship state university in the northeast. Since I was targeting Washington DC for post-grad employment opportunities, joining the program at the Dupont Circle location made a lot of sense. I considered other similar programs and spent time visiting and applying to several during the first application round (Vanderbilt, UVA MS Comm., Duke MMS, Villanova), but was ultimately offered a full scholarship at Hopkins and accepted.

Some thoughts on the program itself:

The demographic breakdown here is similar to some other area MSF programs (GW), with the vast majority of students coming from mainland China – I would estimate 95% from China, 2% from India, and the remaining 3% are a smattering of other nationalities with less than 10 domestic students in total across the MSF cohorts. Personally, I knew this was the case coming in, and it doesn’t bother me much at all aside from the obvious downside of having limited networking opportunities as most students return to China after finishing the program. Being at the DC campus I can take classes with MBA and part-time MS students who work in Washington, which makes for better networking than the full-time MS classes.

JHU Carey has a lot of talented professors here who they’ve pulled from other business schools and industry positions, and overall I have been happy with the instructors. AACSB has been out for site visits and I think the sentiment within the administration is that accreditation should be on the table this coming year – certainly not much longer after that. For what it’s worth, I have yet to encounter a situation where anyone has asked about the accreditation status in an interview or meeting.

Career development and recruiting here is lacking but the administration knows that and they have been throwing a lot of weight at developing industry connections to draw better OCR. The head of our employer relations division used to head up Georgetown Law’s employer relations department and she’s done a great job of moving things forward in terms of regional industry awareness of the program. Still, OCR is lacking for those of us in the MSF program, which is likely due to the sponsorship needs of the majority of the student body here. Some companies who have hired MSF students in the past few years…

The alumni presence here in DC is more substantial than I thought it would be when starting the program – Hopkins has been running part-time MBA and MS programs for quite a while and many of those alumni completed programs while working for large companies in the area. I spoke with past MBA’s at Deloitte, Booz Allen, Accenture, PwC, Morgan Stanley, and several other large area firms when I joined the program. Most were happy to speak with a JHU MSF student about their work and many offered to help out internally during recruiting.

The program would be great for anyone looking to move to the DC area for work, and the Hopkins name is certainly respected in the area and around the world. You won’t have the same level of OCR opportunity as you might at an older business school, but I have had no trouble landing interviews on my own through alternative channels and as long as you’re willing to do some legwork the lack of OCR isn’t a huge barrier.

Carey has been trying to increase diversity, and as such financial aid is likely to be very liberal for applicants outside of the existing demographic here. The average GMAT within this year’s MSF class was a 710 from what I understand, though again this is skewed based on demographics. Undergraduate institutions represented across the student body are varied, but there are students here from Berkeley, USC, Boston University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, UNC Chapel Hill, Oxford, University of Connecticut, and all of the top Chinese universities.

In all I’m happy with my choice to pursue my MSF at JHU – it opened doors in Washington which was ultimately my goal coming in, and I feel as though the program is headed in a good direction with increasing diversity, accreditation on the horizon, and an increase in OCR opportunities and industry connections.

Here is a link to the Johns Hopkins Master in Finance Program