Baruch Ranks #1 in Best Financial Engineering Programs in U.S. for 2021
Ranked #1 in three of the last five years in QuantNet’s rankingsNovember 23, 2020
Baruch College MFE students compete annually at the Rotman International Trading Competition.
The Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) program at Baruch College’s Weissman School of Arts and Sciences continues to earn recognition as the best in the nation for prospective students to study financial engineering.
QuantNet’s 2021 “Rankings of Financial Engineering Programs” placed Baruch #1 in the U.S., finishing ahead of prestigious schools such as Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Cornell, NYU, UChicago, and Georgia Tech. Baruch’s 2021 overall score saw a five-point difference between first and second place, the largest ever for this ranking.
Since 2016, Baruch College has been at or near the top of QuantNet’s rankings for MFE programs: Securing first place in 2021, 2018 and 2017, and #2 in 2020, 2019, and 2016.
“The joy that such recognition brought to our alumni, students, faculty, and industry partners is wonderful to see,” said Dan Stefanica, PhD, co-director of the Baruch MFE program. “The closeness of our community and the unwavering and continued help of our alumni for our students, year after year, cohort after cohort, are decisive for the success of our students.”
According to QuantNet, “the programs that top the rankings this year show a remarkable ability to deliver at a high level, even in the toughest market.”
QuantNet’s MFE ranking is considered the most authoritative and comprehensive classification in terms of determining the best financial engineering and mathematical finance programs in the U.S.
Placement Success
Baruch MFE program ranked first in the following three categories QuantNet evaluated: employment rate at graduation, employment rate three months after graduation, and average starting base salary plus sign on bonus.
At the end of the Spring 2020 semester, Baruch’s MFE students achieved a 100% placement rate and all-time compensation high in both full-time employment and summer internships. Employers included some of New York’s and the nation’s leading companies, including Bank of America, Barclays, BlackRock, Citadel, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS.
QuantNet reported that the average starting base salary plus sign-on bonus for Baruch MFE students was $147,028. This figure is $20,000 more than the second and third place schools, respectively, Carnegie Mellon and Princeton.
“We are constantly in awe of our students—their ability to learn and then produce on the job market are remarkable,” Stefanica said. “This year, in particular, their efforts to study and interview remotely with similar level of success of the job market as in the previous year are astounding.”
Methodology
QuantNet surveyed 36 master programs in financial engineering, mathematical finance, and quantitative finance from September to October 2020 analyzing their admission, placement, and career services information. A school’s ranking was determined using a weighted average in three categories: peer assessment score, placement success, and student selectivity. Each program earned its overall score from the points in each category multiplied by the category’s assigned weighted average. A full description of the methodology is available here.
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