Rank these in difficulty - finance MSc.'s Edinburgh/Leicester/Stirling/Durham

thing is, I want to move into equity research for my area of study and work (life sciences industry). So I want to be able to perform valuation on those kind of companies. Of course I have a reasonable amount of quantitative abilities. But I don't want to waste my time doing ivory-tower academics which I'm afraid is totally not required to actually perform routine investment analysis (I guess comparable to CFA requirements). It's not that I wouldn't be able to pass those courses, it's just that I know it would be bad for my health :-).

So basically I'm looking for a compromise between 2 things

- a Msc. programme which is not out of proportion considering that I actually want to learn something and not get bogged down on phd-level maths which seems to inevitably go hand in hand the more "pregistious" the programme is
- a Msc. programme which nevertheless has at least some kind of legitimacy (e.g. can get you an interview for a good international position)

It is extremely competitive to get a Research position in an IB; there are less applicants than to the investment banking division, but there are far less vacancies too. 60% of these will be filled by oxbridge, LSE, imperial and warwick and the other 50% will come from the very best of Europe: Esade, Bocconi, Hec, St.Gallen, Stockholm, Rotterdam or Copenhagen.

Sorry to spoilt it for you, but the chances that one of the above programmes will land you an interview in equity research tend to absolute 0. It is extremely competitive to get a Research position in an IB; there are less applicants than to the investment banking division, but there are far less vacancies too. 60% of these will be filled by oxbridge, LSE, imperial and warwick and the other 50% will come from the very best of Europe: Esade, Bocconi, Hec, St.Gallen, Stockholm, Rotterdam or Copenhagen. Actual investment houses like Fidelity of Blackrock only need 4 or 5 guys that they can get from Oxbridge.

Your only chance would be MSc.'s Edinburgh, not because of the programme's reputation, but because of the big amount of relatively small funds in Scotland's capital that recruit from there for conveniency.

For junior analysts, banks couldn't care less if they come from life sciences or history of art. They will be doing dirty work anyway, so they just want them smart. If they want someone who knows a lot about pharmas or biotech they can hire a bright PhD anytime, or better yet, someone with work experience in the area. And this is another way to get in... working in the industry for a while, doing the CFA, and moving sideways. Even if you don't manage to move sideways directly you can always do so after MBA.

So I suggest you rethink your strategy... and wish you all luck.

you seem to be very knowledgeable, and I appreciate the "naked truth" career advice. But you got me seriously doubting now. Indeed an MBA is an option (I have a GMAT 710). The full story is that I applied for this position last year, and I was invited for an interview. They were very positive about my profile but they said it lacked a legitimate credential in finance. At the time Lehman brothers had just fallen and they said everything was so precarious that they could only hire someone who could hit the ground running. The senior analyst (who is a life science Phd btw) told me to sit out the crisis and do a in part-time Msc. Finance instead, while continuing my job. He said it would give me more options than just a CFA, e.g. eligibility for a position in corporate licensing with a big pharma company (the CFA which, according to him, I could always do afterwards). I then took the GMAT and was admitted to this programme. But, given my background I first had to do the preparatory programme, which I am now studying for while working full-time. All this, however, seems to be getting me further from my goal because I have less and less motivation for my current job and the study is mathematically very intensive (way beyond CFA) with ridiculously advanced econometrics, at least for me. So right now I'm in "must escape" mode. Of course I checked with all my contacts and applied for the very few interesting vacancies over the last year but no success.

Now I'm just longing to quit all this nonsense, just do a full-time degree. I have no problem with burying my ER aspirations. But if you say that a finance related MSc. at this point in my career is going to get me into trouble (and by this I mean that I wouldn't even be able to come back to the pharma of biotech industry) then I will seriously consider applying for an MBA. But, also I'd like to add that this senior analyst told me that all this top school and networking stuff was not all that important in my case. He told me to focus on building experience and skills, and I would have an attractive profile with a lifescience-investment MSc - combo. Personally, I also can't believe this combination being utterly worthless. I figure there's bound to be some interesting position I can get into? That's why I'm a bit reluctant to forking out 25k for a top business school. Especially when an MBA curriculum contains alot of stuff I'm not interested in (people management,...). That said you're not the only one that has recommend an MBA to me...

you got me doubting thats for sure which is probably a good thing

any suggestions at this point are very welcome

agreed for the most part, exceot that degree subject is very important for analysts at banks

Sorry to spoilt it for you, but the chances that one of the above programmes will land you an interview in equity research tend to absolute 0. It is extremely competitive to get a Research position in an IB; there are less applicants than to the investment banking division, but there are far less vacancies too. 60% of these will be filled by oxbridge, LSE, imperial and warwick and the other 50% will come from the very best of Europe: Esade, Bocconi, Hec, St.Gallen, Stockholm, Rotterdam or Copenhagen. Actual investment houses like Fidelity of Blackrock only need 4 or 5 guys that they can get from Oxbridge.

Your only chance would be MSc.'s Edinburgh, not because of the programme's reputation, but because of the big amount of relatively small funds in Scotland's capital that recruit from there for conveniency.

For junior analysts, banks couldn't care less if they come from life sciences or history of art. They will be doing dirty work anyway, so they just want them smart. If they want someone who knows a lot about pharmas or biotech they can hire a bright PhD anytime, or better yet, someone with work experience in the area. And this is another way to get in... working in the industry for a while, doing the CFA, and moving sideways. Even if you don't manage to move sideways directly you can always do so after MBA.

So I suggest you rethink your strategy... and wish you all luck.