CASS vs MANCHESTER..Help reqd please

Hello seniors n fellow pg ites, i am Stuti, a fresher from delhi, currently completing final yr in b.com(hons) from SRCC. I have conditional offers from Cass and Manchester business school for Msc in finance. The confusion is killing me. Bo…

Hello seniors n fellow pg ites,
i am Stuti, a fresher from delhi, currently completing final yr in b.com(hons) from SRCC. I have conditional offers from Cass and Manchester business school for Msc in finance.

The confusion is killing me. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but i cant come to a final decision as on which one to finally select.
1.Cass has always been popular for its business courses, but the manchester is popular for it's mba course..(and the department would be the same for an msc in fin.)

2. Cass location is the best out of all b-schools in uk, which goes without saying, but living expenses will be much lesser in a city like manchester.

3. the only thing is the brand value. I have no issues staying in uk or even coming bac to india for the best job. but what are my job prospects?

It would be a great help if someone throws some ligght on my issue. thanks in advance..

stuti

Hello seniors n fellow pg ites,
i am Stuti, a fresher from delhi, currently completing final yr in b.com(hons) from SRCC. I have conditional offers from Cass and Manchester business school for Msc in finance.

The confusion is killing me. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but i cant come to a final decision as on which one to finally select.
1.Cass has always been popular for its business courses, but the manchester is popular for it's mba course..(and the department would be the same for an msc in fin.)

2. Cass location is the best out of all b-schools in uk, which goes without saying, but living expenses will be much lesser in a city like manchester.

3. the only thing is the brand value. I have no issues staying in uk or even coming bac to india for the best job. but what are my job prospects?

It would be a great help if someone throws some ligght on my issue. thanks in advance..

stuti

Hi Stuti
Here r my $0.02:
I don't know much abt business courses but there is no doubt that as far as brand value and quality of education is concenred Cass is no match for Manchester. Manchester is a very acclaimed univ and is ranked just below LSE, LBS and almost on par with Oxford and Cambridge. Manchester is also a big city and I think it has a thriving job market.
I wud advise u to go for Manchester

hey suvrat,
thanks for the opinion. i was hoping that the thumbs comes for manchester.. m damn keen on accepting the offer from manchester. this is also coz living expenses in cass are going to go sky high..it being located in the main city of london.
Also, the fees of cass is much higher.
But in the end, its all about the value addition from the course....hence i was asking for opinions.
Anyone else is also most welcome to ut in their 2 cents, i would appreciate if u could.
thanks....

stuts

Hi,

I was going to join Cass(MSc Fin) before I got my LSE offer for MSc Accounting and Finance.

The ratings for Masters programs are different than those for MBA programs. Manchester is not as good as Cass for Masters in Finance.

Check this thread on thestudentroom.co.uk Top 20 UK unis for getting an IB Job - The Student Room

It's a post by a second year BB analyst. He has ranked UK universities according to placements in IBs.

I agree with his ranking, but it's a bit undergrad specific. For postgrad, the ranking would be like:

1. London Business School

2. London School of Economics
3. Oxford/Cambridge

5. Imperial
6. Warwick(UCL doesn't offer a MSc Finance degree)

7. Cass

After this come univs like Reading-ICMA, Cranfield, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bath, Lancaster, Nottingham and Bristol in no order.


Manchester is very good for MSc Manangement/Intl. Business, but their postgrad finance programs are not very good.

I suggest you research more, especially on thestudentroom.co.uk and ibtalk.com/forum

Edit- I just saw that you're from SRCCE. If you've taken GMAT, you should definitely apply to LSE, Imperial and Warwick. Imperial and Warwick also accept applications without GMAT.

If you checkout the orkut community for Warwick Business School, you'd find lots of people from DU who've got into Warwick w/o GMAT.

Hey anand,
thanks for the detailed post. It was really helpful, and is already swaying my decision. I researched in the 2 sites as you told me, it certainly seems as though Cass is a much better b-school for a finance course than Mbs. But here are a few more points i was looking at:
About the brand value, Mbs is better any day, in india. I umderstand that cass is not very popular in india for job prospects.
Again, Manchester is ranked above Cass for MBA in the FT rankings, and faculty for the MSc Fin course will pretty much be the same, so this is another issue.
I would be damn grateful if you could answer my questions and add some more gyan to the thread.
Thanks again

PS- I applied to warwick..didnt give gmat. I didnt get an offer. 😞

Warwick has gotten very strange these days. It even rejected an Italian guy with a 730 on the GMAT. He got an LSE offer. Same is the case with me. I was rejected by Warwick, but I was accepted by LSE.

Recently, there was an alumni meet of Cass in Mumbai. A person from my college, who had an offer for Cass told me that he met quite a few alumni, who were well placed in Insurance/financial institutions. I'll ask him and will PM you his mail ID, so that you can talk to him about the alumni.

I think one reason why Cass is so highly ranked is the practical nature of the MSc Finance program. They have a Bloomberg trading room with lots of Bloomberg terminals, good faculty, and most importantly a very good location. To summarize, this is what an Alumni of Cass MSc Finance told me:


- I found the course pretty good except the electives, the time for them was too short but now i guessed they have changed the dissertation thing.
- Quality was good except for few faculty, which is normal in every university.
- Bloomberg do helps but its not MUST but i am finding it very useful for my job and its a plus
- For me, the payback is less than 6 months for my fee and around 8-9 months for whole of my investment.


Another alumni of Cass MSc Finance had to say this:



1) The teaching is good, but you have to keep in mind they are not there to baby sit, I guess they are there to present the material and it's up to you to learn it. I did my undergrad in America and I must admit they would kind of hold our hand through university. Not here at Cass.

2) Yes the Bloomberg and Reuters rooms are great and that is definitely a distinct advantage and they are accessible to all Msc and MBA students.

3) Many of the lectures (especially the electives) are given by people who have industry experience and all have PhD's. But you must keep in mind that there are over 20+ masters programs at Cass so you may find a somewhat new PhD with minimum experience.

4) For me I thought the MSc Finance was the perfect combination of quantitative and methodology. Several programs are heavy in the maths, and then you have the other end of the spectrum where it's all theory and very little maths. Finance was sitting in the middle, not too specific where you would be pigeon holed into a stereotyped profession that you didn't want to be in.

5) This is also the biases of why I didn't go to Imperial or LSE. When I went to their presentations for the MSc's I found that Imperial had a real quant MSc Finance program and LSE was real Theory based. But with hindsight I think LSE, LBS, and Oxbridge are better.

6) Yes big banks come to Cass in the fall. It varies year to year as to which ones, but when I was there, I recall at least 5 IB giving presentations with another dozen smaller firms.



I'm not entirely sure of Manchester as I didn't research into it. You should create a new post in the 'Postgraduate' forum of thestudentroom.co.uk. I think people who know about Manchester might reply. You can also post on Global Derivatives - Index, in the 'General/Further Education' forum

well, kinda late in the day for me to be joinin in but just wanted to get opinions on MSc Management degrees.... I've applied to and got admission to the MSc. Management program at Bath.
well, my choice was governed by the following factors. hope these help you n you can reciprocate with some fundas of your own
1. consistent undergrad ranking in times, guardian... amongst top 5- for pre-work ex courses lik Masters, undergrad rankings have value, if not as much, but equal to MBA rankings.
2.location-located around bristol(has a port... means available jobs), also, near a mid-size town lik bath. location near a city matters in industry linkages. therefore, places lik st. andrews lose out as do lancaster and to some extent warwick.
3. info/data provided on student placements- bath is very transparent on the employement scene with names of companies actively recruiting on campus listed on the website... unlike more highly rated counterparts like warwick
4.brand- it is a relatively new university in indian minds, hence, i would be competing not with other indian students but with chinese n other asian students with bad english language skills for the few available jobs for overseas students. places like warwick seem to have been saturated with people from DU.. i know atleast 5 from my own college going there for eco-finance n finance.(seems pretty easy to get in there for us people in india)
5. history of the course-my course at bath was started in 1996 in its present form. therefore, you know what to expect. newer courses lik the ones in imperial are basically crap.
6. MBA rankings- look for a consistent ranker
7. Overall university profile-going outside the top 10-15 universities in the overall league tables is akin to rejectin potential employers
8. focus on what is your objective regarding the course- for entry into the job market, an educational experience, fun trip, work ex, technical knowledge
9. never underestimate niche b-schools- places lik cass n ICMA at reading for investment banking, strathclyde n cranfield for marketing, imperial for entreprenuerial credentials(read family business), warwick for eco streams, aston for Org. Behav....
10. try and avoid big ticket ventures lik LSE, Kings, Imperial if possible... they are nothin more than buildings churnin out classes lik you're sittin in good old connaught place, doing some correspondence course. enjoy the experience of studyin abroad. it wont happen in london.
11. from all recent reports about the Fresh talent scheme for scotland, its just become another outlet for firms to get graduates on as low paid trainees, not to mention the lack of proper jobs in scotland, as opposed to plentiful part-time work.
lemme know if this was any help... i'm as always, keepin a keen eye out on the masters scene in the uk.
Ankur

hey pretty interesting and relevant, this explanation of yours..

but u actually mean that we should reject offers from LSE ??.. u gotta be out of your mind dude.. yeahh we will not have too much of other experience like what we could have in the states.. but then LSE ensures that u are getting the best of jobs.. definitely..

and when u state that we should avoid institutes anywhere below the top 15, you mean the top 15 according to which rankings?.. MBA?.. and if MBA, then acording to which ranking company??..

there are still many things which are ambiguous!.. like there is no concerete ranking system for the mSc program.. and the job prospects, even for people from warwick are not always the brightest.. i know ppl who have come back from that place.. i know ppl from manchester..

i have not interacted with too many LSE ppl who have already finished their masters program so i cant state about that institute..

and when talking about rankings i have seen in many of thesae rakings the mention of oxford.. cambridge.. imperial... ARE THESE REALLY GOOD FOR THE BUSINESS PROGRAMS?..

i aint to sure about that point so i will open this question for the house to answer rather than attempting at it myself...

Hi



I have applied for the MSc in Insurance and Risk Management at Cass...I hope i get thru....I already hold a post graduate diploma in Insurance from India and also worked with Iffco Tokio GIC for more than a year...Can any of you who have graduated from cass in this course tell me about its value addition and career prospects pls...