Uni of Southampton reputation?

Nobody in the real world cares about league table rankings. They pretty much exist solely to give school leavers a talking point. Employers don't know or care about league table rankings, and they also won't care if you studied at Oxbridge if you have no work experience by the time you graduate. Focus on more important things as far as university choice (and for that matter, long term career prospects) go.

Nobody in the real world cares about league table rankings. They pretty much exist solely to give school leavers a talking point. Employers don't know or care about league table rankings, and they also won't care if you studied at Oxbridge if you have no work experience by the time you graduate. Focus on more important things as far as university choice (and for that matter, long term career prospects) go.

Hi, i am an international student and i just want to say that you are the first person here to write 'rankings don't matter', and you especially mentioned oxbridge. I am torn between choosing universities since i am from finance background and all i see here is people talking about 'targets' and 'semi targets' for investment banking. The target schools are expensive af, and i have to pay at overseas rate which is a burden itself. Can you please elaborate what do you mean by 'important things'? so that i can make most out of my time in UK. TIA!

I would note firstly that this thread is over a year old; it's better to make a new thread than the reply to an old one. Also this post was about undergraduate studies whereas I'm assuming you're applying for PG studies from your comment.

In any case, investment banking is the exception to my comment (also consulting, apparently), so if you want to go into that specific field then yes you need to abide by their absurd target vs semi-target rankings and so on. Note that for other roles in financial services (e.g. accounting) though my comment is still valid. One of many reasons not to go into investment banking I think...

The "important things" I was referring to were e.g. the specific academic strengths of the particular course being applied to, particular facilities the university has which may be desirable, cost of living in the area, etc. However some of this may apply for UG study more than PG study. Fee levels are a relevant concern but if you want to go into investment banking that is just one of the barriers you need to overcome for that abhorrent field.

Thank you for the detailed response. Can you mention some job roles other than investment banking that are possible with a masters in finance from semi target universities?

Preach!

PRSOM