Dear All,

I was unable to find any threads on the Masters in Finance programs in the US and thought I will start one myself. I am planning on applying to the one year Masters program in the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the 10 months Masters program at the Olin School of Business, Washington University. My Stats are: 700/F/3.5 WE in Financial Services/ 3.9 GPA. I know the program at UIUC is better known. But I feel the program at Washington, even though is quite new, has very good potential in the future. Please do let me know what are your views on the above two programs.

Indiana Univ.
Kelley School of Business
Top 20 Business School
MS in Finance online
~$950/ credit - Good Deal

http://kd.iu.edu/programs/msf/overview.htm

I was looking into the dual MBA/MS program online but I am from NY and from what I hear Kelley is mostly regional and would not help me in the way I wanted it.

I am not too familiar with those programs, but I know that Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) has a Masters in Finance program, and it is a good overall program. You appear to be qualified for the program as well, based on your stats.

The program at Carnegie Mellon is quite good. My problem is I have a geographical restriction. I am applying to schools only within the state of Illinois. Have you come across any rankings for MS finance programs in the US?

Interested in entrepreneurship and have IB and mid market PE experience. Applied to HBS, Kellogg and Wharton. HBS Ding, Kellogg Admit and Wharton (awaiting R2 decision). I don't have much time between the enrollment decision date for Kellogg (4/2) and Wharton decision date (3/27), so I feel I need to make up my mind in advance. So... Kellogg or Wharton?

Are you looking to go into entrepeneurship, i.e. start your own business, or into the VC side? If entrepeneurship, then look for best fit. If VC, probably Wharton.

Most people I think would prefer K if everything was based on student life and fit, but if you don't have a preference of one over the other I would recommend Wharton. K has a rep as being strong in management and marketing, while Wharton is probably more well-rounded overall.

Honestly for pretty much anything finance related you want Wharton. Most people would have hard time picking Kellogg over Wharton, the few exceptions seem to really prefer the Kellogg community over Wharton or want a career in Marketing. Kelloggs deposit is only a grand so if you need to you could pay and go to Whartons admit weekend if you get in and see if that makes it easier to make the decision.

Thanks for your initial responses. A few additional thoughts:

I plan to start/buy a business during or post b-school but try to remain realistic about the odds of success. If things don't work out, I hope to get back into PE or VC (Does Wharton vs. Kellogg matter?)

I prefer Chicago to Philly but not necessarily to other east coast cities. (Any downside to a Wharton degree in the Chicago market? Does Kellogg have any pull on the east coast?)

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As we are nearing the end of the Ivey MBA experience, reflecting back on the past 10 months it's hard to imagine that we have only 2 months to go till the end of the program.

It's been quite a journey with its fair share of ups and downs. We are just finished our last exams for the core part of the Ivey MBA curriculum (Module 2b was all about Marketing, Leveraging Information Technology, and Managing Operations). This week has been quite intense for us, started with the trip to Toronto on Monday for the Auto show and meeting with the folks from BMW who talked to us about their brand positioning and marketing strategy.

Then came Tuesday when we presented possible IT ideas to Vancouver Olympics Committee to help enhance 2010 Winter Olympics. The icing on the cake was that they've promised to incorporate the top idea or two into their technology roadmap. So watch for a possibility of blogs coming to their website.

And then exams exams exams: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday!

Now we only have to take care of our Ivey Consulting Project, finishing which is going to make for a fun first week of March, being sarcastic here... Next week we have Sabre marketing simulation, which is supposed to feel as close to running a company as it gets in a virtual world. What makes it even more interesting is that we are competing in teams against other people our class. After Sabre is done, it's on to our last cycle of electives, which is going to last 7 weeks (each elective lasts 2 weeks, with a 3 hour class each day. I've decided that this is a home stretch so I might as well load up on knowledge, so I'm taking 2 courses each two weeks (New Venture Creation, Supply Chain, Advanced Communications, Entrepreneurial finance and Entrepreneurial manager, and Value Investing). I envision that this is going to be quite intense experience, considering that I'm still in the midst of my career search activities.

Can't wait for the MBA to be done, although somehow I think I'll miss it once its all over. It's been a fun and challenging experience. I loved the learning and will take away a lot of new friendships with a group of very bright and ambitious people!

Cheers,
George