Nottingham vs Cass

I have offers to study either Industrial Economics at Nottingham or Investment and Financial Risk Management at Cass Business School this September.

I know both courses are very different, but which one will provide the best career prospects, especially in the investment banking sector?

And at which university will it be easier to break into the front office BB banks?

Probably IFRM, especially because the modules seem very relevant to my dream job... But I feel like everyone knows Nottingham and it would open more doors, whereas it seems only the people in the financial industry know Cass (particularly for their PG courses).

If you would prefer Cass then go for Cass. It's important to consider which course you would enjoy studying for 3 years.

Additionally, remember that if you are only looking for a role in finance (and I presume you are by applying for IFRM), then you shouldn't care what non-finance employers think anyway, in which case, Cass is perfectly fine.

Personally, there are likely two factors at play here. I do think there is little difference between Cass and Notts, as the above poster says. I think Notts may edge it slightly in getting an interview though, and I do mean slightly. Once you get to interview though, you will be more able to chat about finance/banking etc at a higher level with the Cass degree than the Notts degree, and this definitely puts you at an advantage once you get an interview. Being able to chat about the markets etc at a level similar to an analyst really does help in impressing your interviewer, even if it shouldn't put you at an advantage (seeing as banks want diversity rather than all finance gradates who already know the basics). This would also help in converting your internship, as you probably wouldn't be learning what the difference between credit and equities are, presumably (presuming IFRM covers these topics). You'd be able to impress the desk with your knowledge vs the other interns, and would be able to begin learning what the desk does from a higher level. With that in mind, I would probably favour Cass just slightly.

I have offers to study either Industrial Economics at Nottingham or Investment and Financial Risk Management at Cass Business School this September.

I know both courses are very different, but which one will provide the best career prospects, especially in the investment banking sector?

And at which university will it be easier to break into the front office BB banks?

Above posters are wrong.

There is a notable difference in prospects between Notts and Cass.

Notts is a semi-target university. Cass is not. Notts gets significantly more into Front Office banking than Cass does. I dont know why people on here keep on saying Cass is a semi-target. It is definitely not at the undergrad level, and the supposed "semi-target status" of the postgrad courses is overblown.

If you want proof you can find it in old threads on here. In the annual spring week & summer internships threads, people have sometimes posted the uni make-up of their intern classes. Notts has always been fairly well represented, but there hasn't been one year where Cass has got significant numbers in.

No such thing as semi target.

Both will not get you a FO interview.

It's target or nothing these days

No such thing as semi target.

Both will not get you a FO interview.

It's target or nothing these days

Yes, I will definitely give you that Notts got a higher spring week representation than Cass/City for the spring week numbers in 2011. I do think that Notts does look better on a CV and will get a slightly higher number of interviews. It does have a slight edge at the application stage in my opinion.

At the bulge bracket I interned at last summer though (which did target both Notts and Cass - I know there will be a few banks that target Notts and not Cass for front office), there were only slightly more Notts students than Cass in the intern class for front office. The Cass students did do substantially better when it came to converting though. You could tell it when you spoke to them as well; they just knew more about finance and were really impressing their desks. They were practically in the same league as the European students who had done multiple internships. The Notts students were in a similar position to most interns, and a lot struggled to take-in the large volume of information that the desks were throwing at them (I struggled as well, and studying finance would definitely have helped me). The Cass students already knew much of this, so off the bat were impressing desks during conversations. This did (likely) lead to a higher conversion of Cass students than Notts students at this particular BB. This may be different across the board, and some banks that target around 10 UK universities for front office will probably target Notts and not Cass. It does seem to me that the gap is closing though, when it comes to graduate intake (not necessarily spring week) at least.

Additionally, I think when you also take into account that the Cass entry requirements have increased from students getting in with BBB back in 2009/2010 to offers floating around now at the AAA level for some courses, it does make it look a stronger choice when compared to places like Durham, Notts, Bristol etc. It does seem to be closing the gap compared to the traditional semi-targets, and some banks are now targeting Cass for front office (as did mine last summer). As the quality of the students at Cass increases (and as I mentioned before, they did come across as impressive during internships and did convert at a much higher percentage than the Notts students where I was), so will, I expect, the representation in graduate classes.

I'm not saying that Cass is better than Notts for front office. I'm saying that Cass is close enough to Notts when it comes to graduate front office intake, that when OP says they prefer the Cass course, they should go for Cass. Choosing Notts over Cass isn't a straightforward decision in the same way as Warwick over Cass is, in my opinion anymore. I would personally lean towards choosing based on whether I wanted a campus or London university (but of course that is for a different thread).

My two cents from my experience anyway. Maybe your graduate class has a large number of Notts graduates in front office and zero Cass?

Were those students from nottingham Industrial economics or economics graduates?

No such thing as semi target.

Both will not get you a FO interview.

It's target or nothing these days

Maine hit the nail on the head.

Forget what other clowns say about "but duuuude, there are relevant modules". Yea, there no relevant modules in law or philosophy or classics or biology at the main targets and they do fine.

Cass gets kids into spring weeks and the odd summer but conversion sucks. So few Cass guys on our side or over the Chinese wall.

Also for postgrad?
I tihnk a surprising amount of their postgrads actually end up directly on the buyside (not just PE/HF, FoF but just plain AM or real estate etc) . At least that is my observation, having seem more on the buy side than sell side.
Not sure about undergrads, they are rare indeed.

Maine hit the nail on the head.

Forget what other clowns say about "but duuuude, there are relevant modules". Yea, there no relevant modules in law or philosophy or classics or biology at the main targets and they do fine.

Cass gets kids into spring weeks and the odd summer but conversion sucks. So few Cass guys on our side or over the Chinese wall.

Hi, sorry could you explain the final paragraph please. Thanks

Chinese wall is the split between private side and public side. I haven't a clue what he's referring too unless he means Cass students don't get wall-crossed/employed into private side which makes very little sense.

He's saying that whilst cass people may get S/W or SA very few convert these to FT. The second part is just an observation that there are very few cass kids on either side of the Chinese wall, at his bank, presumably


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