Hello Everyone, Has anyone here ever heard of Wilfrid Laurier University? Is it a good school in Canada? How is it’s Master of Finance-COOP program?I heard WLU’s COOP program is really good. is that true? Please help… Thanks a lot, Benny
i did my undergrad up the street at uw. laurier has a pretty solid business school from what i’ve gathered. i know a bunch of people who graduated from their (undergrad) co-op and are doing quite well compared to friends of mine who majored in business at other schools, though it must have been their co-op program that gave them a head start. i’ve also met a couple of people in either senior or quasi-senior positions who did their masters at laurier, so the networking aspect also seems pretty solid.
thank you Supersharpshooter. that really helps…
By the way, Mr SuperSharpshooter, do you think it’s still worthwhile for me to do that Master of Finance-COOP program if i have already cleared all 3 levels of CFA?
i hail from wlu. got my bba there and if you already have taken the cfa exams, i’m assuming that program would be nearly useless to you. any course that says it will prep you to take the exams will not be teaching you new stuff. so the only benefit of taking this program would be to get a job, but i don’t think thats worth $20k. its a good school, we’re something like 1.5 tier, not quite uoft and queen’s, but i don’t know to many people who aren’t working in the field who wanted to. the only mfin worth taking in the country is uoft’s. take it from me, i would not go back to laurier for a master’s level course unless it were free. never get a master’s level course from any school outside of the top 3-5 in the country or it won’t yield a positive npv. i don’t know any successful laurier mba. the mba is basically just the bba with smarter people in general. one positive thing about this mfin is that the two finance teachers who run it are great guys. my two favourite teachers i’ve had.
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hey,Matt, thank you very much for the inputs. your opinion is really useful.Since i don’t have any finance related working experience.do you think bying doing the COOP at MFIN will help me open the door to the finance industry? Have you done your COOP at WLU? How is the COOP there? Is it easier to get a COOP job than a normal full time job? By the way, who are your two favorite teachers you had at WLU?
hey,Matt, thank you very much for the inputs. your opinion is really useful.Since i don’t have any finance related working experience.do you think bying doing the COOP at MFIN will help me open the door to the finance industry? Have you done your COOP at WLU? How is the COOP there? Is it easier to get a COOP job than a normal full time job? By the way, who are your two favorite teachers you had at WLU?
i’m sure for the mfin they’ll place with some certainty. i didn’t partake in the coop side of it all but it has the best placement in the country. all my friends who got jobs through coop have nothing but positive to say about it. rim plays a big role for most but obviously not so much for finance-oriented people. scotiabank was big for finance. the two teachers were smith and mcnally. they are the only two researching finance profs at laurier, the only ones worth any grant money anyway.
Also the two teachers who run the school fund, which makes them both very connected.
wow…sounds really great…BTW, Dr Smith is going to be my academic supervisor. So most likely, i will be working on some research paper under his supervision. I talked to him once on the phone, seems he is a really nice guy. So Matt and Adehbone, can you guys give me some infor regarding the reputation of WLU in GTA or Canada? I know it’s a good school. but seems WLU is not as reputable as UBC,UofT,Queens…Some people say that SFU ( simon fraser university) is better than WLU. Is that really true? I am really confused… Thank you for you guys great help and inputs.
SFU? Are you on the west coast? I could see WLU having no reputation out there, as Sauder and others run supreme. For the GTA, WLU has alumni at all the major 5 banks, with leaning from BMO/Scotia would say having the best relations, though alot of stars at RBC are WLU folk too. As well there is a series of buyside shops which have WLU alumni. Nowhere near the level of Rotman, Ivey and Queens though. I have no idea about the program your talking about, seems every school in Canada is just developing a masters of finance or blah degree. As well not sure how this differs from the MBA co-op and if you will competing for the same jobs as the MBA co-op finance majors. In terms of doing research with Brian Smith, he does most of his work in valuation and equity trends so I am sure someone having completed their levels of the CFA would enjoy very much working with him. I can see on the website there is currently 3 people in last years cohort, maybe you should contact them and ask how the co-op process worked for them.
adehbone’s pretty much got it. a lot of wluer’s are in the gta but i think that’s because this is one of the only places that will take us. no reputation on wall street or anywhere really outside of ontario. biggest reason for this is because we have a small group of alumni and we aren’t everywhere just yet. i’m sure our reputation will grow with our grads, until then, our top alumnus will remain, cfo of rim. we are more reputable for our accounting than our finance courses. we have had the highest pass rate on the ufe for any school in canada for the past 10+ years and our accounting professional alumnus are abundant, but our finance alumnus are few and far between. if you can get into the better schools, go to them. if you can’t, i wouldn’t take this course. i’ve considered this mfin and the mba myself as my wife now works at the school and i’d get tuition for free, but i haven’t pursued it as our grad school is not reputable in any way. for finance at least. i’d rather pay the 60k for a uoft mfin or mba as you could bring that to the states and it will actually pull some sort of weight. this school is difficult to figure out because its undergrad program is second to none, but its grad classes and school is second or maybe third to all. of the 10,000 full time students, 4000+ are bbas. the entire school is bbas. the mba program is just the bba program. i had mbas in my bba classes. don’t go to the school for anything but a bba. the bba’s reputation is good. the mba’s repututation is garbage in the finance world at least. i’m assuming the mfin’s reputation is similar to the mba’s as the school doesn’t have the resources to run any successful grad program.
Queens MFIN is the way to go
Don’t go to SFU
Hey MattLikesAnalysis, I hear that at WLU you can start taking and finishing up the CA courses in your UNDERGRAD! is that true ?? and then you proceed with the 2 years exp at a CA office and write the UFE exams…
Schulich is always an option 
I was accepted to Laurier, U of T, and York’s MBA programs and I decided to go with Schuilch because of their super flexible scheduling (you can switch between part time and full time every semester and they have part time evenings and part time weekends with flexibility), high ranking, and lowest tuition amongst the other big 3 (U of T, Queens, Western). I would never do Laurier MBA or MFIN because they are not an internationally recognized university so your degree won’t pull much weight outside Canada. I know Laurier is known for their undergrad but when I went to their MBA seminar in Toronto I was amazed by the type of people in the seminar. It seems like they accept pretty much anyone that can walk and has a big wallet. Queens, Richard Ivey, Rotmans, Schulich are all internationally recognized and ranked by various magazines and newspapers. If you can make into these schools, I would definitely pick them over Laurier.
Seems like Laurier does have a tight circle in certain sectors/organizations from what I have seen. That is for the general BBA program. For a more academic oriented discipline, such as a Masters in Finance, I would agree with the responses above. If it’s also not known particularly outside of the Ontario area, it probably isn’t worth it as much. Laurier has more of a reputation as a hands on, case study approach vs U of T (which loves their abstract, theoretical approach), or other grad focused institution. Macleans which does their university survery classifies Laurier in the ‘Comprehensive’ University (as well as York, Guelph, Brock) vs a PhD, Doctorate, Law type of classification for Waterloo, Queens, U of T, Western. Doing a more intense level of grad school, which focuses on the graduate programs does matter imo.
So what Canadian Post-Grad Finance programs are worth doing for someone who has or plans on clearing the CFA exams? A lot of the finance programs seem to be geared towards people who want help with the CFA. I thought about doing the MFRM at SFU just because it might be different but I heard from an alumni that it was garbage.
does anyone of this speeding up process of finishing the CA courses in ones undergrad ?