King&#x27;s College London vs Warwick vs Edinburgh

So in terms of your employability criteria it's basically Warwick > KCL/Edinburgh. So the opposite to your preferences. Warwick is a target for IB, the other two are semi targets.

Personally I'd argue KCL is the weakest school especially for consulting. So you have to decide whether your love for the uni is enough to motivate you to do the extra grind needed to make up the difference.

For a little context, here is some old BCG screening criteria:
https://ibb.co/album/ChVCJg

Theres also the stickied threads on this forum.

Reply 2

HoldThisL

21

warwick is the obvious choice for graduate prospects and the quality of the econ department

it is also literally right next to a big (albeit ****) city, it's ~2.5h away from london by train and close to birmingham as well - its really not in the middle of nowhere, it's just on the edge

Reply 3

RSG00

Original post by HoldThisL

warwick is the obvious choice for graduate prospects and the quality of the econ department

it is also literally right next to a big (albeit ****) city, it's ~2.5h away from london by train and close to birmingham as well - its really not in the middle of nowhere, it's just on the edge

Defo Warwick is your best choice and its acc and hr and a half to London so it's not too bad

Reply 4

HoldThisL

21

Original post by RSG00

Defo Warwick is your best choice and its acc and hr and a half to London so it's not too bad

well i've never made it that quickly, but its definitely not bad i agree

Reply 5

RSG00

Original post by HoldThisL

well i've never made it that quickly, but its definitely not bad i agree

By train? It's less than 1 hr 30 i think close to an hr.

Reply 6

Inert1a

11

Original post by anonuser99

So in terms of your employability criteria it's basically Warwick > KCL/Edinburgh. So the opposite to your preferences. Warwick is a target for IB, the other two are semi targets.

Personally I'd argue KCL is the weakest school especially for consulting. So you have to decide whether your love for the uni is enough to motivate you to do the extra grind needed to make up the difference.

For a little context, here is some old BCG screening criteria:
https://ibb.co/album/ChVCJg

Theres also the stickied threads on this forum.

The BCG screening is really interesting, never seen such specific details before. Any idea by what they’re referring to when they say 2:1 and masters from priority university. Is that just the Oxbridge/Imperial/LSE in the masters group or all other tier 1s too?

Reply 7

Original post by Inert1a

The BCG screening is really interesting, never seen such specific details before. Any idea by what they’re referring to when they say 2:1 and masters from priority university. Is that just the Oxbridge/Imperial/LSE in the masters group or all other tier 1s too?

Did you swipe on the image? There are like 4-5 slides and one lists the different uni categories.

Reply 8

expatboi

9

Warwick is the best. Edinburgh and King's are a toss-up - the former might be more prestigious but they both have similar placement.

In the case of the Irish unis I suspect there's probably a few effects going on. Firstly, we're probably mostly from the UK so are perhaps a tad ignorant about the quality of institutions there as they can just work in Dublin as it's a big financial hub rather than London so maybe we're less aware.

Secondly, Trinity and UCD are actually pretty good from what I know. They say trinity is the Oxbridge of Ireland which I think is a bit silly and definitely over the top personally but it definitely is good, it's probably of at least the same quality as places like Bristol and Durham but just less internationally known. UCD is good for economics and business subjects, again probably similar or perhaps a tiny bit below the standard UK semi-targets in terms of quality.

Thirdly, I reckon Ireland's unis place disproportionately well due to EU and US connections and Dublin being a financial hub. So whilst I was a little surprised to see TCD in tier 1, I expected to see TCD and UCD in the tier 2 as I assume BCG has a Dublin office? Cork in tier 3, I'm afraid I don't know enough about it beyond it being the third best ROI uni, I guess maybe it gets boosted up the tiers a bit because of the lack of unis there so if there is indeed a Dublin office then this might help explain what's going on.

Reply 10

Mike1914

To be fair Warwick has a very strong brand only in the UK, and in world rankings, it ranks fairly but not great. Kings on the other hand is a top 25 world university, has a much strong brand regardless of the sector you will choose and of course, it is based in London. Last UoE is the most highly-ranked uni of the one mentioned, although when it comes to connecting with future employers it is considered a non-target for consulting. In conclusion, I would have picked Kings, as it combines rankings, brand name, prestige and many career opportunities in London. Cheers!

Reply 11

Original post by Mike1914

To be fair Warwick has a very strong brand only in the UK, and in world rankings, it ranks fairly but not great. Kings on the other hand is a top 25 world university, has a much strong brand regardless of the sector you will choose and of course, it is based in London. Last UoE is the most highly-ranked uni of the one mentioned, although when it comes to connecting with future employers it is considered a non-target for consulting. In conclusion, I would have picked Kings, as it combines rankings, brand name, prestige and many career opportunities in London. Cheers!

In the real world, no one gives a monkeys about arbitrary rankings.

Reply 12

Mike1914

Original post by anonuser99

In the real world, no one gives a monkeys about arbitrary rankings.

I have no clue what counts for the "real world", but I have worked in IB for 8 years in a BB. As far as I am concerned, the majority of HR departments take rankings somewhat seriously during the hiring process. I do not know if that is not happening anymore but at least when I was hired at my current job (3 years before), I was told that the rankings of my uni made a very good impression. I am not suggesting in the least that someone will get hired because of the ranking of their uni but they can build a strong first impression :smile:

Reply 13

leviticus.

15

Original post by Mike1914

I have no clue what counts for the "real world", but I have worked in IB for 8 years in a BB. As far as I am concerned, the majority of HR departments take rankings somewhat seriously during the hiring process. I do not know if that is not happening anymore but at least when I was hired at my current job (3 years before), I was told that the rankings of my uni made a very good impression. I am not suggesting in the least that someone will get hired because of the ranking of their uni but they can build a strong first impression :smile:

they were probably referring to the general perception of where your university ranks in the minds of the public rather than an arbitrary numeric score that takes into account things like % of international students into account. Doesn't really make sense for them to follow leaderboards that tell students entering the uni that its top 10 only for it to drop down to 18 by the time they graduate 2 years later...

Outside of the G5 I'm not too sure why Warwick is considered a top brand over KCL. Something about a top maths dept and reputed business school but then degree type supposedly doesn't matter. Imo just go to the place you'll enjoy more at this level, you can break in from any of these if you're a top candidate in other factos and there's really no excuse to not be.

Reply 14

Original post by Mike1914

I have no clue what counts for the "real world", but I have worked in IB for 8 years in a BB. As far as I am concerned, the majority of HR departments take rankings somewhat seriously during the hiring process. I do not know if that is not happening anymore but at least when I was hired at my current job (3 years before), I was told that the rankings of my uni made a very good impression. I am not suggesting in the least that someone will get hired because of the ranking of their uni but they can build a strong first impression :smile:

Reputation matters (i.e. target, semi-target, non-target status) and this shows in the numbers, but whether a uni is ranked higher by some arbitrary organisation like QS doesn't matter. Especially world rankings because why would a HR dept in London care if Warwick doesn't have an international brand. And if they do, who do you believe? There are many orgs that do rankings and they're pretty drastically different.

So basically what Levi said above.

Reply 15

Crypro888