LSE vs Imperial

Question

Dear all,

I have received offers for the 1 year MiM at LSE, and MSc International Management at Imperial. I'm still waiting for a response for LSE's MSc Management & Strategy programme.

I'm am aiming to break into strategy consulting (MBB/global boutique) after my masters.

Personally, considering all 3, i believe MSc Mgmt. & Strategy provides the best opportunities as linkedin showed me strong alumni profiles, and the career destinations advertised on the programme webpage include the best strategy consultancies out there. It is also more interesting, as it is a specialist programme on strategy (behavioural economics) rather than a general management course (i did a Mgmt & Finance BSc, so a general mgmt programme would be repetitive).

If i don't get an offer for Mgmt & Strat, i'll have to choose between MiM at LSE or IM at Imperial. Any suggestions on how these weigh against each other?

Experience-sie... Imperial does provide more international opportunities with a trip to Europe and a weeklong consulting expedition to Brazil/India (don't know how covid-19 is going to affect this)... but I feel that it's business school isn't that reputable in strategy consulting when compared to LSE.

My current understanding from searching around is:

Prestiege for strategy consulting: LSE MS > LSE MiM > ICL IM
Course content: LSE MS > LSE MiM = ICL IM
International exposure: ICL IM > LSE MiM > LSE MS

Overall: LSE MS > LSE MiM ? ICL IM

Any suggestions on how i should weigh the MIM and IM and if i'm correct in that LSE Mgmt & Strategy is the best option? Thank you very much!

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

Hello!

Congrats on the acceptance anyways!

I like the way you have broken it into smaller KPIs, this a useful way to look at it.

My toughts:

Prestiege for strategy consulting: agree with you: LSE MS > LSE MiM > ICL IM
Course content: agree with you, I would go for LSE MS
International exposure: Not sure about this one honestly, both seem pretty strong to me and I know people in MBB who come from both schools.

Hence, I agree with an overall ranking of:

LSE MS
LSE MiM
CL IM

In any case, it´s pretty tight and I dont think you can make the wrong call here.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 2

Hi there,

I would agree with you that LSE Msc Mgmt & Strategy sounds like the best choice if you get an offer.

Between LSE MiM and Imperial MSc, my personally opinion would be that LSE is probably better. I think the brand is slightly better and I have more consultant colleagues from LSE compared to Imperial.

International experience wouldn't give you a huge advantage in consulting, unless you want to apply to an international office.

Good luck!

Best,

Emily

Answer 3

Hi!

You're in a nice position to be able to choose. Here are a few criteria to keep in mind when choosing an MBA program:

Expert Guide: Are MBAs worth it?

Best,
Cristian

Answer 4

Hi there,

I can't comment on course content, but if you are looking to maximize your chances of getting into strategy consulting, I definitely would say:

LSE MS > LSE MiM > CL IM

Also, if it helps, I wouldn't sweat the international opportunities. First, COVID will almost certainly have an effect on this (particularly for Brazil and India!).

Secondly, with your trajectory, you're going to get plenty of oppotunities for international exposure - so much so that I would posit that by the end of your career you'll be sick of work travel! :)

p.s. affected by...have an effect on :)

Answer 5

Dear Jason,

You're absolutely right that LSE has stronger reputation and the curriculum doesn't seem more attractive from the first impression than the one from in parallel college. Nevertheless, both schools are really great, if you were to decide between two of them, just listen to your heart. And as you've already mentioned LSE is already the right one.

Wish you good luck,

André