How Is the Education in Cass Business School?

I disagree. I did my MSc in Cass a few years ago. Note that I have a Bachelors in Economics from a good university and I also had good grades. I can tell you that in my course (and from what I saw also in other courses) the students had all either a first or 2:1. I only met two guys who had a high 2:2. The first one had a Bachelor in Mathematics and Economics from LSE and the second one a high 2:2 in Engineering, Economics and Management (EEM) from Oxford. So both had attended very good universities and hard degrees.

Also, if you have a look at the website it says that the entry requirements are a UK 2.1 or above, or the equivalent from an overseas institution. So I do not actually understand how you can state that it is fairly easy to get in with low grades? Are you suggesting that the information that CASS is posting on their website is inaccurate? I might be the case that you know one or two guys that made it into CASS with low grades but I can tell you that this is definitely not the norm. I also know of one guy who did a MSc in Decision Science at LSE, with a 2:2 from a low ranked overseas university. Does this mean that LSE is not a good university, obviously not. Almost all universities (even LSE) have flagship Masters which is very hard to get in and others which are easier. Finally. the grade is not everything. Some of these guys are older and have working experience, so you need to compare like with like.

Additionally, City university is joining the university of London. Here is the link:
http://www.london.ac.uk/5719.html?&no_cache=1&sword_list%5B%5D=university

If CASS and City were that bad and were accepting people with low grades would they be part of the university of London, I doubt it.

CASS may not be as good as LBS and not as reputable as LSE, but as a Business School it is consistenly ranked in the top Business Schools in the UK by the Financial Times, Times, Independent and many other newspapers. It also scored very high in the The Research Excellence Framework (REF) which is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) a method of assessing the research of British higher education institutions. My advise to students that want to attend any university and any course is not to rely much on the opinion of one or two individuals (including the opinion I am writing here), rather do your own research and even try to visit the university you are interesting in and talk to the lecturers and students there.

So unless you have very solid evidence (and not just one or two people you may know) to back up your theory, I would say that your statement, at its best, is misleading.

Well, all the people that I know that have attended CASS (and I talking about 10+ people) were not the best students, as I previously said with low 2.1s and 2.2s. Moreover I am in a position to know that they have low standards. The fact that the website says 2.1 or above (which is the case with the vast majority of UK unis) is in order to set high standards. So if they have less applications for a program, they will accept students with lower grades as well, because unfortunately education today is more about money.

I am aware that City because part of the UoL, but this does not really mean much, as there are a lot of questionable universities in there, the same way that there are questionable unis in the Russells Group and even in Ivy League! But anyone, I did not mention anything about how good/bad a Uni is and I would not really like to get into the rankings (as I believe they are a joke, judging on their criteria and how they quantify some aspects). Again REF 2014 was a little bit of a joke, as it was on a volunteering basis for the researchers to submit their papers on it (that's why they are changing its structure now). Again, I am not judging City University and I am not judging CASS. I believe that at the end of the day the only thing that counts is the reputation of the Institution and nothing else, as this is what will help you get a job.

Well you must really have a strange sample because I know more than 30+ people from Cass (from my course and others) and only two had a 2:2 all others had a 2:1 or first. So I find your statement strange, but anyway. Do you happen to know when they studied, which course and if they had working experience?

I also know people who have attended ex-polytechnics such as UWE and have completed the MSc in Finance at Imperial. Does this mean that imperial is not good I doubt it.

I also do not agree that the UoL and the Russell Group include "questionable" universities. The lowest ranked university in the UoL is probably Goldsmiths and although it is not a top Uni it is a solid university. From the Russell Group the lowest ranked Universities are probably Cardiff, Queens Belfast and Newcastle and again although these universities are not really top or elite they have solid reputations. So for me the word "questionable" is too strong, I would say something as less prestigious or not really top.

But since you bring the reputation of the university where would you place CASS and City university in terms of ranking top 5, 10, 20? and which universities do you believe have similar reputation?

Well again, it is not the people that I know only, but I have information from people within the school that they have lower standards and these have been brought down from the International/Non EU students studying there. But again the low entry standards do not mean much, apart from that they have low entry standards. The programs that I know people have gotten into are mainly Accounting, Finance and Econ.

Moreover, it's a common thing for Universities to accept students for different backgrounds (and why not ex polys as well). Tbh, getting into a Master's degree program is easier than getting into an undergraduate one, due to less competition.

Also, I don't think City University is good; probably an average UK uni around top 40-50. CASS is another story, as they themselves want to separate from City Uni. As I haven't studied any economics related discipline, I cannot really tell you how I would rank CASS itself, but if I was applying for an undergrad level, I might have considered it, definitely not for an MSc/MBA level. I think I can think off the top of my head at least 10-15 better business schools around the UK. Again, this is just my view on it, I am 100% sure that CASS was a great choice for you and has helped you a lot in meeting your career goals! I only talked about the entry standards in my initial post.

Well again I think you are probably mixing a few things. Fist of all you can not study economics in any way at CASS, there is no finance and economics masters or anything like that. This takes place at the economics department which is part of City university. Accounting and finance yes but not economics. Are you sure you are not confusing some economics students with business students? The economics department at City is considered lower ranked to the business school, which might explain the lower entry standards you are observing.

I agree with you that city is probably ranked in the top 40 or 50 so out of the 100+ universities in the UK this is indeed average and from the old universities i.e. not ex polys this is at the lower end.

However I don't agree that CASS is not highly ranked. If you say that you can think at least 10 or 15 universities that are better than CASS then this implies that you rank CASS around the top 20. I think this to be very low. I happen to study economics and i believe to have a good overview of what are good business schools. So let's be specific apart from LBS, LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Imperial and maybe Manchester and Cranfield which are the other business schools which you consider to be better than CASS. So in short give us your list. Because with my subjective list CASS is definitely ranked in the top 10 if not the top 5 since some of these universities are quite far from London which is a major disadvantage and some of them are only marginally better or really more or less equal to CASS in terms of reputation.

Finally I also disagree what you write about the masters at CASS. It is exactly these specialized masters that have the best reputation and make CASS special.

Ok, so off the top of my head and with no particular order; Cambridge, Oxford, LBS, LSE, Warwick, Cranfield, Manchester, Henley, Bath, Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Durham, maybe Leeds as well. More in terms of their reputations, as I am hearing from employers. But again my intention was not to end up doing the ranking discussion, which always end up being pointless. As in my head I might put reputation and research as the most important ones and you might think for example (I am not saying that you do) that student satisfaction is more important. And then there is an even larger discussion on how the data are collected and analyzed. Similarly you can see those huge fluctuations between domestic and international rankings. So you can argue about my list for ages (which I just created in 1min form the top of my head), but there is really no point to keep discussing thing....

what industry is being discussed here?

Ok, so off the top of my head and with no particular order; Cambridge, Oxford, LBS, LSE, Warwick, Cranfield, Manchester, Henley, Bath, Strathclyde, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Durham, maybe Leeds as well. More in terms of their reputations, as I am hearing from employers. But again my intention was not to end up doing the ranking discussion, which always end up being pointless. As in my head I might put reputation and research as the most important ones and you might think for example (I am not saying that you do) that student satisfaction is more important. And then there is an even larger discussion on how the data are collected and analyzed. Similarly you can see those huge fluctuations between domestic and international rankings. So you can argue about my list for ages (which I just created in 1min form the top of my head), but there is really no point to keep discussing thing....

It's probably irrelevant what I say but I'll write it anyway. I come from Switzerland from a university that is not highly ranked. However, the majority of employers would chose people from our school than from highly ranked St. Gallen. Why? Well, students from our school must have some years of experience to be accepted, they write a bachelor thesis about a current business matters. They accepted about 40 people and after two years there 15 left in my group.
I've seen already guys from Uni Zürich smiling at me but at the end I always got the job I wanted during my studies. It is also known that I'd be better paid than they.
From a perspective of somebody who has already some years of experience before and during studies I can tell you that at the end the most important is how you sell yourself and what's your story.

Yes I see your point. I only try to tell you that it's helpful but you still can do plenty or jobs even though you don't come from Cambridge.
Once I visited an info event of UBS. I asked them what's the most important-experience, grade, name of the school. I'll use the word of the managing director that answered me "there is nothing worse than students who came from high ranked school and think that they are superior to the others."
Therefore, a good name of a school is a great thing but do not give people impression that you think there is nothing else in the world. I'm not claiming that you behave in that way, but there are plenty of people who simply do. Use it as an advantage, but see also other aspects. I don't believe that if you have cass on your CV people will not invite you for an interview. Unless they have a different reason.
Another aspect is that some companies, PWC for example, have some special programs for people who came from top universities with top grades. They employ, say, 20 people every year who graduated from a particular school. For this kind of jobs you should have a top university on your CV. For the 95% other jobs "even" cass should be enough.

"even" was an irony, that's why I used brackets. I don't think that Cass is a wrong choice. Otherwise I would't apply there.

Hi guys. I've recently got an offer from CASS for finance and accounting. Any opinions? Any graduates from there?

im a ug 2nd year ifrm student

I'm sure you have read all the bad feedbacks about CASS. I would appreciate if you answer the below Qs:

Since you're already student there, What's you're advise should it be my firm choice?
Do you like it there?
Is it true that you don't take lectures in CASS building?
What time lectures usually start since I'll be traveling from Windsor everyday?

Thanks

what are your other choices?
do i like it: not really, but then i'm not a fan of academics
lectures: all done in the northampton campus at the undergraduate level
time: ranges each day, but generally begin at 9am

that being said, it's a solid university if you want to enter the business/finance profession. here is my profile: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/abdulkarimali

I've got an offer for A&F. Surrey is my second option, Business management thinking to change it to A&F as well.