University of Chicago - MS in Financial Mathematics

UChicago - Financial Mathematics

Pending 7 Waitlisted 7 Accepted 455 Rejected 258

Overview Rankings Jobs Admissions Tuition Applications Reviews (53) Discussion

Location: Chicago, IL 60637

Application deadline: Jan 8 (round 1), Mar 26 (round 2)

Currently the Program offers 15 months of accelerated, integrated coursework that explores the deep-rooted relationship that exists between theoretical and applied mathematics and the ever-evolving world of finance. To assist our students with applying theory to practice, we offer Project Labs with area employers to help build out our student's skills and knowledge about the quant industry. Our Program, with its unmatched student body and highly accomplished faculty, works hard to uphold the University’s core values by creating an atmosphere that encourages intellectual collaboration and growth.

Lastly, students of the MSFM Program at the University of Chicago enjoy a world-class education. Courses are taught by a combination of established academics and industry professionals. Beyond academics, the MSFM Program offers students the opportunity to grow both privately and professionally. Networking events are held regularly to encourage communication and professional growth.

Our mission is to equip our students with a solid foundation in mathematics, and in doing so provide them with practical knowledge that they can successfully apply to complicated financial models. Our students become leaders in their field; program alumni have gone forth to find success at companies like JP Morgan, UBS, and Goldman Sachs.

The program offers two types of merit-based scholarship. All applicants are considered. No separate application required.
Alpha Scholarship recipients are offered a financial award in the amount of 60% of total tuition costs in 2023. Maroon Scholarship recipients are offered a financial award in the amount of 30% of total tuition costs in 2023.

University of Chicago Master of Science in Financial Mathematics

Andy Nguyen
10/14/24
5

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2026 Ranking Data

Rank: 7

Total Score: 79

Peer Score: 3.6

Employed at Graduation (%): 73%

Employed at 3 months (%): 91%

% Employed in the US: 84%

Graduates report rate: 98%

Compensation: $140,250

Base salary: $123,867

Salary report rate: 100%

Cohort Size: 118 FT, 6 PT

Acceptance Rate (%): 22.0%

Yield Rate: 36.4%

Tuition: $100,693

Views: 82,634

First release: 4/12/13

Last update: 4/12/13

Ratings

4.72 star(s) 53 reviews 4.64 star(s) Students Quality 4.73 star(s) Courses/Instructors 4.55 star(s) Career Services

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Latest reviews

Headline: Strong program, outcome still depends on you

Graduation Class: 2025

Reviewed by Verified Member

Background
International student, engineering undergrad with ~2 years work experience. Coming in, I was not from a traditional econ/math/stat/cs background, so I had to actively build up my foundation in probability, statistics, coding, and market intuition over the course of the program.

Courses & Academic Rigor
Overall, the academic side is about as rigorous as I expected from UChicago. If you choose your courses well, you can get a genuinely technical experience, heavy on probability, statistics, machine learning, and numerical methods.

The core sequence that most students take (Stochastic Calculus, Option Pricing, Portfolio, Python) is generally well-designed and closely aligned with common quant interview topics, which definitely helps during recruiting. These courses gave me a solid baseline when it came to interview preparation.

The big positive, in my view, is the flexibility: you can push into more advanced material by taking Stats, CS, Math, or Booth courses. For example, I focused more heavily on Statistics electives (time series, ML, optimization, etc.). For someone with a decent foundation who wants to stretch technically, this is where the program really shines.

That said, there is noticeable variance in technical depth across courses. Some programming or ML classes are intentionally accessible to students with weaker backgrounds, which can feel too basic if you already have serious CS or Stats training. In those cases, you need to be proactive:
- look up syllabi early,
- shop around in the first weeks,
- don’t be afraid to drop a “safe” course for something more demanding.

Hence, the program can be extremely rigorous, but that rigor is not automatically imposed on you. It’s very much a “you get out what you optimize for” situation.

Cohort & Culture
The cohort is large and diverse in background. You’ll meet people who are genuinely very strong technically, alongside others who are still building confidence in areas like coding or probability. From a quantitative standpoint, this variance is both a strength and a structural trade-off. In some courses, pacing naturally targets the middle, which can feel slower if you’re ahead or more intense if you’re behind.

That said, I’ve had a very positive experience with the cohort culture. People are extremely approachable, collaborative, and willing to share knowledge: whether that’s helping debug code, walking through a math concept, or doing interview prep together. Rather than being competitive in an unhealthy way, the environment strongly encourages mutual support.

What makes this especially valuable is the opportunity to leverage complementary strengths. Some classmates are very strong mathematically, others excel in implementation, and others bring market intuition or prior industry experience. When you actively engage with your peers, socially and academically, you benefit from this collective depth. In my experience, the program is at its best when you treat the cohort not as a uniform group, but as a network of people with different strengths you can learn from and grow alongside.

Career Services & Job Market
The dedicated career office and admin team are genuinely engaged. They run many events (some more useful than others) and are responsive when you reach out. They are especially helpful with alumni connections, recruiter outreach, and internship/full-time negotiation questions.

However, it’s important to be clear: they do not and cannot place you into front-office quant roles. For competitive QR/QT/QD positions, outcomes are driven mainly by technical depth, problem-solving ability under pressure, and the amount of independent prep you put in outside of class.

Project Labs are useful, particularly for gaining your first “real” line on the resume and having concrete experiences to discuss in interviews. But these are inputs, not guarantees. Expect to send 100-200+ applications and deal with many rejections, even with a strong profile.

Additional Notes
- The quarter system + recruiting means the first quarter is brutal. Treat interviews and job applications as an extra heavy course from day one.
- Don’t assume every quant-sounding elective is advanced; read syllabi and talk to seniors
- Networking helps, but for quant roles, technical competence is non-negotiable.

Overall
I’m glad I chose FinMath. It gave me the structure, brand, and environment to build on my engineering background and break into quant roles. It definitely rewards students who are self-driven and care about technical depth.

I would recommend the program to students who are ready to treat it as a toolbox and not a guarantee.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 5.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

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Anonymous
5.00 star(s)
6/9/25

Headline: A Rigorous Program at the Intersection of Finance, Data, and Industry

Graduation Class: 2022

The program is both rigorous and flexible, offering cross-listed courses from the Economics Department and Booth School of Business. The diverse cohort—including mature students—adds depth to discussions, while capstone projects with industry partners provide real-world experience. With options to specialize in areas like financial data science or algorithmic trading, the program is a strong launchpad for careers in quantitative finance.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 5.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

Upvote 0 Downvote

QuantumEnjoyer
5.00 star(s)
5/18/25

Headline: Fantastic Opportunity but bad classmates

Graduation Class: 2025

**Growth**
FINM at Uchicago is a fantastic opportunity to gain access to some of the best resources in the world for learning math and statistics. The best part about this program is the flexibility and the ability to take courses in other departments. There are good courses in FINM such as the quant trading class. Also there are fantastic professors such as mark, lawler, and seb. People tend to love the Option Pricing Class. I thought it was so stupid and basic. Everything in that class is trivial if you know sto calc

**Cohort**
There is low expectations for the average student combined with large flexibility. This results in many students in the class being straight up dumb. Like can't code and don't know basic math concepts that every quant should know. It's crazy to me that someone in this program doesn't know the difference between an eigen vector and eigen value.

**Hiring**
The large difference in skill makes this degree less valuable. It is extremely hard to determine someone's skill level when hiring, thats why many firms rely on the degree to filter out canidates. A FINM degree will put you on the top of the stack at some firms but get you filtered out at the very top firms. This shows just how large of a skill gap there is in quant finance. Some truely are experts in their fields. While others can simply run a python script and understand what a probability distribution (which puts them ahead of the average finance graduate. So still a good hiring sign for a good amount of firms). Alumni network is fantastic. They know some truely good talent can come out of this program but that they just need to filter out the bad apples.

**Advice to Program**
- Allow people to take more classes outside FINM
- Quants is so different then other recruiting. Hire a career advisor who is actually a fucking quant
- Give Meredith a raise. She's the goat. I dont even know how much she makes but she deserves to be paid more
- Allow synchronous lecture attendance
- Try more flipped classrooms. Since students widly vary in knowledge level, it can take one student a long time to understand a concept while others already know it. Instead of forcing every student to burn 3 hours a week, make it flexible. So students that already know a topic can spend time elsewhere.
- FINM needs to be target towards a specific target audience instead of a variety of backgrounds. UChicago is the best in the world for math and stats so you should target people with the backrounds. Overtime you'll gain a reputation for producing rigourous quants who deeply know the math. So make the program even more mathy!! Like measure theory level!
- Going off of above, allow students to do PhDs or masters thesis papers. This is what top talent mathy people want to do, they want to do their own math!

**Overall**
Overall I absolutely love the flexibility this program provides because it allowed me to push myself in more advanced topics. However some people don't take advantage of this opportunity and it can be frustrating to see these people cheese the interview game while you are focusing actually understanding the material at a deep level. I don't see this as a negative for the program but rather an issue with how hiring is done in quant finance.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 3.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

Upvote 2 Downvote

zerosixtwo
5.00 star(s)
2/22/25

Headline: Excellent program

Graduation Class: 2024

Professors/course instruction: The course material generally leans towards more theoretical and much of the content takes an academic approach. You may use more complex versions of formulas or take assumptions that are not true in real markets or that you would see as a junior at work, but I found this very helpful for deeper understanding when applying said material to real scenarios that are imperfect. Professors in this program are excellent and students are able to take cross-listed courses with other departments as well (notably, CS/Stats). Excellent faculty includes Roger Lee, Seb Donadio, Greg Lawler, Brian Boonstra, and Alex Popovici. Other students also especially liked Mark Hendricks - personally, his teaching style didn't work out for me. Special shoutout to Lek-Heng's optimization class as well.

Students: made a lot of lasting friends here. It's a large cohort so there is a bit of variance in seriousness and background, but you will find that there are many very talented students. Met a couple of guys here who are possibly the brightest I've run into, you know who you are.

Career outcomes: overall excellent. A fair number of students are headed to leading hedge funds and proprietary trading firms. I would say that this program helped me with landing a trading role and understanding markets on a deeper level.

S/o Meredith

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 5.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

Upvote 1 Downvote

bomichron
5.00 star(s)
2/10/25

Headline: Skillset, Opportunity, Experience

Graduation Class: 2021

I am a domestic student with a finance undergrad. Commenting on the professors, career development office (CDO), courses, etc.

Professors:
Roger
Roger is, as of this writing, the head of the program. That is the least of his credentials. More impressive: Roger has intuited the Black-Scholes pricing formula. Rattle off five input variables and he’ll compute output on the spot for all standard option types. Get him going on exotics and the temperature generally increases 1-3F in his immediate proximity, which is nice in the winter.

Mark
Mark is the personification of pedagogy. You won’t understand regression in his class, you’ll become the best linear estimator of a curve. I heard he was offered Fed Chair but declined it because teaching is his vocation. Understand the potential you have as his student. Mark will find and nurture that potential. He will imbue you with knowledge so arcane it will leave you speaking in tongue. All of that, and he’s handsome. Unfair!

Seb
Rumor has it, Seb’s first words were “100110100011…” He won a collegiate robotics competition at the age of four. He never conducts class from the same location twice (he once proctored a final while scuba diving 40 miles from the Seychelles archipelago). Some believe he employs holographic clones to teach at multiple universities simultaneously.

Brian
Brian is akin to a war veteran. Not the wars you know, but the wars that are too large to be seen. He fought in the great battle of the algorithms in the early 90’s and knows what actually happened during the flash crash of 2010. He is somewhat of a walking mosaic of corrected market inefficiencies—what were once lesser quants’ alphas.

Lawler
Long ago the world was deterministic. How deterministic? Too deterministic, if you asked Greg Lawler. That’s why Lawler invented randomness. And so, as Lawler prescribed, the world became flush with unpredictability. This pleased Lawler because he, ever the opportunist, had already written “Stochastic Calculus” and would go on to enjoy heightened book sales.

CDO+
Emily
Emily’s voice is like a summer’s breeze
Gracing quantlets’ hearts in need
Her song brings rest, salvation, ease
Her melody cures all student pleas

Meredith
If you’re reading this years from now and Meredith is no longer there, two things are certain: 1. That sucks for you 2. Meredith is still making the world a brighter place, as she did within those hallowed halls of the Stevanovich Center for Financial Mathematics. Meredith is the program’s best kept secret. Some say UChicago is where fun goes to die, but that was before Meredith arrived. You’d be best served getting to know her as quickly as possible. She quite literally can open doors for you (to the locked kitchen for a timely refreshment), or if you’re lucky, she may just end up being the sister you never had.

Courses:
Any course offered by the above instructors is worth your time. They’re great instructors and teach the most critical modules.

General
Job market
You’re typically well-suited for trading / market making and quant research coming out of this program. Your success on the job market is predominantly a function of your individual effort, which is true for any program, but with that said, their career development team is immensely helpful and a resource to utilize in your hunt. If you join the program with passion and intention (vs. uncritically following a path others left for you), then I think you’ll get everything you want out of this program career-wise.

Project Labs
Project Labs are my favorite aspect of the program—I did one every semester. Never will it be easier to get exposure to different sub-fields of quant finance (for those with an open-mind exploring the industry). Project Labs are quick, concentrated exposures to problems actual practitioners are facing. Most of all, they help you expand your network. I find that the average aspiring quant underestimates the importance of networking. You’re awkward, but take responsibility for it and don’t make that mistake. Networks are like cheat codes for getting the best finance jobs.

I’ve fielded occasional concerns from international students about the UChicago brand value, specifically whether it carries outside the US. UChicago is an institution. UChicago invented the free market!!! Ever heard of it?!? Your employers have. I digress.

Wrapping up: the program is definitely one where you come out the other end better equipped to *actually* solve real world problems. You’re paying for a skillset, career opportunities, and a great experience. Chicago is a beautiful and well connected city, your classmates are smart and accomplished, and I am increasingly proud to be an alumni.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 4.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

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Anonymous
4.00 star(s)
1/27/25

Headline: Exceeds Expectations

Graduation Class: 2025

Reviewed by Verified Member

Overall, the program’s pretty solid and would provide an excellent platform for you as long as your expectations are tempered.

Courses/Instructor:

The coursework is well structured and should equip you with knowledge you’d need to get the job done. The first term is comprised of mandatory core courses which, imo, are excellent for interview prep and for equipping you with the basic skillset you’d need as a quant on a day-to-day basis. Next term onwards, you can tailor your degree based on what you want to study using electives (and there are a lot of them). There also freedom to pick courses from other departments (up to 3, I think) and with the right mix of outside department and cross-listed courses you can virtually tailor your degree to focus on anything and everything

Student Quality:

Competitive and smart cohort, overall. But it is a big cohort (~150) so there is of course variability and diversity.

Career Services:

They really do try to put in their best efforts to get a job. Very responsive and will provide you with all resources you would need to prepare including recommended reading and putting you in touch with alumni. There’s also a constant flurry of networking events (which some find useful but I am, personally, not a big fan of). But don’t expect that the career services will just get you a job. That is still very much something you’ll have to do yourself. They will, however, provide you with resources which will surely help you on the job hunt path.

Career Outcomes:

The job market is in a bit of a mess right now so I am not sure how applicable might this be if/when the market picks up. However, as things stand, if you are coming in without much relevant experience or to pivot, the program will help you to get your foot in. If you are coming in with a quant or aligned background, the program will give you an edge in your attempt to step upwards. But if you are expecting the program will magically get you a QR/QT role at the CitSec/Jane Streets of the world when you weren’t getting any interview calls before, I am not sure it would work out. Front Office roles aren’t very common. A lot of the roles are MO/Risk/Support roles. Buy-side front office roles are even rarer and it would be fairly uncommon seeing folks getting these especially if you need visa sponsorship. That being said, afaik, mostly everyone in the previous batch who was looking for an internship got one and mostly everyone got a job too. The current batch is still in the internship search process and, hopefully, by summers a vast majority of the batch will have internships.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 4.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 4.00 star(s)

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BNR
5.00 star(s)
1/26/25

Headline: UChicago review

Graduation Class: 2024

The curriculum provided a strong foundation in quantitative finance while allowing flexibility to choose courses that aligned with my interests, from stochastic calculus to machine learning applications in finance. The faculty is highly knowledgeable and approachable, always willing to guide students. Additionally, the Career Development Office (CDO) is extremely supportive, offering invaluable resources for networking, job applications, and interview preparation. This program significantly enhanced my technical skills and deepened my understanding of financial markets.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 4.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 4.00 star(s)

Career Services: 4.00 star(s)

Upvote 0 Downvote

UMQuant
5.00 star(s)
1/19/25

Headline: Exceptional Program, Lots of Opportunities

Graduation Class: 2024

The University of Chicago’s Financial Mathematics (FinMath) program has been an exceptional experience. When I was applying to graduate programs two years ago, I had a clear idea of what I wanted, and UChicago FinMath delivered beyond my expectations. I apologize for the lengthy review– there is plenty to share!

Admissions:
The admissions process was refreshing and student-focused. Upon admission, program staff promptly engaged with us, addressing questions and providing guidance. The “Ask Me Anything” sessions for admitted students were particularly insightful, with both staff and current students offering valuable advice. Post-enrollment, we participated in interactive coursework on internship preparation and resume refinement, setting the tone for a professionally enriching experience.

Instruction Quality:
The quality of instruction is one of the program’s standout features. Faculty members, drawn from both academia and industry, share their unique expertise and insights. Each instructor excels at communicating complex topics in a way that is both engaging and accessible. This ensures a high-quality learning experience across the board. Utilize their expansive knowledge!

Courses:
I can say with certainty that I drew important skills and knowledge from each course I took. I will detail a few of my highlights below.

Computing for Finance in Python:
This course is taught by Sebastian Donadio was a great way to begin the program. Seb’s instruction is easy to digest and always opens the door to what comes next. Despite my limited coding experience, I found the course approachable and engaging. Even peers with advanced coding skills found valuable insights in the course. Seb is always willing to push you further! One unique challenge that came about with our cohort was ChatGPT. During exams, the emergence of paid ChatGPT subscriptions highlighted challenges in balancing AI usage with demonstrating personal mastery. Unfortunately, having access to the newest GPT model for either exam made a significant difference in performance. Even without them, I was still thrilled to have taken the course. I was able to transform my coding abilities over the course of a few months. I went from not writing functional code during online assessments to passing them with time to spare. I attribute this growth primarily to this course.

I would reassure students concerned by the prevalence of ChatGPT in academia that instructors are addressing the issue and are rapidly evolving coursework to reward students who can demonstrate knowledge without using ChatGPT as a crutch. Proper usage of AI is crucial in this day and age, but blind and heavy reliance on LLMs is only setting people up for failure. Instructors in this program and beyond are quickly finding ways to ensure students are best prepared for industry.

Option Pricing / Numerical Methods:
These two courses, taught by Roger Lee, are undoubtedly highlights of the program. Even with a background in financial mathematics from undergrad, I gained significant insights from these classes. Roger skillfully combines a rigorous, mathematics-based approach to options and derivatives with the practical intuition that industry practitioners rely on for efficiency. The homework and exams often feature problems that can be tackled using advanced, formal mathematics. However, Roger’s solution guides stand out for their elegant and concise methods, offering invaluable learning opportunities. I strongly recommend that students invest time in studying his solutions, as they reveal powerful techniques that streamline complex problems.

Any of Mark Hendricks’ Courses:
Mark Hendricks offers a number of courses including an introductory “Markets” section for incoming students, Portfolio and Risk Management, Fixed Income, and Fixed Income Derivatives. I took the three offered courses and made an effort to sit in on as many Markets lectures as possible. Another highlight of the program is the common 3-hour lecture style. For better or worse, it is the layout chosen to accommodate most schedules and allow for flexibility during the day. Mark’s lectures were all three hours, but felt as though I had sat down to watch a well-designed YouTube documentary. It is one of those presentation styles that is extremely engaging and enjoyable to sit through. We cover a number of topics that are highly technical requiring high level mathematics and coding, but he is able to synthesize it so that people of different academic backgrounds can understand it better.

Career Development Office:
The Career Development Office (CDO) is our office dedicated to helping connect students to the next phase of their career regardless of where you are coming from. They devise endless opportunities to sharpen your skills, meet new people, and interact with firms in the industry. Early in the program, the CDO provides workshops covering essential behavioral and technical interviewing skills in time for the internship search ramping up. These sessions continue to be available throughout the program. Simultaneously, they arrange for many employer events where students are able to hear from and interact with various companies and alumni. These sessions helped me discern the various career paths available to students upon graduation. Outside of these group events, CDO also works 1-on-1 to help each student navigate the career search. They are able to connect you with alumni at companies you are interested in working at, help you draft communications, and everything in between. Personally, CDO helped me navigate the negotiation process as well as helped me formulate requests for my full-time contract.

Academic Services and Administration:
The Academic Services and Administration (ASA) team is essential to the smooth operation of the FinMath program. Their work can be categorized as both program-facing and student-facing. Behind the scenes, they coordinate employer events, office visits, interview labs, admissions, alumni engagement, and more. For students, ASA provides invaluable support, including course advice, visa assistance, and general guidance on any topic. I would argue that the “home base” of the FinMath program is in Meredith’s office. Before and after any lecture, event, exam, and sometimes just out of the blue, myself and many other students head to her office to hang out and talk with her. I sometimes feel bad talking with her while she works, but she has ELITE multitasking skills and is somehow able to do it all! Special shoutout to Meredith! She is so crucial to the program’s success. Overall, ASA is very necessary to the success of the program.

Unique Characteristics:
What truly sets FinMath apart, beyond its robust academics, is its unique culture. The program brings together students from diverse academic and professional backgrounds, fostering an environment of collaboration and mutual growth. This diversity creates opportunities for students to leverage their strengths while learning from one another. For example, I was able to share my insights in our math-intensive courses, while benefiting from peers with extensive coding expertise. When I was evaluating programs, I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of this collaborative culture. Reflecting now, I’m not sure such a dynamic environment could exist elsewhere to the same degree as it does at FinMath.

Outcomes:
Overall, I couldn’t be more satisfied with my decision to attend the University of Chicago’s Master’s in Financial Mathematics program. To provide some context, I studied mathematics as an undergraduate with a concentration in financial mathematics. While this gave me a solid mathematical foundation, I recognized the need to deepen my expertise in finance, programming, and machine learning to pursue a career as an industry quant. After researching several programs, I chose FinMath based on the strong endorsements from alumni and the comprehensive curriculum. Many of the positive experiences I had read about aligned closely with my own goals, making the decision an easy one.

Coming straight from undergrad with no industry experience, I initially worried about how I would bridge that gap. However, FinMath quickly put those concerns to rest. I enrolled in the Project Lab course, which allowed me to gain hands-on experience and bolster my resume with meaningful projects. Through the FinMath career fair, I connected with a company where I secured an internship, which later converted into a full-time role after graduation.

My last reflection on the program is that it has a component of self-direction where you may make of it what you wish. There are plenty of opportunities presented to you, and as a grad student, you have the OPTION to take advantage of them. Due to the flexibility the curriculum, students can challenge themselves (or not) as they see fit. I encourage future students to challenge themselves and make the most of the program’s valuable opportunities. Taking the challenging courses is how you grow and make the most of your time and money.

Feel free to message me on LinkedIn at William Bellinger if you have any questions about the program!

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 5.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

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Anonymous
1.00 star(s)
1/18/25

Headline: AVOID This Program!!!

Graduation Class: 2024

This program deserves only one star as they still have Roger Lee, otherwise it will be worth 0 star with no doubt. It’s not a rare or radical opinion – Many students hold the same view with me. Nor this is not a review from a biased bad student - I got job offers after graduation, and I have very decent grades in my undergrad.

Pro:

- The only Pro of this program is Professor Roger Lee - He is a master in the field of option pricing and his teaching is tremendously great. The course contents & lecture notes are well-designed, and he can explain complicated concepts in a very clear way. Homework and exams are also very properly designed such that they help you gain deeper insights in derivatives pricing.

- Some of my classmates also like Professor Lawler, but in my opinion his teaching is merely at or below the average quality of my undergraduate math courses. Probably you will have better experience if you are his PhD students.

Cons:

- Many useless courses wasting your tuition!!! Their curriculum titles seem fancy, but in reality many of them are either too basic (at or even below a college sophomore level) or instructors don’t care about it at all.
 Any courses related to programming and machine learning are extremely badly structured (e.g., Python programming, full stack tools for quant fin, machine learning for fin). Trust me, your undergraduate CS/Stats classes are way much better than these.
 You can also clearly tell that some instructors are just wasting time and teach something which probably a college sophomore already mastered, and assign some useless homework to keep you busy, but you wont learn anything from them.
 Basically you are paying over $90,000 tuition and won’t learn much things comparing to your undergrad education.

- Career services is just a joke. Those staffs do not even have a real career themselves, how come they are capable in advising you to get a six-figure job?

- Don’t be deceived by the job placement rate they reported to QuantNet. The statistics look better only because they admit more students with full-time work experience than other programs with similar QuantNet ranking. But if you are a student go straight from college, you will struggle with finding a decent job whichever program you go to.

- Some of their staffs act like toxic parents - They want to control everything over you. If you let them know you get an offer, they will keep harassing you to withdraw your other job applications/interviews in order to let other students potentially have interview opportunities. I mean, seriously?

- Btw I can’t believe a professor can have romantic relationship with students. If it’s in my undergraduate university, the professor will be fired immediately without any doubt.

So unless you are very determined to work in a derivatives pricing related job after graduation, otherwise I don’t recommend this program at all.

Recommend: No, I would not recommend this program

Students Quality: 3.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 2.00 star(s)

Career Services: 1.00 star(s)

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kausthub
5.00 star(s)
1/17/25

Headline: Experience as an International Student

Graduation Class: 2024

I graduated from the program in December 2024 and can unequivocally say that it was a brilliant experience. My undergrad was in mathematics research and I had a couple of years of work experience in risk management before joining the program. I moved to Chicago from India to attend the program, and it was a big decision for me.
The academics, projects, career support, and peer group are top-notch, as described by my fellow cohort and alum in other reviews on this page. I shall share my experience from the lens of an international student (as a significant number of applicants are international) and how the program helped in specific areas.

1) Networking and How to Go About It
The career office and everyone in the program encouraged the students to network as much as possible with alumni, industry professionals visiting the program, and company representatives during career events. A number of events were organized which provide you with many opportunities to network. Like many of my cohort, I too secured my internship through a connection I made during one of the career events organized by the program. The program organizes “how to network” workshops too, which can be very helpful for students not used to the idea of networking events.

2) Setting Expectations of Rigorous Work and Application Rejections
The university follows a quarter system, which is quite rigorous compared to the semester system that I was used to and most other students might be more familiar with. The admin team (Meredith, Dylan, and Eliza) were super helpful in sharing insights about how to deal with academics, course selection, and expected workloads. We were told right from the get-go that the first quarter was going to be super hectic with coursework, career events, and applications. The goal of the program is to get into the quant finance industry after graduation, so the program encourages more focus on the internship/full-time process during peak hiring cycles, which is practical. Most courses and professors are okay with extending deadlines if you have an interview that you are preparing for.
The number of internship applications by many students exceeds 100, and this was shocking for me initially. The CDO ingrained the mantra of "apply apply apply" and encourages you to keep applying. Internship/full-time applications are like an additional course, and the program remarked on the time-consuming aspect of applications. We had alumni share candid experiences of rejections after gruelling rounds of interviews and superdays. Simply put, everyone in the program painted a realistic picture of what we were getting into. This trained us mentally to be prepared for straight-up rejections (some companies automatically reject based on what you might have filled in your application), ignored emails, and crushing final-round rejections.

3) CDO Support in Communications
As a student with prior work experience in India, I was conscious of the fact that “work communication” might be different. Phrasing emails to recruiters, interviewers, and potential contacts with the right tone was important. The CDO would help out in those as well. They offer to review your emails to ensure that they come across with the right intention. Some of my friends who were not too confident in English were also helped by the CDO in responding to recruiters and HR.

4) Peer Group and Alumni Network
This is the strongest aspect of the program in my opinion. I got to meet so many people from different professional backgrounds loosely connected to finance and learn about their journeys and bond over shared experiences. The best part of the program was that everyone struggled together—whether it was the Python assignments, QTS homework, or internship applications, it was a team effort, and we supported each other throughout.
The alumni connect was extremely helpful in discussing interview prep, courses to select, full-time search strategy, and even sensitive topics like negotiating compensation and benefits. The CDO helps you in reaching out to alumni and organizes multiple events to facilitate meeting alum from different areas in quant finance. Some of the alumni who were themselves, international students, shared candid feedback on the work sponsorship process and tips to filter for companies that provide sponsorship while applying.

Overall, I believe the program is thoughtfully designed, with particular attention given to addressing the unique needs and nuances of supporting international students.

Recommend: Yes, I would recommend this program

Students Quality: 5.00 star(s)

Courses/Instructors: 5.00 star(s)

Career Services: 5.00 star(s)

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