Best choice from these unis?
About to enter Y13 next year and I've been encouraged to make a shortlist of potential unis and courses I'd like to apply for on UCAS. Would appreciate if anyone could give me some advice as to which unis are better than others for graduate employability in finance in London. Not getting into IB won't be the end of the world for me, cos I'll probably apply for big4/tier 2 accounting, ER, etc so don't base these entirely off of IB placement.
1) BSc Finance, Accounting and Management or Industrial Economics (Nottingham) AAA
2) BSc Accounting and Finance (Exeter) AAA
3) BSc Accounting and Finance (Southampton) AAB
4) BSc Accounting and Finance (Newcastle) AAB
5) Accounting, Business Finance and Management (York) AAB
6) BSc Economics and Accounting (somewhere like Leicester/UEA) ABB
Go to Notts, mate. They place pretty damn well into banking, and you'll have a great university experience at the same time. For some reason, I've seen a lot more people on LinkedIn from Notts that have studied Industrial Economics than anything else.
Thanks for your advice and quick reply.
So Industrial Econ over FAM? I don’t have to decide now but might as well
Say if I wanted to go into Big 4 first, then make the switch to banking, would I still need to go to a semi-target or target such as Nottingham to get into banking or would the Big 4 exp, chartered accountant qualification and degree from somewhere like Southampton or Newcastle be fine.
I'm doing a regional big4 internship and from what I've seen from colleague's unis the tier of newcastle/southampton is fine for (regional) big4 recruiting, given you get good grades, sport/society involvement, and are on the ball with the recruitment process prep (nailing the video interview etc). London seems to be more competitive and a different atmosphere from regional offices so I can't comment on that. Would recommend grinding for notts though
I'd reach out to some people at Nottingham on LinkedIn for the FAM vs Industrial Econ question. I don't attend Nottingham so I can't comment. For your second question, again, I don't work in banking yet, but I've seen people on LinkedIn that have lateraled to places like Rothschild having started at the Big 4 as an apprentice (as in, not even going to university). Therefore, don't think it'd really matter where you went to university as long as you secured the Big 4 job and proved yourself there. What A-Levels / predicted grades do you have?
Haven’t received predicted grades but it’s probably at least AAB
Tbh the FAM degree probably allows for more exemptions from ACCA/ICAEW exams since it has accounting in the title so that might be the better option.
What drives you towards accounting rather than banking?
I guess mainly because I know a lot of accountants/accounting graduates who are my dads mates/colleagues and they all have good jobs working with good wlb. None of them work for firms like GS or JPM but all seem to be doing well so I’ve seen living proof that IB isn’t everything. Also the hours in banking are crazy 😂 and I don’t feel the need to earn that much money at my first job. I’d rather work in the Big 4 and gain experience with clients etc than work back office at a BB.
You will still be working 60+ hours at the start of your career in accounting at the Big 4 for about a quarter of the pay of banking. The accountants you know with good WLB have that because they are senior.
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