Stony Brook University - Master in Quantitative Finance

When reviewing a university program, I like to focus on three main points: quality of education, career opportunities, and cost.

1) Education: This is probably where the program is at its best. Most of the coursework you will see at Stony Brook is well chosen. The program is definitely math oriented, focusing on some more intense coursework. There are a few courses for me that fell flat during the degree. Keep in mind that graduate education is what you make of it, you could probably go through this program without learning anything if you wanted. Most of the professors are pretty solid, a few of which standout. They are incredibly helpful and will spend a lot of time helping you out.

2) Career Opportunities: This has been the most publicly debated point. Unfortunately these programs do not come with a guaranteed full time offer, so I can't confidently tell you that going to Stony Brook will get you the job you want. I would argue that career services could be doing more for their students. There were some opportunities when I was there that I was able to take advantage of (student assistantships, research) that I believe was critical for my career path. I think what people struggle with here is their inability to lead themselves through these processes. Someone who is capable of getting themselves where they need to be for interviews, networking, etc. will put less blame SBU's career services department. Do not expect Stony Brook to hand you an internship. I believe there were some programs that forced internships on students, not sure how well that worked out long-term.

Side note here, I would be cautious with employment opportunity based discussions that have taken place over the last few years. The job market is horrible for everyone at the moment. We should use this as a test case for MFE programs. Compare it to a portfolio manager - it's easy to be up when the market is good, downturns tell who is finding an edge. I kind of imagine a lot of these programs were just riding the high of the late-2010's/early 2020's hiring spree.

3) Cost: Another huge strong section for Stony Brook. I've been a student before - I understand how difficult it can be to put money in perspective. It is really easy to say something like: "well I have loans, this is just part of the process, I will figure out how to pay it off when I graduate." Do not fall into this trap. The reality in life is some people can afford 100-120k graduate programs, some can't. Do not overspend in grad school with the expectation that you will make up for it quickly.

I would be honest with yourself when you pick a program. If you are good at managing the larger picture, Stony Brook could be a good option. If you require a more personal touch (aka hand holding), this may not be the best pick.

I enrolled in Fall 2023.
Admissions: Peak years +100 applicants, Off-peak +50 applicants.
Yield: Peak year about 25 students. Off-peak about 10 students.
Faculty for Quant Finance is 5 full-time. They attempt to maintain about 30 MS and 30 PhD. About half of graduating MS apply for PhD. This is a very applied industry oriented program at MS level and heavy research at PhD level. There are internships. Stony Brook finance participates in NY SPIR Program which funds 50% of a year long paid internship and company 50%, companies like Bloomberg and others in finance world participate. So whether a MS/PhD student, you can be making money while you go to school.

About half your time dedicated to employer and half time to academics. Thus you can be Part-time, plenty of courses offered online now, but they are live/recorded Zoom. So while the program could be completed in 3 semesters, most students take advantage of the SPIR and take 4 or more semesters. 10 of 12 courses are required, typical mix of pure math, statistics & probability, computations/CS, financial theory. Plenty to , choose from in electives for your 2 other courses, or take more if PhD student. If you want to challenge yourself, you can go a bit off in new directions which Stony Brook Math is good at such as differential geometry and computational geometry. If you want to get into Rentec or D.E. Shaw, you better do something off the beaten path and publish a good paper in an upper tier journal.
Stony Brook sends their 2nd year PhD students to the Princeton Bendheim, Princeton Initiative, an annual program on Princeton’s campus brings together second-year Ph.D. students from around the world who plan to write a Ph.D. thesis at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance. It also sends most PhD to ARPM Quant Bootcamp summer program at NYU. Stony Brook does very well in placement for internship and jobs post graduation.

There are lots of very intense mathematicians, physicists and computer science people between Stony Brook, Renaissance Technologies, and Brookhaven Labs. The ecocluster is there to attend all types of seminars and discussion across finance and pure science and mathematics. 50 miles by high speed train to NYC, so you can attend other events in city and network. What you do is up to you, but it helps to be in the megacluster of about 1000 of the 1500 national quant students who are within 100 miles of NYC. Plenty of events. Plenty of employers. Between your academic program, personal interests and supplemental self study for personal choice, you will be more than prepared and satisfied.

About 90% of your class will be foreign. Each year the attempt to admit about 3-5 women, but like most FinEng programs it is dominated by Asian males under 30.
I do not fit the profile other than male. I am older, US resident, but I do speak Korean and some Chinese and I was NOT a mathematics major, though I had one of the highest grades every in calculus sequence at a Top 5 engineering school despite being a liberal arts major. I then self taught more advanced mathematics on my own.

So Stony Brook will give you a shot regardless of major or age. I plan to be a research scientist and I hope to extend into the PhD Program.

Career services is understaffed. There are opportunities, but unfortunately you will have to do most of the leg work yourself. Unlike an Ivy Program or MIT, the formality and the lineup of firms coming to campus is not as deep as students would like, but given that only about 10 graduate each year, there are plenty of options to get hire.