Turning Yourself into a Successful MS Applicant(non-MBA): My Story

Question

What to do and what NOT to do when applying I’m glad to finally be of some help to this forum, following my acceptance to a reputed MFin program in Germany. Now onto the post! I’ve tried dividing this article into sections (in chronological order) highlighting the framework I followed. I hope this is of help to future Master’s applicants. A few caveats: Any recommendation/advice here caters specifically to MiM and MFin/Msc.Fin applicants, you may follow a similar framework for Masters in Engineering/Medicine I’m assuming your primary motivation to apply to Masters is to either improve your current career prospects in your country or to simply settle abroad Step 1: (1.5-2 years before application deadline) - Self Reflection & Research This is often the most neglected among prospective applicants. Simply put, you get a Masters because you need the same to reach a specific goal. Ask yourself - Do you even need it in the first place? For me, getting a Masters was a continuation of my bachelors (Europe usually has a 3+2 system wherein you can only be considered for employment WITH a Masters degree). Personally speaking, I realized via a few internships during my bachelors that I wanted to run my own investment fund one day. To do this, I needed to get some banking experience on my CV which was only possible via a summer internship there. For that competitive summer internship, I needed to have a trajectory of relevant M&A, Valuation, etc. internships at smaller firms that would support my case in an ultra competitive applicant pool. The Masters program would open doors for the latter. Get the idea? Starting off at where you’d ideally want to see yourself long term and stepping backwards, zeroing in based on your research/talking to people in the industry. Now obviously, this career plan is not binding. Priorities change and I might find myself working at a Venture Capital firm or maybe Alternative Investments at Allianz. Nothing is set in stone in terms of future plans BUT it does help to have a fair idea of where you want to be. You cannot afford to be vague at this point in your life if you wish to land a highly sought-after job (say banking or consulting). You can’t be like: “uh, I don’t know what I want to do but marketing, business development and finance interests me!” .. or maybe “I don’t know really, i just want a job in XYZ country/city” In my opinion, a master’s education is way too expensive of a deal to be vague about

Step 2: Narrowing it down & further research Okay, by now you have a fair idea of jobs/internships you’d want to target in a specific location and would like to know what universities to go to. This is where ‘LinkedIn’ would single handedly prove to be an invaluable resource. Start looking for people working in your target industry/target firms/target location. There's no need to reach out to them just yet. Just gather as many profiles (data points) you can and try drawing a general sense of what universities lead to what kind of early-career positions. Supplement this by browsing forums on the internet about your target industry, however take opinions on these forums with a grain of salt. I used WallStreetOasis, Mergers&Inquisitions, studentroom.co.uk (very occasionally, since most of the respondents are hormone raged teens who’ve got no idea of how high finance works) and r/FinancialCareers (channel on reddit; but yes, beware of the 17-year-olds here too). Once you’re through this but still have difficulties making sense of what universities you ought to specifically focus on, feel free to connect with alumni on LinkedIn. Be persistent (though, don’t harass them) and polite and you’ll definitely get responses. I can say this from experience. Step 3: Checking out and taking rankings with a pinch of salt (FT rankings specifically) I’ll probably receive a lot of criticism for this but this needs to be said. You don’t rank SKEMA above ESSEC. FT rankings might consider a lot of criteria when charting final reports but from a purely career perspective (at least for finance and consulting), ESSEC is a top target in France, not SKEMA, based on the general consensus at the time of writing this article. With that said, these rankings often skip certain EU universities which are actually top target schools in their respective countries AND sometimes also for UK recruiting (if you want to get a job there). I can’t say the same about US university rankings though (never researched); therefore, I don't take rankings seriously. They’re not really tailored towards your goals and aspirations. That said, feel free to brag about how you made it to a Top 10 FT/QS ranked school to your neighbors if that’s your case! Oh and about grad job statistics posted by different schools! BEWARE if you're non-European! Quite a few schools display a pie chart comprising the % of students (categorized by nationality) who attended the program and got jobs. In there you'll come across the category 'International Students'. Check if 'international' excludes European folks and is just limited to non-E.U students. More often than not, this won't be the case (schools have to abide by data regulation practices in place). I've seen many people fall for this trap and think the term 'international' relates to them. I've seen 'ranking websites' frequently misinterpret data released by schools. But then again, if you know the basics of data interpretation, you should be able to detect these without breaking much sweat. Step 4: (5-8 months before application deadline) - Assessing your odds at your targeted universities and working on improving them OR considering other schools Ideally, you are a few months away from your application deadline at this point. Get your CV reviewed by consultants/alumni to mark your odds. One of the following is likely to be the case: i) You have an okay profile but you could improve your odds slightly with some internships / voluntary work / CFA (only if you’ve got time) / a nice GRE or GMAT score ii) Both you and your target university are out of each others’ leagues There’s not much time to do anything if you find yourself at 2nd position. You need to revise your expectations downwards and apply to a slightly less competitive place. Don’t kill yourself stressing and calculating your odds of landing a place at Oxford if you only have a 315 GRE and nothing extra-ordinary on your CV. Miracles exist but probably the most you can do is still apply in case you really think you’ve got something that sets you apart from other prospects. This is something I wish I had done when considering HEC Paris MiM. I unfortunately sucked at the GRE and at-home testing meant several distractions (FedEx guy banging on my door during a Quant Section). There was no point putting in so much effort writing a stellar essay when I clearly had both my GRE and to some extent my GPA working against me. And no, they didn’t care about my extenuating circumstances which led to a bad GPA in one particular semester. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to discourage you from applying. But just don't get hung up over your odds and miss out on other nice schools. Anyways, the usual essay writing, CV drafting, GRE/GMAT thing would possibly occur during or shortly after this phase. Step 5: D Day You either got accepted or got dinged. If accepted to your top choice, congrats! If rejected by your top choice, I hope you had applied to a fine mix of Tier 1/2/3 schools based on your profile. Another important (common sense) distinction: what might be Tier 2 for you, could be Tier 1 for another prospect with a weaker profile. Again, this is why I don’t pay much attention to rankings However, if you did something like me and applied to only Tier 1 schools and that too to only ‘two’ of them, getting rejected by one and now pinning your hopes on the other, this is the time to ACT FAST. Go through phases 2-4 again and this time, as fast as possible. If you applied to Round 1 for Tier 1s, then you should still have time to target other schools. Try putting together as perfect an application as possible for those, even if it means pulling a few all-nighters back-to-back Step 6: Basking in the sun or maybe not yet... At this point, you have an offer and a confirmed seat at your university. Give yourself a month-long break if possible. If you’re vying for an elite position such as those I talked about in Step 1, your job is far from over. Start researching more about recruitment application deadlines, speaking with alumni at your ‘incoming grad’ school and laying out a general plan of how you’re going to get those internships, take gap years, what firms you would initially target, or any skills you need to learn (Excel/PowerPoint) to get a head-start into recruiting season. Depending on the duration of your Masters, you’ve got to start prepping early! I could go on to write a whole new post on the importance of not relying solely on rankings, something I’ve seen >80% of applicants do the other way round. I’ve seen people go to Tier-1 schools in the UK and some Tier 2 in France/Spain/Italy only to return to their home countries empty handed because they were busy chasing rankings without a career/backup plan in place. Worse yet, some of those degrees were funded by debt with exorbitantly high interest rates. Here’s a summary of a few pointers to keep in mind when chalking out a career plan and trying to narrow down on school selection: Be careful about 1 year UK programs if you wish to enter a highly competitive industry post your Masters and don’t have a brand name/relevant work experience already on your CV. Do not get fooled by the ‘pre-experience program’ tag. You ought to be even more careful if you’d require work visa sponsorship to land a job in such an industry. For example - You want to get a summer analyst position at Goldman Sachs M&A in the UK but you don’t have solid M&A brand names on your CV already. You require visa sponsorship. You got into Oxford Masters Finance. In this case, it really is a hit and miss situation with odds against you if you decide to go to Oxford, unless you have some backup plan other than that of Goldman. However, if your research and background suggest that 1-year programs are a good fit, I’d pick Oxford/Cambridge/LBS/LSE/maybe Imperial/maybe UCL for career prospects alone St. Gallen/WHU/SSE/WU Vienna and other such continental European schools are targets IF you speak the language at C1 level or above (check CEFR proficiency descriptions online). Also helps if you’re a native speaker. Otherwise, please forget about any front office roles in these countries post graduation. I’m going to a German school myself but I’m mainly targeting UK front office roles for full time offers and a select few firms in Frankfurt that’ll hire English speakers for corporate finance internships. If that fails, I’ll just look at middle office roles and later make a career transition. My choices are limited but it’s a 2-year degree with a provision for a gap year and part time work during my studies which I hope will help me make my CV a hard sell later down the line. So, research carefully and keep your expectations realistic. I believe there are a lot of issues with work visa sponsorships in the US, hence I never looked at schools there Don’t take on debt that you can’t afford - Generic advice, but it will help keep you sane all throughout your Master’s program

I’m really glad if you made it till here. I hope at least some of this info would be useful to you when planning your application process! I’m open to inputs in case something needs to be added/edited in here. This has taken a lot of effort to type out so please do not ask questions like “Please suggest some good universities in Canada”

Nobody knows the answer to that better than you, yourself! Bonne chance à toi! P.S - In case there are any comments on this post after that of June 23, 2021, I'm unfortunately unable to read them. Hence, please feel free to drop me a text

HorseGiggles · Answer

This is really helpful, I am applying this year for class of 2022-23. This article is very helpful. Thank you.

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Narenn · Answer

Thank you  kitty90 . It's so good to see you back on forums after a long time. I really appreciate you for taking the time to write about your learnings & takeaways from your Masters application experience in such great detail. There is a lot of misinformation about MS degrees / applications and as someone who has gone through this, your opinions hold great value and would benefit future applications.

Mck2023 · Answer

Hi can anyone provide me the ranking of Finance Masters (USNews). Thank you.

bb · Answer

I don't think that exists... are you able to find it online?
I am only seeing best business schools in finance, but not Masters in Finance.

Mck2023 · Answer

Hi bb , That's exactly what I am talking about. I need the top 30 ranking. Can you please provide that? This is the link: https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-sc ... e-rankings

bb · Answer

Here is that ranking: https://gmatclub.com/forum/us-news-fina ... 60032.html But I am not really sure it is that meaningful

Mck2023 · Answer

Hi  bb 
I am actually intending to apply to Finance Masters (excluding MFE) in USA. Will this ranking be helpful. Or if you have any better way to select the MFin or MS Finance programs, then please suggest me. I do not want to apply to the top 10 programs as they will not be (I guess, and I may be wrong) interested to provide full scholarships. Thank you..

SnooRegrets · Answer

This post is mind blowing,  kitty90  thank you so much for sharing your experience
It was SO valuable, I feel bad that I can't pay it back.

My key learnings with what you mentioned:
-Building a career plan and being more specific on the 'dream job' (role, type of industry, big names to target)
-The networking aspect and connecting with alumni, that's very important
-Always be thinking one step ahead.

I appreciate the time you took to write this

kitty90 · Answer

Glad I could be of some help)) 
Yep, 'dream role' or any role that interests you. Life isn't necessarily linear and not everything will work according to your plan but knowing what you want to do (approximately speaking) and planning ahead can help get you where you want to be eventually!

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