2023 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

[MMFInfoAcct]

I am proud of the my intelligence and hard work.

I think there's a fine line between being confident and arrogant. I think it's okay to have differing opinions but resorting to personal statements such as "you would get rejected from all the good schools" is a low blow and not entirely factually (getting into MIT MFin for example is probably the same difficulty if not easier than Berkeley).

If i wanted i could have gone to MIT but my mother said no, America is land of aids and drugs so i didnt go.

Kind of interesting how now you're coming to America anyways.

I went to the best college of my country (IIT Bombay) in the best degree (Computer Science) and then got highest paying job. Can you say same about yourself?

I think you're going to one of IMC/Optiver/DRW which pays well for sure but it's objectively not the highest paying new grad job which belongs to Jane Street/Cit Sec/Radix etc. Also come on now, you and I both know IIT Bombay is impressive conditioned on the general population but nothing special conditioned upon all the superday/offer candidates. I think it's better to have a more humble attitude especially when several of our co-workers are IMO/IOI/Putnam winners - perfect GPAs at top schools is really nothing too special in comparison tbh.

From Indian view only top 5 IIT people are good enough for this.

Not entirely true, some companies like Citadel are fairly picky about school name but Optiver for example hires from a broader range of schools (UMich, Brown, Dartmouth, etc.)

Yes some people should only stick to tech and dev work.

It seems like you're looking down on quant devs. Yes, the bar to entry to quant dev is typically lower than QT/QR but a Jane Street/Citadel/HRT Quant Dev has higher new grad TC than a IMC/DRW QR/QT. I think the decision to go down the Quant Dev path is smart considering lower bar to entry + comparable TC (new grad at least) + less stressful work.

Overall, not sure if this is your online persona but I'm very entertained.

 

[SD_]

You probably did not apply because you knew from beginning itself that you would get rejected from all the good schools. Hence, it made sense for you to apply to only the not-great programs. This is admirable that yourself only understood that you are not good enough for the top fantastic schools. Yes some people should only stick to tech and dev work. QT is very high IQ job. I can understand. I am working as QT in HFT for few weeks now. It is not for dumb people. You need to be super smart which you are not. From Indian view only top 5 IIT people are good enough for this.

You make assumptions about others so confidently, that I am worried you will be the reason for the next Flash crash.

The only reason I chose Berkeley was Ronald Kahn, a pioneer in Active portfolio management, who also teaches at Haas School of Business. Maybe students don't get into trading that much but I don't want to work in HFTs and other trading firms where they hire CS students as Quants. No Finance knowledge or understanding of the financial markets or any asset class and they are calling themselves quants thinking of themselves as the next Jim Simmons. There are very few MFE programs that give some importance to economic intuition and understanding of markets, not just math equations and derivations.

IMO if you want to work as a Quant PM, UCB is the best school. There are things outside High-frequency trading & market-making in the field of Quantitative Finance. Maybe if you would've gone to MIT you would've realized this.

 

[hmmashmmm]

You make assumptions about others so confidently, that I am worried you will be the reason for the next Flash crash.

The only reason I chose Berkeley was Ronald Kahn, a pioneer in Active portfolio management, who also teaches at Haas School of Business. Maybe students don't get into trading that much but I don't want to work in HFTs and other trading firms where they hire CS students as Quants. No Finance knowledge or understanding of the financial markets or any asset class and they are calling themselves quants thinking of themselves as the next Jim Simmons. There are very few MFE programs that give some importance to economic intuition and understanding of markets, not just math equations and derivations.

IMO if you want to work as a Quant PM, UCB is the best school. There are things outside High-frequency trading & market-making in the field of Quantitative Finance. Maybe if you would've gone to MIT you would've realized this.

Nailed it

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Sudhansh I challenge you to a quant contest! Let's compete in a datathon! I will expose you for your fraudness. I have great finance knowledge too. I passed CFA Level 1 with just 1 week of study. That also along with work I did! I have also published 1 paper with reputed IITB Prof in the South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance. Let's compare each other's knowledge and skills and then talk.

YOU private messaged me and then turned off replies! Like a coward!

Let's all be professional. While it's great that you are accomplished with everything you stated, it would be really helpful for everyone to be courteous to each other. Each member here potentially would be a future colleague so let's put on our best behavior and help each other out.

 

[markknobber]

Hi All -- can anyone current/past alumni give your honest opinion on Cornell MFE? I just received admission and I am still waiting on Columbia, and UChicago. I am interested in Model Validation / Trading, though I have not decided yet what path to pursue.

I am wondering if someone can give me a quick summary on what are some pros/cons at Cornell's MFE, how the career services are, and interview/internship opportunities are (since that's the ultimate goal) . I understand that it mostly up to the student, but from my view it definitely helps what school you go to. Thank you for any feedback.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

We havent got a lot of reviews out of Cornell graduates for a while now. We do have a recent flood of Chicago reviews.
I will check to see if we can get more recent Cornell reviews.

 

[johnnyb]

We havent got a lot of reviews out of Cornell graduates for a while now. We do have a recent flood of Chicago reviews.
I will check to see if we can get more recent Cornell reviews.

Thanks, Andy. Yes I have noticed this that the last time a review was posted for Cornell was 2017... which is slightly worrying but I still hear strong things about the program.

 

[KiwiEngineer]

Currently a student at one of the "top" programs mentioned on this discussion (CMU). I personally know the details of the internship offers received by our top students, and I can tell you that a lot of what is talked about here is wrong.

As echoed earlier, there is almost no difference between one top program or another, it is all up to the individual student, their personal experiences, and what the job market for quants looks like.

My advice is not to put too much emphasis on such rankings which are usually not great proxies to determine whether you’ll actually achieve your goal or not, since it depends a lot on your background.

A student with a couple of years of experience in the quant team of the asset management arm of a bank is going to get a lot more looks from top HF and HFT firms compared to a student who just graduated undergrad even if the former goes to a "top 8" program and the latter a "top 2".

 

[QuantCoach]

Hi All -- can anyone current/past alumni give your honest opinion on Cornell MFE? I just received admission and I am still waiting on Columbia, and UChicago. I am interested in Model Validation / Trading, though I have not decided yet what path to pursue.

I am wondering if someone can give me a quick summary on what are some pros/cons at Cornell's MFE, how the career services are, and interview/internship opportunities are (since that's the ultimate goal) . I understand that it mostly up to the student, but from my view it definitely helps what school you go to. Thank you for any feedback.

Cornell is probably a fine program but I do think that the overall talent it attracts is not as competitive as the talent going into the top 5 MFE programs (Princeton, Baruch, Berkeley, CMU, Columbia, can potentially replace Columbia with MIT). I just haven't seen many Cornell MFE alumni in the buyside quant industry, and unfortunately at least in my cohort, Cornell MFE was used as a backup before we got our Princeton/CMU/Columbia offers.

Model validation and trading are two fairly different career paths. The best way to learn more would be to search through LinkedIn, find Cornell MFE alumni in your desired roles, and reaching out to them to ask more. It's actually fairly tricky to answer the role your program plays in your interview/internship opportunities. On one hand, you should be applying to internships before you even officially start the MFE program (so there is more emphasis on your undergrad accomplishments). On the other hand, if you didn't come from a well known undergrad program, admittance to certain MFE programs like Baruch or Princeton indicate that you have already passed a fairly high bar recruiting process which acts as a positive signal to your profile (Cornell is easier to get into so does not provide as strong of a signal). Certain companies have certain preferences to certain programs and it does make sense that HR would allocate the most recruitment resources to the programs with the highest concentration of talent (so yes, program reputation and concentration of talent does matter more than some would like to think but obviously this is just one signal that recruitors use out of multiple).

 

[Ken Abbott]

As echoed earlier, there is almost no difference between one top program or another, it is all up to the individual student, their personal experiences, and what the job market for quants looks like.

In terms of the quality of the education, yes, but in terms of connections and networking I disagree. Some schools are plugged into certain employers because of past student success and alumni working on behalf of their alma maters to open doors. Many (if not most) positions never even get posted - they get filled by referrals. I can point to dozens (literally) of examples of this.

 

[johnnyb]

Cornell is probably a fine program but I do think that the overall talent it attracts is not as competitive as the talent going into the top 5 MFE programs (Princeton, Baruch, Berkeley, CMU, Columbia, can potentially replace Columbia with MIT). I just haven't seen many Cornell MFE alumni in the buyside quant industry, and unfortunately at least in my cohort, Cornell MFE was used as a backup before we got our Princeton/CMU/Columbia offers.

Model validation and trading are two fairly different career paths. The best way to learn more would be to search through LinkedIn, find Cornell MFE alumni in your desired roles, and reaching out to them to ask more. It's actually fairly tricky to answer the role your program plays in your interview/internship opportunities. On one hand, you should be applying to internships before you even officially start the MFE program (so there is more emphasis on your undergrad accomplishments). On the other hand, if you didn't come from a well known undergrad program, admittance to certain MFE programs like Baruch or Princeton indicate that you have already passed a fairly high bar recruiting process which acts as a positive signal to your profile (Cornell is easier to get into so does not provide as strong of a signal). Certain companies have certain preferences to certain programs and it does make sense that HR would allocate the most recruitment resources to the programs with the highest concentration of talent (so yes, program reputation and concentration of talent does matter more than some would like to think but obviously this is just one signal that recruitors use out of multiple).

Thanks for this… I am interested in cornell too may I ask what program you went to? Hard to tell by your message, did you go to Cornell?

 

[conquerv]

We are pleased to announce the publication of the QuantNet 2023 Rankings of Financial Engineering programs.

The full 2023 QuantNet MFE ranking is here. For comparison, the 2022 QuantNet MFE ranking is here.

New in 2023 QuantNet MFE ranking

• New programs added: Oklahoma State University (Quantitative Finance) and Rutgers University (Financial Statistics and Risk Management)
• Employment rate 3 months after Graduation (US only): Percentage of graduates seeking employment who were employed in the US 3 months after graduation.
• Average starting salary plus sign-on bonus (US only). These data points are helpful for prospective students who are interested in jobs in the US.

Hey Andy, would Columbia MS Financial Economics be featured in the ranking in the coming years?

 

[Qui-Gon]

Hey Andy, would Columbia MS Financial Economics be featured in the ranking in the coming years?

I have been hoping for this, though unfortunately, I get the impression our program director(s) do not have any desire for our program to be included. That combined with our program not being a pure quant program (several students take accounting MBA electives...), I think it will be some time before the CBS MSFE makes an appearance if ever. That said, anecdotally I think we are easily a top 5 program

 

[conquerv]

I have been hoping for this, though unfortunately, I get the impression our program director(s) do not have any desire for our program to be included. That combined with our program not being a pure quant program (several students take accounting MBA electives...), I think it will be some time before the CBS MSFE makes an appearance if ever. That said, anecdotally I think we are easily a top 5 program

Haha, that's really sad. I just got my offer afternoon, knowing how great this program structure can be for a quant career, I had to make a vouch.

By the way, it's great to connect with you finally! All the discussion notes you left really helped me along the way.

 

[Qui-Gon]

Haha, that's really sad. I just got my offer afternoon, knowing how great this program structure can be for a quant career, I had to make a vouch.

By the way, it's great to connect with you finally! All the discussion notes you left really helped me along the way.

Congratulations! I definitely think I made the right choice, the program has been a phenomenal experience.

Reach out anytime if you have any questions whatsoever. And again, congrats!!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Hey Andy, would Columbia MS Financial Economics be featured in the ranking in the coming years?

@Qui-Gon had some logical thoughts.
We rank programs of the same discipline together. The fact that Columbia already has 2 different programs in our ranking that target similar applicants for similar job profiles, it is hard to see the Financial Economics program wants to be in the same pool.
It's interesting to see lot of posts about this programs the past several years on QuantNet and I'm curious to see how it shapes up in the future.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The 2023 ranking page has been updated with an overview of the average students ratings. Hopefully, this will give more prominence to the reviews and in turn, encourage more alumni to write a review.

2025 QuantNet Ranking of Best Financial Engineering Programs

The 2025 QuantNet Ranking stands as the most comprehensive guide of the top Quantitative Finance and Financial Engineering programs in the United States.

quantnet.com

 

[marcusaurelius]

The 2023 ranking page has been updated with an overview of the average students ratings. Hopefully, this will give more prominence to the reviews and in turn, encourage more alumni to write a review.

2025 QuantNet Ranking of Best Financial Engineering Programs

The 2025 QuantNet Ranking stands as the most comprehensive guide of the top Quantitative Finance and Financial Engineering programs in the United States.

quantnet.com

Excellent idea!

PS: how does one gauge real reviews from fake ones? There's always the eventuality some programs might write some fake ones, who knows...

 

[AppliedMath]

I guess Oklahoma State wins on cost. $12K/yr when the next lowest is $21K/yr.

 

[rpaolucci]

I can verify that all the ranking data is coming from the programs' directors and staff directly. I have double checked with Columbia MFE as well as other programs to confirm the accuracy of their data after the submission.

Hi Andy,

I spoke with someone over email from career placement @ Columbia's IEOR and they said these statistics weren't accurate - can you please help me shed some light on who is correct; employment statistics are weighted heavily in my fall MSFE decision.

Thanks,
Roman