Quant Guide 2021: Imperial College Business School

London, UK

Photo: Imperial College London/Christian Richters

 

 

The MSc Risk Management and Financial Engineering at Imperial Business School is among the most popular and selective of those featured in Risk.net’s Quant Guide. For the latest intake, the 12-month programme received 1,390 applications – among the highest – and enrolled 158 students.

The MSc also expanded its team of teaching staff, adding five new instructors over the past year. Lara Cathcart, associate professor of finance, remains the programme’s academic director.

Many participants in this year’s guide reported a drop in student numbers as a result of deferrals or travel restrictions. Imperial College Business School didn’t seem to have a problem on that front, with just one student fewer in the latest intake versus last year’s cohort. It also enrolled the same number of international students this year, 147.

Currently, around 60% of the programme’s instruction is conducted remotely. The business school, like a number of other institutions featured in the guide, has adopted a hybrid teaching model, designed to accommodate both in-person classes and virtual remote learning.

“We rotate the classes in small groups of 35, so that students all have some in-class and online teaching,” says Christopher Neill, assistant director for finance programmes. “We can schedule timetables to suit students’ time zones, although the vast majority have come to the UK.”

Imperial also has its own contact tracing system in operation, Neill adds. If a student develops symptoms of coronavirus, they – and their bubble, if they live with fellow students – will be asked to self-isolate. In the case that an instructor needs to self-isolate, their programme material is delivered online.

View this institution’s entry in the 2020 guide

View other universities and a guide to the metrics tables