The weird universities that will get you a hedge fund job in Abu Dhabi
What’s the best university for a career in finance? It’s a subject of much debate. You could consult the list of UK target and semi-target universities, for example. Well, they can all move aside, because there might only be one real ranking in town: the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research’s list of universities whose graduates are eligible for the Abu Dhabi Golden Visa.
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The Abu Dhabi Golden Visa is a self-sponsored scheme by which productive and/or rich members of society can move to the UAE and enjoy its sweet, sweet culture and climate (and tax rate). You can get it through a few paths, such as investment in property, or by being the right kind of graduate.
What is the right kind of graduate? Well, it’s one who has graduated from a bachelor’s degree within the last two years, has a GPA of 3.5 out of 4.0 (or equivalent), and has attended one of 100 universities on a list published by the UAE itself. We’ve reproduced the list in full below.
It’s weird. For some reason, the Emirati government double-counted the University of Warwick in the UK and the University of Washington in the US. So there are actually only 98 universities on the list, although it’s unclear if the two UoWs were double counted because they were better perceived by the UAE. Probably not.
The other weird thing is that the list is a relatively straight copy of QS’ 2022 Rankings, but with some changes; Duke University in the US was removed, TU Munich in Germany was removed, and Paris-Saclay was removed (the original Top 100 was actually a Top 101 due to ties). It’s unclear why these three universities were removed.
Some quirks were more sad than anything else. No universities from the Middle East were on the list. Or universities in India, despite the strength of its IIMs/IITs historically. Or Africa. More than half of the universities were in just three Anglophone countries: the USA (27 of them), the UK (17 of them), and Australia (7 of them).
Some of the choices, being based on QS’ rankings, are also odd. In the UK at least, Sheffield, Leeds, and Southampton are on the list, and none of these are target universities, but Nottingham, Bath, and Exeter are not on the list, and all of these are all semi-target universities. In the US, all of the Ivy leagues are represented except Dartmouth. In Europe, there is no Bocconi, St Gallen, or HEC. All three are very much top tier universities.
Luckily, if you’ve attended a university off the list, you can still get a job in Abu Dhabi. Brevan Howard has built its Abu Dhabi office up to 150 people, and Rokos Capital Management secured a full licence there this year, among others. As far as we know, neither of them base their campus recruitment on QS’ rankings.
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